News
iPhone 4S 3G speed test results: AT&T, Verizon + Sprint
By Charles Starrett
Senior Editor, iLounge
Published: Friday, October 14, 2011
News Category: iPhone
iLounge has completed its initial 3G cellular data speed comparisons of the iPhone 4S across all of the available U.S. carriers. As seen in the graphic below, the data speeds seen on AT&T’s HSPA network—between 2.41Mbps and 2.99Mbps down, 0.68-0.81Mbps up at our Buffalo, NY test location—far outpace those seen on either Verizon’s or Sprint’s EV-DO networks in the same area. Between the two CDMA carriers, Verizon fared better save for one outlier, with download speeds ranging from 0.55-0.69Mbps down and 0.04-0.26Mbps up, compared to 0.33-0.58Mbps down and 0.11-0.22Mbps up for Sprint. As was the case when the CDMA iPhone 4 was released, it appears that AT&T has a significant edge in 3G cellular data speeds relative to its rivals. LTE networks and LTE-supporting iPhones will most likely be necessary to let Verizon and Sprint bridge the current performance gap.
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1
Can you provide a comparison with iPhone 4?
Posted by Fred on October 14, 2011 at 1:46 PM (PDT)
2
I’ve got iPhone 4S on Sprint, and speed is really spotty. At the best, I can get 400 Kbps, but usually it’s more like 100 Kbps, and it’s often in the range of 50 Kbps. Sprint support replies with baloney like “natural and man-made physical barriers”, but I know for a fact that these “barriers” are not stopping Verizon signal. So sad Sprint can’t really make it.
Posted by Alex on October 16, 2011 at 11:40 PM (PDT)
3
I have an AT&T 4S and I get speeds double those mentioned in my tests. The high point for me is 7.59Mbps with a low of 3.43Mbps. I can provide my speedtest app screens if you like.
Posted by Tom on October 18, 2011 at 7:56 AM (PDT)