Some AT&T Users Seeing Much Improved 3G Speeds with iPhone 4S

[JustinDaigle]

4S in Lake Charles, LA. As small as this town is, it's funny to hear that I'm apparently getting better speeds than a lot of people in the bigger cities tend to be getting. Still not even close to the 14.4Mbps Apple claimed though.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

Just pulled 4.61Mbps on my iPhone 4 in Houston Texas...we've always been fast on AT&T here...I can't wait to try a 4S

 

[xmax21]

Phoenix, AZ has increase speed 7.0 and 1.7 iPhone 4S

 

[adeedew]

definitely getting a speed increase on 4s than my prior iphone 4 in los angeles area. Although Verizon and maybe even sprint would have better chances on no dropped calls, the limitations on cdma on iphone (call waiting weirdness, no surf & talk, etc) kept me at att for now, with a speed bump makes me feel better staying at att and possibly sacrificing calls for now

 

[josh3326]

Mine is avg 5 mbps vs my wife's VERIZON 4s at .92 mbps.

Verizon sucks!

 

[WannaGoMac]

Mine is avg 5 mbps vs my wife's VERIZON 4s at .92 mbps.

Verizon sucks!

intelligent response.

Try loading up a web page on both your devices, see which one does it faster -- hint, probably verizon. But this is also due to verizon compressing web pages and a lower network latency.

 

[Rootus]

This is in Portland, OR, from a location (my desk) which typically has less than stellar 3G reception. Used to be I couldn't reliably make a call without scooting over a few feet to the window. Maybe the antenna on the 4S is really that much better.

 

[robin41]

3G speed with iPhone 3Gs

[url=http://cdn.macrumors.com/im/macrumorsthreadlogodarkd.png]Image[/url]


One of the new features of the iPhone 4S has been the faster HSDPA (14.4Mbps) data support for GSM networks. This theoretically allows the iPhone 4S to see much faster download speeds when on the right mobile carrier.

In the U.S., AT&T is the only network that could take advantage of the advanced capabilities of the new iPhone 4S communications chip, though there had been some debate about how much of an improvement users might see on AT&T's network. AT&T is purposefully vague about how fast their network can run, and the rollout for the faster speeds remains limited.

Image


Two previous iPhone 4 users have emailed us with speed results that show significant improvements with their new iPhone 4S. The first reader located in New Jersey (image right) was able to obtain 7.71 Mbps down. He reports previous speeds on his iPhone for in the 1-2 Mbps range. Another reader in Iowa (image left) shows speeds up to 5.45 Mbps. He had only previously seen as high as 4 Mbps on his iPhone 4.

The improvements may only be seen in very specific geographic areas depending on AT&T's network support. Others have seen no significant change in their network speeds after upgrading from the 4 to 4S.

AT&T has even been calling this faster HSDPA support "4G", though there is some debate on the correctness of that term. Still, AT&T's present network is capable of much faster speeds than both Sprint's and Verizon's.

Article Link: Some AT&T Users Seeing Much Improved 3G Speeds with iPhone 4S

Well I measured PING 30ms Download 6.48 Mbps Upload 5.52 Mbps.
This is what I get through T-Mobile in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Not bad for a 3Gs.

 

[aliensporebomb]

Ah.....

I ranged between 1-2mbps on the iphone 4 (i used the speedtest.net app a lot and have a full log of tests)....

since getting the iPhone 4S a few days ago, I see .5 to 3mbps... so yes it KIND OF went up...but it also dips WAY lower. On release day i got up to 3mbps a few times, but the past 2 days i can't break .8mbps

I have been a huge iPhone/Apple fan and this is my 4th new model iPhone and this is the first time I severely regret it. I probably won't ever preorder an iPhone again because the it's just too much money to risk when the 4 was great.

ISSUES:
Data speeds are garbage, camera doesn't seem that much better, apps etc don't run faster, SIRI rarely can connect to the network to answer a Q, the battery drains FAST, battery gets very hot even when charging, charging takes much longer.

