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Sprint Denies Widespread Issues with Slow iPhone Data Speeds

I switched to the Sprint iPhone 4s and I will say that AT&T may have been a lot faster at times, but I'll take consistency over faster speed. I get on average 1Mbps up/down and when it's slow it's about half that here in Phoenix, AZ.

With AT&T I could hit 3Mbps at times, but most of the time web pages would just not load at all and we are talking at my work which is in a well developed area off the Loop 101. I would get good signal on AT&T, but it just wouldn't work. Sprint now works everywhere I have gone and been plenty fast enough to surf the web.
 
While I don't have a Sprint iPhone (mine is AT&T), I do have a Sprint Aircard. I used to get 500-700k downloads until Friday, and now I'm lucky if I see 60-100k! It has definitely been slower.
 
Gavernty said:
AT&T was pretty slow when the Iphone 4 first came out, give it time... their network is probably taking a major beating with this launch
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No they weren't. I was getting 4-5 down on my iPhone 4 when it first came out. Only uploads were slow, but that was a network wide issue, not an iPhone issue.
 
Good point about consistency. AT&T may have been fast, but I could be standing out in the wide open air, 5 bars, and not be able to surf at all. Total crap network. I wish the reports of fastest data would also have reports on how often users were actually able to GET data, in any location.
 
CaptSaltyJack said:
Good point about consistency. AT&T may have been fast, but I could be standing out in the wide open air, 5 bars, and not be able to surf at all. Total crap network. I wish the reports of fastest data would also have reports on how often users were actually able to GET data, in any location.
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Now this is true. However, i understand the antennae of the 4s and 4 are a lot better for AT&T now
 
burnout8488 said:
I was getting absolutely impressive 3G speeds last night. (100KB/s down 50KB/s up) On launch day, they were garbage.

I'm wondering if they fixed it and are denying anything was ever wrong in the first place?
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How are those impressive? Those are horrible 3G speeds, unless that's the norm for Sprint.
 
Eric Slivka said:
it is unclear exactly what Gizmodo report Sprint is referring to as supporting its case, as the site's informal speed test survey is indeed showing dramatically slower average data speeds for Sprint compared to AT&T and Verizon.
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This report from Gizmodo calls Sprint's network the best of the three iPhone 4S carriers, while simultaneously slamming on all of the 4S models at once.

http://gizmodo.com/5849953/iphone-4s-test-notes-data-speed-its-slow
 
burnout8488 said:
Now that it's midday and the towers are loaded up, I'm seeing about 60KB/s down and 20KB/s up. Still very usable for web browsing though.
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Every phone network gets loaded down and runs slow during peek usage. It's no wonder when over half the people driving during rush-hour on the freeways are using their phones.
 
Sprints 3G speed sucked before the iPhone... My cousin has them and they are a joke. He gets crappy coverage and the speed is slow as can be. This should have been no surprise to people.
 
fraggot said:
How are those impressive? Those are horrible 3G speeds, unless that's the norm for Sprint.
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Those are KB/s, not kbps. 800kbps down isn't amazing, but it could be a lot worse (Gizmodo was reporting dialup modem speeds). I get about 2Mbps/0.9Mbps in the west end of Boston's Charlestown (granted, on AT&T) where signal often isn't fantastic (2-3 bars).
 
You know what they would do next?
"In order to provide the best service to all of our customers, we would impose a bandwidth cap. Don't worry though, it only affect 1% of the bandwidth hogs."

Mark my words.
 
burnout8488 said:
I was getting absolutely impressive 3G speeds last night. (100KB/s down 50KB/s up) On launch day, they were garbage.
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Not sure I'd call that "impressive", I have friends on Verizon who regularly see double that or more on the Speedtest.net app (BTW the nominal standard for gauging network speed is in b/s, not B/s, so I assume you mean you're seeing 800Kb/s down). But it's not horrible, there isn't much you can't do at 800Kb/s.
 
Not surprised

AT&T buckled under the iPhone juggernaut, Verizon throttles to make sure they don't get impacted, so it stands to reason that Sprint with crappy coverage and service now cannot handle the load of all the iPhones. T-Mobile would have buckled too had they gotten the iPhone too.
 
