Three consecutive iOS updates fail updating Modem firmware

[tabaks]

HI all,

I hope someone here will have an answer/details on this one. I'm in very specific situation here, never heard of this happening before.

I bought iPhone 4, had a lot of antenna problems as everyone else did and ended up managing to replace it. I was given the one in a non-descript box, straight from the back room in my local Apple store.

Ever since, every single iOS upgrade failed for me, without ANY variation. The first time it happened, I was confused, restored several times to no avail and only succeeded to get the phone out of the recovery when I found the little utility that helps with that. After I kicked it out - it worked just fine! AND it was updated to a higher iOS!

Next two updates/upgrades (including this last 4.3 one) also ended in an error that "firmware update failed" but I knew about the joke and I kicked my phone out of recovery - straight into a working state. No issues there, I was on iOS 4.3.

Here's the clincher! I just paid some attention to the Baseband version on my newly updated/kicked out of recovery iPhone and it is STILL on 01.59.00 version! Wow! Talk about surprise!

Questions:
1. Does anyone know of this situation and what's going on?
2. is this iPhone of some special kind that I never heard of?
3. Can this somehow be worked into an advantage for me?

Anyhow, I'm confused! Any input is greatly appreciated!

[Poseidon79]

This would only happen if you're running the Tiny Umbrella TSS server while you restore.

[tabaks]

I know! Thing is - I'M NOT! Wow, I really am confused! The only program running was iTunes, no Tiny Umbrella! Unless it has a headless service that somehow got installed and is now running without me ever asking for it. Not that I'd mind, I'm just fairly sure it isn't. So, this is just iTunes/iPhone doing their own "magic". That's what confuses me and makes this a good question!