I was at a football game... outdoors in Chicago and had 4 bars and 3G data connection but couldn't do ANYTHING on my phone. Because of this, I shut off wifi, bluetooth, location services, background apps etc etc and let the phone sit in my pocket (except for about 10 total minutes of texting attempts and 1 picture of the field) and I lost 43% battery from when I left my car to walk into the stadium and from when I walked back to the car (about 4 hours or so).... WTF!?! Then I plugged it in and thought it was gonna set my car seat on fire and after a 45 minute drive home, it only got from 57% to 72% charged.

Guess they can't all be winners, and for that, I won't gamble anymore... as much as it will kill me to not have the new iPhone on preorder when it's announced.

When you attend major sporting events you content with potentially hundreds of thousands of people all using their smartphones at the same time causing a literal radio traffic jam with thousands of radio signals all going on at once in a relatively small area - I attended the Red Bull flugtag in St. Paul, MN a couple of summers ago and the amount of people checking into foursquare was the largest I'd ever seen and the bandwidth was basically so low not much could happen. Nearly everyone there had a smartphone and were filming, taking pictures, texting, chatting, talking.

There's not enough backhaul in the world to contend with a big event with hundreds of thousands of people there all using the same infrastructure at the same time in a relatively confined area.

I ran into the same thing at the Minnesota State Fair in Summer 2010. There was so many people (millions) that everything ran to a virtual standstill.

Then compare my 7 megabit download speed near almost-rural Buffalo, Minnesota during a weekday in November when heading to one of our satellite offices. That was impressive on my 4.

 

[WannaGoMac]

Well I measured PING 30ms Download 6.48 Mbps Upload 5.52 Mbps.
This is what I get through T-Mobile in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Not bad for a 3Gs.

sigh, you're on wifi.

 

[Pault914]

Improved speed!

I got these download speeds outside my house, funny thing is, I've always gotten great speeds outside my house, even with the 4 and 3gs, just not as high.

 

[dbit]

An hour outside of Detroit:

(MY bad, my wireless was on lol)

 

[dbit]

An hour outside of Detroit:

(wireless off)

 

[kittyflipping]

Phoenix, AZ has increase speed 7.0 and 1.7 iPhone 4S

I'm in Tucson, and I'm getting up to 5.8 down and 1.7 up, hitting a Phoenix server (posted previously.) This is with my iPhone 4, I haven't upgraded to a 4S yet.

Color me skeptical, but I think the speed increases most people on here are noticing are largely due to network upgrades, that look like they may be across the board (read: that benefit the iPhone 3GS & 4 too), complicated by a HUGE variance based on what server you are hitting on the speed test. I'm talking about all the people reporting increased speeds @ 7Mbps and under, which the iPhone 3GS & 4 can handle, and a lot of them are under the speeds I am getting with my 4. There are a handfull of exceptions with people getting upwards of 9Mbps, which makes me hopeful that network upgrades are indeed underway, but I think a lot of people are declaring (AT&T) bandwidth victory on behalf of your device upgrade a little too soon (especially all the people with their wifi on ). It could also be the antenna fixes, though, too.

The 4S is a great improvement for processing power, camera quality, Siri, etc., but I wouldn't buy it to solve any network issues on AT&T yet...

 

[longofest]

I have ATT with an Iphone 4, not a 4S:

congratulations... you have good WiFi.

 

[lilo777]

Mine is avg 5 mbps vs my wife's VERIZON 4s at .92 mbps.

Verizon sucks!

Verizon if just fine. iPhone on Verizon however does suck (no LTE).

 

[DrDomVonDoom]

I feel, as AT&T customers in Alaska, we are getting boned, in a city of maybe 80,000 people, and being fairly close to a cell tower, (less than half a mile) I believe AT&T is throttling bandwidth up here. Being in a isolated place we use a lot of bandwidth and our cell phones never leave our side. AT&T pobobly doesnt see our market as worthy of their top tier support, as we won't see 4G I am sure for another 3 or 4 years after its a standard (well first they need to make a standard) such as with 3G which I think we got right before the 4 came out.
I apologize for the size :/

 

[lshaner]

How 'bout an Apples / Apples test?

I mean with AT&T iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in *same* location, with SAME speedtest server (hosted by the same company), conducted back to back and also simultaneously with three tests from each phone for each scenario and then average the results from each scenario.

