The unprecedented sales of the Apple iPhone 4S aren't crushing Sprint's network, the carrier said this morning.
Sprint got its first iPhone last Friday, and users have been complaining about slow data speeds ever since. In our iPhone 4S review, we found slow 3G speeds of 300-500kbps down on both the 4S and our Sprint Android phones by the middle of the day.
But the plural of anecdote is not data, Sprint reminded us.
"As always, Sprint is carefully monitoring the performance of the 3G network. We are looking into a small number of reports of slow data speeds when using the iPhone 4S, however there are also reports showing that Sprint’s network is the fastest, such as the Gizmodo report that came out earlier today. Speed tests represent a moment in time and are subject to many variables including weather, time of day, device, and proximity to a tower. Sprint will continue to monitor the feedback we are getting from our customers and will investigate and resolve any issues that may arise," the company said in a statement.
The company may be referring to Gizmodo's Great iPhone Speed Test, which actually doesn't seem to be backing up Sprint's claims. For one thing, Gizmodo is currently reporting Sprint's average iPhone speeds to be half those of Verizon and AT&T. For another, Gizmodo seems to have mixed up 3G and Wi-Fi speeds—many of the site's results are coming in at higher than the theoretical maximum speeds of the various networks, which means Wi-Fi results were added to the mix.
Complicating things, we don't know how many of the people complaining about iPhone speeds on Sprint are experiencing Sprint's 3G network for the first time. As we showed in our 21-city Fastest Mobile Networks feature, Sprint has the slowest of the major 3G networks, with average national download speeds hovering around 480kbps compared to Verizon's 700kbps and AT&T's 2.4Mbps.
The idea that iPhones can bring down a nationwide mobile data network comes from AT&T's experience with the first two generations of the iPhone, which multiplied data traffic much faster than AT&T was prepared for. But Sprint has been either saying or hinting that it's ready for iPhone sales for a while now.
Network speeds are a horribly difficult thing to pin down, which is why we do our big annual project with a lot of samples. But it seems clear that you shouldn't come to the Sprint iPhone 4S expecting super-high download speeds; rather, enjoy unlimited data usage at what will probably be somewhat lower speeds than the competition.