Well Verizon and Sprint use CDMA which would be the equivalent of AT&T's EDGE service... pretty much 2G speeds. AT&T's HSPA+'s speeds are much faster than Verizon's EVDO speeds. Sprint has WiMax for their "4G" but that is not supported by the iPhone. So your best bet for the fastest speeds with this iPhone 4S is AT&T. If you don't care that much about speeds, then I'd recommend Verizon.
Yep. Verizon is super fast on LTE and Sprint has decent speeds on WiMax, but niether is supported by the iPhone. The iPhone does support HSPA+, but ATT is the best there.
That is incorrect. EVDO is faster than EDGE i think you may be mistaken by 1x. Verizon and sprint iPhones have a theoretical throughput of 3.1 mbps. Yes, the at&t version will be faster but the iPhones on sprint and Verizon are in no way comparable to having EDGE like speeds. Jeoparde can probably explain more, I'm more into the software side of phones
Lol in Houston, you would be lucky to see speeds greater than 4-5. Source: I have HSPA+ on my Atrix and do random speed tests around the greater Houston area.
this is correct. he is confusing CDMA with 1x. The Sprint network operates a combination 2G & 3G wireless network, using the 1xRTT/EVDO standard, which is part of the CDMA standard. CDMA 1x data speeds can reach 144 kbit/s, while EV-DO currently has bursts of up to 3.1 Mbit/s. sprint will be converting to LTE by early next year. i think the existing wimax can be switched over with too many problems.
sorry for the double post: http://www.appleinsider.com/article...mbps_hsdpa_4g_speeds_wont_help_americans.html iPhone 4S new 14.4 Mbps HSDPA 4G speeds won't help Americans Apple demonstrated fast new 14.4 Mbps data downloads that technically put the new iPhone 4S in the realm of 4G LTE competitors, but US residents won't benefit much from the increased potential because domestic carriers don't support it.
Random question. So I'm still on a shared family plan and the other two numbers upgraded their phones (and the plan) to iphones a few months ago. Can I still get in on the $200 iPhone price, because I didn't upgrade my phone at the time?
So I guess I should stick with my 3GS? I'll wait to see the price reductions for the 4 and I'll upgrade to that. 4S sounds decent, but nothing major.
Did know you can tell Google speech to set your alarm too. But Google didn't have a big event for that .
Honestly, I'd recommend just shelling out the extra hundo and getting the 4S. It may not seem like a major upgrade (tho will be faster) but in terms of OS support/apps optimized to utilize the bump in hardware, it makes sense (more future-proofed).
I don't know much about these phone networks... so can anyone explain to me why Apple isn't using the fastest network available to Americans? Is there some sort of contractual issue?
Design issues in relation to chip size for the LTE radios, battery consumption, lack of availability of LTE. ATT literally just launched their LTE network about 2 weeks ago. Verizon is up to 115 markets. Sprint is going from WiMax to LTE early next year. There's no reason to run and put an LTE chip in the iphone. They will use that as the selling point next year.
3GS = $0 iPhone 4 = $99 iPhone 4S = $199 4 and 4S is available on all 3 carriers while 3GS is only on ATT (i am assuming till supplies run out)