The back-to-back test (same location to same speed test server), though still subject to other traffic being handled by in the network, would at least be the same number of hops through the same routers, so much closer to a more reliable test of "absolute" speed for each device.

The simultaneous test (same location to same speed test server, but AT SAME EXACT TIME), would mean that both phones are impacting the results for each other, while competing for network bandwidth across all the same routers to the same speedtest server. But provided the tower and all routers do not get saturated by such a test, it would at least be a decent indicator of RELATIVE speed of the phones (e.g. iPhone A is roughly X kbps faster than iPhone B under the exact same testing scenario at the exact same time on the exact same infrastructure).

Anyway, it's completely pointless to do a speedtest form two phones (especially if the phones aren't right next to each other) to two separate speed test servers at vastly different times of the day.

 

[SAD*FACED*CLOWN]

this is on an iPhone 4 in Houston Texas

 

[OHCasper]

Downtown Columbus, OH right in the middle of AT&T's HSPA+ coverage area. Haven't seen much faster than that yet. Very disappointed. I called AT&T, and they said these speeds are within their acceptable range.

 

[Ounce]

I tested my 4S AT&T speed again today and tried servers located in Indi and Cinci. I got between 5.4 and 5.8 Mbps down and between 1.07 and 1.2 Mbps up. Ping ranged from 105 to 118 ms. I'm very happy with these numbers.

 

[WannaGoMac]

I think a lot of the performance of AT&T is due to the prior antenna design. Several 3g and 3gs owners I know who went to 4s at&t are reporting absolutely no dropped calls since they got the 4s when the dropped calls were a daily occurrence beforehand.

 

[GregA]

thats a 300-400% increase.

Not to be pedantic, but since you were correcting someone...
No, the original comment was correct.

1Mbps to 3Mbps is a 200% increase, which is 3 times as fast. (4Mbps would be a 300% increase.)

Basically a 100% increase is double the speed - like an increase of 1Mbps to 2Mbps.

 

[GregA]

How 'bout an Apples / Apples test?

I mean with AT&T iPhone 4 and iPhone 4S in *same* location, with SAME speedtest server (hosted by the same company), conducted back to back and also simultaneously with three tests from each phone for each scenario and then average the results from each scenario.

That's a good idea.

My original test was side by side, but separate. Both phones scored their best on those tests - the 4S scored 7.18Mbps and the 4 scored 5.43 Mbps.

Original test:
4: 176ms 5.43 Mbps 0.75 Mbps
4s: 137ms 7.18 Mbps 1.00 Mbps

Simultaneous tests:
I then placed the phones down, side by side (so I wasn't holding either). I moved their positions slightly in each test (swapping left and right, and rotating the 3rd time).

4: 270ms 1.91 Mbps 0.43 Mbps
4s: 62ms 3.82 Mbps 0.40 Mbps

4: 209ms 0.77 Mbps 0.54 Mbps
4s: 67ms 5.80 Mbps 0.54 Mbps

4: 195ms 1.29 Mbps 0.44 Mbps
4s: 109ms 4.85 Mbps 0.48 Mbps

Note that on the 1st test, the old iPhone was faster on the upload speed. This was largely because the 4S finished the ping test and the download much quicker, so finished the upload as the iPhone 4 started.

The 2nd and 3rd tests I started the 4S about 2 seconds later, which mostly made the download overlap as much as possible.

Each test uses just over 10MB.

These tests are on the Australian Telstra network for both phones. A much better network than our other 2 offerings (Vodafone and Optus). The speedtest test used the Optus server. Images are from both phones on the original test.

 

[blendermf]

Not exactly where I normally am, London ON to be exact (so I don't know what the speed would have been previously) I managed to get 9.5 mbps down and 3 up on my 4S. That was exciting.

Someone else did have a iPhone 4, and they were getting like 5 mbps.

Sitting at home with 3-4 bars I get anywhere from 1.5 mbps to 3.5 mbps where I used to get 2-3 bars and < 0.7 mbps on my 3GS.

So, I am very happy.

(for reference this is all on Rogers in Southwestern Ontario)