iPhone 4S is now available on Sprint. Should I do it? for Questionland Seattle

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iPhone 4S is now available on Sprint. Should I do it?

What are the plusses and minuses of AT&T, Verizon & Sprint?

My AT&T contract expires this month and I'm feeling the freedom.

dicrisci asked in Tech Products 6 months ago | Report

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Sprint is consistently rate the worst for coverage in the Seattle area and will be even worse in the outskirts.

I'd love to switch too, but I think you'd regret it unless you happened to spending your time around a Sprint tower all the time.

Here's a map of towers in Seattle:
http://www.cellreception.com/towers/towers.php?city=seattle&state_abr=wa

Charles B answered in Tech Products 6 months ago | Report

2 comments by dicrisci and Black Beetles in Amber…

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Good answer, though not what I wanted to hear. Thanks for the map!

dicrisci commented 6 months ago | Report

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OTOH, my AT&T coverage has been fairly terrible on my 3GS (independent of the towers), so I can't imagine this would be much worse.

Black Beetles in Amber commented 6 months ago | Report

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We just switched to Sprint and love it! Just as good coverage as we had with Verizon, but sooo much cheaper! Rootsmetrics actually ranks Sprint the best in Seattle for low dropped call rates and data speeds, which was one big reason I decided to give it a try. Admittedly, we haven't taken our phones out to the boonies yet, unless Kent & Auburn count as such; we may be more disappointed when we go camping. Which we only do a couple of times a year anyway. So far we have been very happy with our decision.

Squirrel Girl answered in Tech Products 6 months ago | Report

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Just so you know the iPhone 4 will be significantly slower on Sprint/Verizon than it will be on AT&T. It uses a HSPA+ radio on AT&T (and in other GSM countries). That's about 7x faster than the 3G you get on Verizon or Sprint.

If you really want to switch carriers, I'd probably hold off until there is an LTE version on the other carriers.

Andrew Beck answered in Tech Products 6 months ago | Report

3 comments by Black Beetles in Amber, Andrew Beck, and RacerX…

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Has anyone actually verified this for real-world speeds? I can't imagine that they're seriously pushing 7x the speed of their competitors.

Black Beetles in Amber commented 6 months ago | Report

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HSPA+ really is quite a bit faster. All wireless speeds are dependent on how many people are around, buildings, etc. In the real world, on most days, you're probably going to be 2-3x faster on AT&T. Remember that AT&T was already faster than Verizon with their older radio, and they just doubled the throughput on the new model.

AT&T is actually slower than their competitors right now. Their HSPA+ is slower than the version T-Mobile is peddling. And both WiMax from Sprint and LTE from Verizon are faster in most real world scenarios. The problem is that the iPhone doesn't support WiMax or LTE currently. And their isn't a T-Mobile version. So AT&T is the fastest for the time being.

My guess is that we're going to see an iPhone 5 in June that has LTE (unless Apple can't solve the battery problems with it). Once everyone has LTE, there will be parity again. By next summer, AT&T will be almost done with their LTE rollout and Sprint will be well on their way.

Andrew Beck commented 6 months ago | Report

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AT&T IS faster, but I can't verify 7x - I felt, watching my friends vs mine (Verizon vs ATT), that it was 2x.

RacerX commented 5 months ago | Report

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beware - in addition to att being faster, there's a difference in their "world phone" capability (I think ATT is not the better choice in this regard, but I forget the specifics)
I think ATT uses a slightly different case also?

RacerX answered in Tech Products 5 months ago | Report

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