I'm getting quite frustrated with the situation I find myself in and am hoping someone out there is experiencing the same thing I am (so at least I know I'm not imagining things) or has some sort of explanation (since I can't seem to get one out of Verizon).
I recently upgraded from a first generation Motorola Droid to an iPhone 4S. From day one, I noticed a dramatic decrease in the speed of the internet on my iPhone, compared to what I was getting on my two year old Droid. While I don't have measurements from the Droid, I've been clocking the download speeds on the iPhone at 0.1 mbps or less (0.2 if I'm absolutely lucky) during the day in midtown Manhattan. At night (on the Upper West Side), they're a little better, anywhere from 0.5 to 1 mbps.
I realize that because of the sheer number of users in midtown during the day and the resulting network congestion, download speeds are going to be slower no matter which phone I'm using. What I don't understand, and what nobody seems to have an answer for, is why I was able to get a noticeably faster connection to the same 3G network on my two year old Android device than what I'm currently able to get on my brand new iPhone. While I would never have described it as "broadband," at least with the Droid, I was able to stream music and video and not have to wait minutes for pages to load.
So is there a reason why an Android phone would work faster on the Verizon network than the new iPhone? I know they're different operating systems, but from what I understand, iOS uses less data than the Android operating system. I'm just hoping this isn't one of those things I'm going to have to either accept in order to use an iPhone on Verizon or go back to Android. While I've been waiting years to get an iPhone, and as wonderful as the phone itself is, there's no use in having one if I can't connect to the network to actually use it.
Oh, I should mention that I submitted a trouble ticket to Verizon and did a hard reset of the phone already.
Theo - while I do not live or work in your part of the country I can at least share my experience. I had a state of the art Droid Charge 4G LTE prior to getting the iPhone 4S. Keeping all things equal, when I used my Charge on 3G, which was almost the entire time I owned it, it was slower than what I am getting on my new iPhone. I was averaged .1 - ,5 down with my Charge and I am getting .5 - 1.2 down on my iPhone. I really don't know what difference location makes other than the sheer amount of people on the network, but the iPhone should outperform your old Droid.
I would recommend calling Apple Care or stopping by a genius bar at an Apple store. You could also check the download speeds of display phones at a store, then compare yours at the same time for a determination of a harware issue or data issue. I know this is some work, but it should narrow down a cause.
I am glad to hear someone else is having the same experience I am having.
I was very excited about moving from my HTC Incredible to my I phone 4s, until I began to use it and noticed that anything related to data usage was a lot slower.
If I would have known I was going to get such a reduction in data speed I would have gone back to an android phone. I do not have 4g in my area but when I was using my HTC Incredible my wait time was about half of what it is now to pull up anything or download an app.
I hope this issue can be resolved, because other then the data speed issue, really like my new I Phone 4s.
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