Apple iPhone 4S carrier battle: AT&T fastest data, Verizon most consistent

Let’s say you’re one of the people interested in an iPhone 4S but haven’t picked it up yet because you’re not sure which carrier to go to. Well, you’re in luck, as Metrico Wireless has released a report ranking the iPhone 4S on AT&T, Sprint and Verizon.

Not surprisingly, the report found that the AT&T iPhone 4S had the fastest data speeds for downloads and uploads. The report found that the AT&T version of the iPhone 4S was faster than the previous AT&T iPhone 4 and the iPhone 4S itself “outperforms more than 70 percent of competing 3G Smartphone models tested on the three networks.”

The ability to hold and make calls consistently was best on the Verizon iPhone 4S, so I guess Verizon’s advertising push about the quality of its network holds up. The Sprint iPhone 4S didn’t seem to stand out in many capacities other than having the best live network voice quality on the uplink. Still, I’m sure that Sprint fans who have been waiting for the iPhone for years are happy with its performance, even if we heard there were small cases of download issues.

The report is not that surprising, as AT&T’s 3G has long been faster than the offering from Verizon or Sprint. What really interests me is what will happen next year when we see an iPhone with 4G LTE. If the iPhone 4G/iPhone 5 launches around around the same release date in 2012, we should have an iPhone on three 4G LTE networks.

Verizon’s 4G LTE network is the largest and we’ve found it to be quite speedy and consistent. AT&T is slowly rolling out its 4G LTE network but it should be much more widespread by the time the next iPhone lands. Heck, Sprint may even have a decent 4G LTE footprint by this time next year.

[Via Metrico]