Sprint investigating iPhone 4S speed issue, unable to replicate it
Wireless operator Sprint has said it is taking seriously reports of problems with iPhone 4S download speeds on its network, but the carrier has yet to consistently reproduce the issue.
Not long after Sprint began carrying Apple's best-selling smartphone last month, customers began reporting connection issues and slow speeds. As of Wednesday evening, a support discussion on Sprint's website has received 1,291 replies and more than 240,000 views.
One customer reported seeing speeds three times as fast on the Samsung Epic Touch on 3G as on the iPhone 4S during a test.
Sprint's head of product development Fared Adib told CNET on Wednesday that the company is looking into the complaints.
"We're taking the reports of problems from a small number of customers seriously," he said. "There's nothing of significance to report yet."
Adib acknowledged the issue in hopes of letting customers know that Sprint wasn't ignoring them, but he had little to report in terms of a solution.
"We don't see anything that is easily replicable," he told the publication, adding that the company would move fast once a fix is discovered.
Last week, The Next Web reported details of an alleged internal Sprint email that acknowledged a "confirmed nationwide issue" that Apple and Sprint were working together to fix.
For its part, Apple has its own issues to work on. The company confirmed on Wednesday that a software bug in iOS 5 has been affecting iPhone users and promised a fix would arrive in a few weeks.
Despite the fact that the iPhone has a 40 percent higher subsidy than the industry average, the carrier has said the smartphone is "worth every penny." CEO Dan Hesse has also hinted that the iPhone's high network efficiency helps keep costs down for its unlimited plans.
The carrier has already seen early success with the iPhone. In just four hours, Apple's newest handset smashed the company's previous one-day sales record.
Hesse has indicated in the past that not having the iPhone was the main reason it lost customers. As the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., behind only AT&T and Verizon, Sprint is now counting on the iPhone to reverse the heavy subscriber losses it has sustained from its competitors.
Not long after Sprint began carrying Apple's best-selling smartphone last month, customers began reporting connection issues and slow speeds. As of Wednesday evening, a support discussion on Sprint's website has received 1,291 replies and more than 240,000 views.
One customer reported seeing speeds three times as fast on the Samsung Epic Touch on 3G as on the iPhone 4S during a test.
Sprint's head of product development Fared Adib told CNET on Wednesday that the company is looking into the complaints.
"We're taking the reports of problems from a small number of customers seriously," he said. "There's nothing of significance to report yet."
Adib acknowledged the issue in hopes of letting customers know that Sprint wasn't ignoring them, but he had little to report in terms of a solution.
"We don't see anything that is easily replicable," he told the publication, adding that the company would move fast once a fix is discovered.
Last week, The Next Web reported details of an alleged internal Sprint email that acknowledged a "confirmed nationwide issue" that Apple and Sprint were working together to fix.
For its part, Apple has its own issues to work on. The company confirmed on Wednesday that a software bug in iOS 5 has been affecting iPhone users and promised a fix would arrive in a few weeks.
Despite the fact that the iPhone has a 40 percent higher subsidy than the industry average, the carrier has said the smartphone is "worth every penny." CEO Dan Hesse has also hinted that the iPhone's high network efficiency helps keep costs down for its unlimited plans.
The carrier has already seen early success with the iPhone. In just four hours, Apple's newest handset smashed the company's previous one-day sales record.
Hesse has indicated in the past that not having the iPhone was the main reason it lost customers. As the third-largest wireless carrier in the U.S., behind only AT&T and Verizon, Sprint is now counting on the iPhone to reverse the heavy subscriber losses it has sustained from its competitors.
Comments
Something here smells fishy.
Yeah. Over 80 pages of complaints on the Sprint forums and they are "unable to replicate it".
Messed up.
I'm not watching movies on my phone (at least not streaming ones), but everything I do is pretty snappy. I even tether on a daily basis for e-mail and some browsing at work. No additional charges!