800 kbps is not bad at all, given that most people average 900 kbps nationwide on all networks. It is more than sufficient to surf the web, see youtube (Remember, youtube is further compressed when you are on 3G rather than wifi so it is much smaller) and even stream Pandora.

I would be happy if it its 800 kbps, but if it is 200 kbps as some say, then that's a problem
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; CPU iPhone OS 5_0 like Mac OS X) AppleWebKit/534.46 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1 Mobile/9A334 Safari/7534.48.3)

ArtOfWarfare said:
Eric Slivka said:
it is unclear exactly what Gizmodo report Sprint is referring to as supporting its case, as the site's informal speed test survey is indeed showing dramatically slower average data speeds for Sprint compared to AT&T and Verizon.
Click to expand...

This report from Gizmodo calls Sprint's network the best of the three iPhone 4S carriers, while simultaneously slamming on all of the 4S models at once.

http://gizmodo.com/5849953/iphone-4s-test-notes-data-speed-its-slow
Click to expand...

Are they stupid? Of course LTE is WAY faster than CDMA 3G and HSPA+. Why even compare them. Here's the deal, network speeds vary from city to city, to mile to mile. On strictly 3G speeds (not counting HSPA+) AT&T will be faster download speed. That is of course if you are in an area with AT&T 3G. In the past year I have seen AT&T 3G coverage expand A LOT. it's definitely not the same network that used to get bashed nonstop for coverage. Talk and surf is nice when you need it too. But if att sucks in your area, get VZ or Sprint. Those two are very close in terms of speed. Verizon probably has the most coverage of the 3. The BIGGEST thing to me is plans and data. Switching from AT&T to Sprint is saving me $30 a month and giving me UNLIMITED DATA. Their speeds were horrendous the first weekend but I've seen improvement; and in real world use it's perfectly fine. I can stream Netflix, Hulu, HBO GO, Pandora, etc flawlessly. The only trouble I am having is with Siri. Sometimes when I'm on 3G Siri just sits there and then says it is having trouble finding the network...
 
I have a sprint version and yes it's slow. I got it at 8 a:m and the speeds were not to bad but by 10 that night my speeds dropped a ton and they have stayed pretty bad. So I think it's fair to say that their network is maxed!
 
Sprint Data Speed

There is obviously a problem. I am in Cambridge, MA near Harvard Square and I am getting 100 kbps down. Upload as actually faster at 200-300 kbps. Pretty pitiful speeds...
 
no lies

sprint on the iphone is super slow compared to the other 2. If it weren't for the iphones power, like say if it were the 3gs, the websites would never load. Its funny too since I have a sprint card and phone and they are super fast. Me thinks something is awry here; hmmmmmmmmm.

Oh yah, the ONLY reason I switched over was because it was 20 bucks cheaper. I could care less about speed at 20 bucks less. Mostly use wifi everywhere I go anyway. (so so so many networks out there :D)
 
At&t

The funny thing is is that I did not even think about my 3G speeds until I read this article, so i tested mine.

Here in Boulder, CO, on AT&T I get:

Casper, WY - down 930 kbps, up 890 kbps.
Denver, CO - down 260 kbps, up 1180 kbps.
Woodland Park, CO - down 2330 kbps, up 1140 kbps.
Cheyenne, WY - down 4070 kbps, up 1330 kbps.
Denver, CO - down 1580 kbps, up 1580 kbps.

So I tried different servers and got hugely varying speeds. The Denver server was so bad I tried it again and got better speed the second time.

So my best performance in my five tests were 4070 kbps down and 1580 kbps up. It kind of blows Sprint out of the water. I guess I'll stick with AT&T.
 
My Sprint 4S is faster than my ATT 4 was! I am happy as can be with it. Saving a ton a month and the service is better.
 
seanfranklin said:
(BTW the nominal standard for gauging network speed is in b/s, not B/s, so I assume you mean you're seeing 800Kb/s down). But it's not horrible, there isn't much you can't do at 800Kb/s.
Click to expand...

I meant 100 kilobytes (kB) per second. I used this unit because I can actually compare that to what my computer browser uses during file downloads. Everyone's seen kilobytes per second on their computer, so they immediately know how fast that feels at any given rate. I probably should have just stuck with the norm.

For cell users, I suppose kilobitspersecond is the standard unit.

But yes, 800 kbps is a quite usable speed, and above average for Sprint, sadly.
 
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