Go wake up the lawyers—Apple is facing a lawsuit over the "defective iPhone 3G," brought by an Alabama resident named Jessica Alena Smith.

Smith bought an iPhone 3G but has experienced slower-than-expected data-transfer speeds and "an inordinate amount of dropped calls," according to the complaint, which she hopes will be granted class-action status. It should be noted that Smith lives in Birmingham, which has excellent 3G coverage according to AT&T.

This is AT&T's 3G coverage map for the Birmingham, Alabama, area. This is voice coverage; the map for 3G data coverage looked virtually identical. (Click image to embiggen)

The lawsuit alleges that the problems experienced by some iPhone owners flies in the face of Apple's "Twice as fast for half the price" marketing mantra, and that Apple "was and continues to be unjustly enriched at the expense of Plaintiff and Class members." The suit asks that Apple repair or replace any defective iPhone 3G units, as well as pay damages, interest on the damages, and attorney's fees. (Read the complaint here.)

If you recall, Steve Jobs (allegedly) emailed an iPhone owner earlier this week acknowledging connectivity issues with the iPhone 3G and saying the company was "working on some bugs, which affect around 2% of the iPhones shipped, and hope to have a software update soon."

And thus came the iPhone 2.0.2 firmware update, which Apple vaguely claimed includes "bug fixes," but is it truly the fix we're waiting for? For some people, not so much: The editor-in-chief of Ars Technica, for example, couldn't even make phone calls on the 3G network after installing the 2.0.2 update, and elsewhere on the Internet we're seeing similar complaints.

How's your iPhone 3G working? Have you turned off 3G and decided to stick to the slower but seemingly more reliable EDGE network? If this lawsuit is granted class-action status, would you consider joining the class? Do you believe Possibly Steve, that Apple will fix it and everything will be fine? Chime in below, in the comments section!