Wondering which iPhone provider is best for you? A recent study by Metrico Wireless reveals that it depends on your needs – AT&T’s network has the fastest data, and Verizon’s network is the most reliable, while Sprint’s network has the best outgoing call quality.
In all, Metrico performed 21,000 Web page downloads nationwide with the iPhone 4S and iPhone 4 over the networks of the nation’s largest three carriers. Metrico also ran more than 8,000 data download and upload tests and generated about 6,000 voice calls with recorded human voices. The tests were performed in a certified lab as well as several locations in five unnamed cities that Metrico called “representative of [network] conditions nationwide.”
The study concluded that AT&T completely trashed the competition when it came to data speed (for both upload and download), achieving more than double the speed of Verizon, who came in second.
Also of note in their findings is that Verizon’s network was shown to be the most reliable, with the fewest dropped calls and data dropouts of the three.
Meanwhile, while Sprint provided the best outgoing call quality, their data speed was by far the slowest of the three, and their network had the highest rate of dropped calls.
It turns out that not all carriers are created equal, but each do have distinct advantages over the others. So, who’s the best carrier? In the end, it really depends on your particular needs.