Sprint taking iPhone 4S slow data speeds seriously, but has no solution

Wireless carrier Sprint does not have an answer for disgruntled iPhone 4S users who are experiencing slow connection and data speeds on the network, but they are taking it seriously, a company representative said in an interview with CNET.

Users have flooded to Sprint since the company announced it would be supporting the new iPhone, offering unlimited data plans to compete with AT&T and Verizon, America’s two largest wireless carriers. That there are problems with data speeds after an onslaught of new users should be a surprise to no one. The company added 1.3 million new subscribers in Q3, though it posted a quarterly loss of $301 million, as we’ve previously reported.

The CNET article also notes that this is the first time the company has acknowledged publicly that there is a problem.

The slow data speeds and connectivity issues have created a rash of discussions on the Sprint Community forum, with nearly a quarter million views, and more than 1,300 comments.

Commenter beeay wrote:

As you can see, I got .016Mbps down and 0.05Mbps up.  For those of you want to say maybe the network is just slow in my area.  I did the same test with Samsung Epic Touch with 4G turned off at the same spot.  It’s 3 times faster.  Is sprint crippling iPhone data rate, or there is something wrong with iPhone CDMA radio itself.

The commenter also included the screenshot pictured at left.

Sprint responded to VentureBeat’s request for comment after this story was published. A statement from director of marketing and public relations Lisa Lisec can be found below:

Overall, iPhone performance on the Sprint network is consistent with our expectations and the rest of our high-end portfolio. Sprint also did bench-marking of Sprint’s iPhone against competitor’s iPhones and the testing showed little to no performance difference. We are seeing a very low return rate for this device but we are watching the reports of speed issues very closely. We do see opportunities to optimize performance, specifically in high network capacity areas. We see this as typical optimization work and do not have any specific area of concern. Sprint is committed to providing the best possible experience for our customers. We are listening to our customers and working closely with our partners at Apple to ensure optimal performance of iPhone devices on our network.

via CNET