iPhone: Verizon for Calls, ATT for 3G

In a recent test using Speedtest, the AT&T iPhone proved to be around twice as fast as Verizon for 3G speeds. This isn’t a shock – Verizon has always claimed to have a more reliable network, not a faster one – but the huge differences makes one wonder if they should carry 2 iPhones: 1 for calls and one for media.

One sidenote: while AT&T proved to be faster on data, it was also much more prone to losing connection in other tests, a problem that has plagued them and likely caused the shift by Apple to include Verizon in their club. Verizon never lost connection despite the slower connections.

“I think that’s the story I expected to see,” said Doug Suttles, co-founder of Ookla. “Verizon has never talked up their speed, but they always talk up coverage and reliability…. I think the story is quality versus throughput: What are you after?”

The test, which were done on 43,000 AT&T iPhones running 106,000 tests and 14,000 Verizon iPhones running 49,000 tests  across the United States, used the Speedtest.net app.