Some Sprint customers are reporting slow data speeds now that the iPhone has finally launched on the country's number three network.
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There is a lengthy thread on Sprint's discussion boards, with iPhone 4S owners reporting extremely slow data speeds on launch day. Some report having difficulty using Siri over 3G because Sprint's data network was being so unreliable. One user said his Samsung Epic Touch with 4G turned off returned 3-times faster speeds than his iPhone 4S in the same location. Another Sprint user claims that his new iPhone and his Evo 3D are both slow.
A thread in the MacRumors forums shows that while some users are having poor data speeds on Sprint, others are having no problems, so it could be a signal strength or location issue rather than a widespread network problem. Gizmodo's unscientific speedtest survey is showing dramatically slower speeds for Sprint than either Verizon or AT&T. Sprint is the only U.S. iPhone carrier that offers unlimited data to new customers.
It's unclear if this is just launch-week jitters, a more widespread problem with Sprint's network, or something in between -- as more and more Sprint iPhones arrive in the wild, we should get a clearer picture of Sprint's ability to handle lots of new data-hungry iPhone customers.
Top Rated Comments
Thanks to Siri, we can see that Norway is 125,021 sq mi.
Sweden is 173,860 sq mi.
The US is 3.719 million sq mi.
I think I can forgive them for having some shoddy infrastructure. That is a huge difference in land area to cover.
I walked into Sprint store and wanted to install speedtest app on their Iphone 4S to see how fast their network is. Unfortunately you can't download apps to their demo units so salesperson offered me her android 3G phone to test Sprint's speed.
After I DLed speedtest app and ran it, it showed me how SLOW sprint's network really was. Download was 0.3mpbs and upload 0.27 mbps.
To compare I bench 8 mbps down and 5 up on my Samsung Galaxy S2 on ATT and 3.5 down and 3.0 up on my Iphone 4S Verizon
I actually feel sorry for existing Sprint users who had slow network before and now with additional huge data load that Iphone puts - whole sprint's network will be CRAWLING for everybody