3G coverage sucks compared to Sprint EVDO - test results

kayakjamie · ‎09-04-2008

I did a test last week of my iPhone and my Sprint broadband card in downtown Palo Alto which actually has 3G coverage. I would expect the best coverage here. Both my card and phone had 5 bars.

Carrier                 Down     Up(kbps)
Sprint EVDO       850         270
iPhone 3G           259         136

When testing in a variety of areas, Sprint EVDO gives 2-4X the speed and 5-10X the coverage. When in the car, I can carry an EVDO signal 80% of the way from the bay area to Tahoe compared to the iPhone about 15-20% of the way. I don't even get 3G coverage in my house. The fastest speed I have achieved is 1.8 Mbps on my Sprint card.

If you are looking for good coverage, use Sprint. Give me an EVDO iPhone.

Message Edited by kayakjamie on 09-04-2008 02:20:14 PM

dmapr · ‎02-04-2004

kayakjamie wrote:
I did a test last week of my iPhone and my Sprint broadband card in downtown Palo Alto which actually has 3G coverage. I would expect the best coverage here. Both my card and phone had 5 bars.

Carrier                 Down     Up(kbps)
Sprint EVDO       850         270
iPhone 3G           259         136

When testing in a variety of areas, Sprint EVDO gives 2-4X the speed and 5-10X the coverage. When in the car, I can carry an EVDO signal 80% of the way from the bay area to Tahoe compared to the iPhone about 15-20% of the way. I don't even get 3G coverage in my house. The fastest speed I have achieved is 1.8 Mbps on my Sprint card.

If you are looking for good coverage, use Sprint. Give me an EVDO iPhone.

I did a test with my K850i in San Jose yesterday (several, with different servers). Down: 1400-2000, up: 170-350. Carrier, BTW, AT&T.

Message Edited by dmapr on 09-04-2008 02:26:12 PM

Blue4Life · ‎08-25-2003

dmapr wrote:
kayakjamie wrote:
I did a test last week of my iPhone and my Sprint broadband card in downtown Palo Alto which actually has 3G coverage. I would expect the best coverage here. Both my card and phone had 5 bars.

Carrier                 Down     Up(kbps)
Sprint EVDO       850         270
iPhone 3G           259         136

When testing in a variety of areas, Sprint EVDO gives 2-4X the speed and 5-10X the coverage. When in the car, I can carry an EVDO signal 80% of the way from the bay area to Tahoe compared to the iPhone about 15-20% of the way. I don't even get 3G coverage in my house. The fastest speed I have achieved is 1.8 Mbps on my Sprint card.

If you are looking for good coverage, use Sprint. Give me an EVDO iPhone.
I did a test with my K850i in San Jose yesterday (several, with different servers). Down: 1400-2000, up: 170-350. Carrier, BTW, AT&T.

If your K850i has much better performance than the iPhone 3G, I can't imagine that an EVDO iPhone would be any better than the current iPhone 3G. If Sprint has such a great network, why are they losing close to 1,000,000 customers a quarter?

dmapr · ‎02-04-2004

Blue4Life wrote:

If your K850i has much better performance than the iPhone 3G, I can't imagine that an EVDO iPhone would be any better than the current iPhone 3G. If Sprint has such a great network, why are they losing close to 1,000,000 customers a quarter?

Another issue in the original comparison is comparing a phone to a card. One would really need to use a Sierra Aircard 881 or similar for a true 3G vs. EVDO comparison card, or phone to a Sprint EVDO phone.

mdembski · ‎02-17-2004

In the Washington DC area I compared a friends Blackberry on Sprint to my Motorola Q on ATT. While I did not do actual speeds tests, I compared opening the same web pages and Sprint loaded much faster than ATT, especially on pages that were graphic intensive. I know this test also is of the browser and the phone. I also know that my data speeds are much lower than they were 2 months ago, on many occasions the connection just times out and nothing loads (something I never saw happen on my friends Blackberry on Sprint). Of course here in Washington DC, Sprint can roam on the Verizon network when Sprint is not available. I think its clear that something has happened to the ATT data network in the last two months.

josephz2va · ‎08-10-2008

kayakjamie wrote:
I did a test last week of my iPhone and my Sprint broadband card in downtown Palo Alto which actually has 3G coverage. I would expect the best coverage here. Both my card and phone had 5 bars.

Carrier                 Down     Up(kbps)
Sprint EVDO       850         270
iPhone 3G           259         136

When testing in a variety of areas, Sprint EVDO gives 2-4X the speed and 5-10X the coverage. When in the car, I can carry an EVDO signal 80% of the way from the bay area to Tahoe compared to the iPhone about 15-20% of the way. I don't even get 3G coverage in my house. The fastest speed I have achieved is 1.8 Mbps on my Sprint card.

If you are looking for good coverage, use Sprint. Give me an EVDO iPhone.

Message Edited by kayakjamie on 09-04-2008 02:20:14 PM

Just to point out some factors. You're testing this on your broadband card and a 3G iPhone within your area.
If you test it on another 3G phone and EVDO phone, the results may get closer to each other or go farther apart. The EVDO may go down and the 3G may go up.
If you test the same equipment in a metropolitan area, the results may get closer to each other or go farther apart.
A site may do a comparison on a bunch of different phones on both networks and may end up with the same as the two.

calif1mc · ‎03-18-2003

It all depends on the area, up here where I live (Redwood Valley, 8 miles north of Ukiah in Mendocino County, NW CA) I have 3G from Verizon and AT&T (formerly AT&T Affiliate Edge Wireless here), but Sprint doesn't have service anywhere in this county.

formercanuck · ‎07-07-2003

Not to pick issues here, but you may want to compare data card to data card, and not data card to PDA phone.
Phones are not always the most accurate for running browser tests unless they're tethered to a laptop.

If Sprint works for you, then purchase an Instinct (iPhone clone for Sprint).

mdembski · ‎02-17-2004

Reception in the Washington DC area, which had been terrible for the last two months, is getting back to normal. For the last two days, I have been consistently getting about 500 to 700 kbps download.

youngjm · ‎05-02-2003

Blue4Life wrote:
dmapr wrote:
kayakjamie wrote:
I did a test last week of my iPhone and my Sprint broadband card in downtown Palo Alto which actually has 3G coverage. I would expect the best coverage here. Both my card and phone had 5 bars.

Carrier                 Down     Up(kbps)
Sprint EVDO       850         270
iPhone 3G           259         136

When testing in a variety of areas, Sprint EVDO gives 2-4X the speed and 5-10X the coverage. When in the car, I can carry an EVDO signal 80% of the way from the bay area to Tahoe compared to the iPhone about 15-20% of the way. I don't even get 3G coverage in my house. The fastest speed I have achieved is 1.8 Mbps on my Sprint card.

If you are looking for good coverage, use Sprint. Give me an EVDO iPhone.
I did a test with my K850i in San Jose yesterday (several, with different servers). Down: 1400-2000, up: 170-350. Carrier, BTW, AT&T.
If your K850i has much better performance than the iPhone 3G, I can't imagine that an EVDO iPhone would be any better than the current iPhone 3G. If Sprint has such a great network, why are they losing close to 1,000,000 customers a quarter?

Fewer users = More capacity to push things fa ter. .....

Sorry I was typing this from a Sprint network that dropped out in the middle.

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dmapr · ‎02-04-2004

youngjm wrote:

Fewer users = More capacity to push things fa ter. .....

Sorry I was typing this from a Sprint network that dropped out in the middle.

Thanks for a laugh!