3G on sprint - how fast is it?

[motulist]

verizon and at&t have 4G which is supposedly significantly faster than 3G which is what sprint has. So I want to know, what is sprint 3G's data speed ACTUALLY like in the real world? Can it stream netflix movies? What kind of real-world download speeds do you actually get? Does it take a noticeably longer time to load webpages when compared to 4G or wifi?
What other ways does the slower 3G speed put on your data usage?

 

[RotaryP7]

Not as fast as AT&T, IMO. Their 3G is decent. At least here in Miami. I know Sprint's 4G is fast. It's around 3-8 mbps. Whereas AT&T's 3G is at 3-5 mbps. Haven't tested Sprint's 3G.

 

[motulist]

Well I know that 3g will obviously be slower than 4g, but I want to know how that will affect me in the real world. For instance: Do web pages load annoyingly slowly? Are you unable to stream netflix movies?

 

[mrgreen4242]

verizon and at&t have 4G which is supposedly significantly faster than 3G which is what sprint has. So I want to know, what is sprint 3G's data speed ACTUALLY like in the real world? Can it stream netflix movies? What kind of real-world download speeds do you actually get? Does it take a noticeably longer time to load webpages when compared to 4G or wifi?
What other ways does the slower 3G speed put on your data usage?

It all depends on where you are, honestly. Where I live and work, a mid sized city and it's semi-rural suburb, I average maybe 300kbps inside my office (big steel building), 500-600 average outside the office and at home, and as high as 1-1.2mbps outside when I'm downtown. I can stream Netflix at as low as 300kbps but it's a blocky mess and sometimes has to stop and buffer. At 500-600kbps it's watchable. I also have a kind of crappy/outdated phone (HTC Hero) so it's reception might not be a good indicator of the 4S.

I'm satisfied with it for most day to day use (email/calendar, browsing Reddit, sports scores, picture mail, streaming audio, occassional Netflix via tethering to my iPad, etc) and it's nice to not have to worry about data caps and overages and whatnot.

 

[dw3bb10]

I average 1-3mb on Sprints 3G

 

[Ksizzle9]

1-3MBPS? Sprint? Never!!

I had epic touch for about 4 days when I considered switching from verizon. I never saw 3G speeds above about 400kbps. Ever, sprints 3G is far worse than vzw which is slower than AT&T. Pics or I'm calling BS!!! Not trying to be a dick, I've just never seen sprint above about, 1mbps in absolute best conditions

 

[shadrap]

Back when the Evo first came out, I could hit just above 1mbps. Then it gradually degraded to 300-500 Kbps. Verizon I average 1.5 - 2 Mbps in my area, ping is also fast. With the speed and ping I can usually run faster than my AT&T counterparts.

In the end, it is all area specific. If you are in the boonies Sprint will be faster than AT&T on edge. If you are in a larger city, AT&T is gonna be faster.

As far as opening pages and streaming, it's all about ping. As far as downloads it's about Mbps.