I'm getting 137ms ping with .83mbps down/1.09mbps up. Is it great? No. But then I look at my unlimited plan and how much I'm paying for it, and I smile.
I'm not watching movies on my phone (at least not streaming ones), but everything I do is pretty snappy. I even tether on a daily basis for e-mail and some browsing at work. No additional charges!
You're on Sprint?
Yeah. Over 80 pages of complaints on the Sprint forums and they are "unable to replicate it".
Messed up.
What's messed up is the "any time someone complains, the company is automatically guilty of something and should immediately fix the problem and give everyone a trillion dollars in damages" attitude.
There are a thousand posts. Based on averages I've seen on similar forums, that thousand posts consists of:
10 people who see a problem - but who post 10 times each
200 people who say "I don't have a problem"
500 people who say "Apple sucks" just on general principles
and
200 trolls who can't even bother to stay on topic.
There are many millions of phones out there. A small percentage of phones will have a problem, regardless of the carrier or circumstances - and random problems are difficult to track down.
Something here smells fishy.
Your girlfriend in town?
Your girlfriend in town?
That's disgusting, uncalled for and sophomoric.
What's messed up is the "any time someone complains, the company is automatically guilty of something and should immediately fix the problem and give everyone a trillion dollars in damages" attitude.
There are a thousand posts. Based on averages I've seen on similar forums, that thousand posts consists of:
10 people who see a problem - but who post 10 times each
200 people who say "I don't have a problem"
500 people who say "Apple sucks" just on general principles
and
200 trolls who can't even bother to stay on topic.
There are many millions of phones out there. A small percentage of phones will have a problem, regardless of the carrier or circumstances - and random problems are difficult to track down.
Sometimes, where there's smoke, it's just that, as you indicated (although I find the reference to trolls rather pathetic). Sometimes, there is more than smoke.
Case in point - As Isaacson's book points out, Apple's own engineers expressed concerns about the external antenna on iP4. So it's rather indefensible to say that was not a real issue, even though Jobs pulled off a masterful performance to placate the masses. In the end, it didn't turn into a bigger issue in part because telephony is a secondary necessity for a smartphone.
There may or may not be a real problem with iPhone 4S on Sprint's network. But it's baseless, irrational to dismiss other people's complaints out of knee jerk reaction to stand guard around the Apple moat. A more rational, sensible response is to analyze possible causes.
I am not saying there might not be some legitimate complaints, but they probably are not that massive.
Yeah. Over 80 pages of complaints on the Sprint forums and they are "unable to replicate it".
Messed up.
I read some of those complaints. Many were from people switching from AT&T to Sprint. If you are accustomed to AT&T's network speeds, you are going to suffer a hit in terms of speed when going to Sprint (which might be OK for some). AT&T might stink for voice, but its data speeds are the best.
That's a plausible explanation.
Moreover, the new iPhone is 4G on AT&T.
Only in the imagination of marketers and those who don't know better.
Sometimes, where there's smoke, it's just that, as you indicated (although I find the reference to trolls rather pathetic). Sometimes, there is more than smoke.
Case in point - As Isaacson's book points out, Apple's own engineers expressed concerns about the external antenna on iP4. So it's rather indefensible to say that was not a real issue, even though Jobs pulled off a masterful performance to placate the masses. In the end, it didn't turn into a bigger issue in part because telephony is a secondary necessity for a smartphone.
There may or may not be a real problem with iPhone 4S on Sprint's network. But it's baseless, irrational to dismiss other people's complaints out of knee jerk reaction to stand guard around the Apple moat. A more rational, sensible response is to analyze possible causes.
Maybe they are holding their phones wrong
Look I've never had a problem on Verizon ip4. The possible causes are crappy coverage areas or antenna issues on the phone. Antenna problems affected no more than 5% of users, this seems to be much smaller than that so it makes it hard to replicate. Well see what happens.
Maybe sprint got a few defective phones or cell towers don't recognize or are overwhelmed by iPhone.
There is definitely a problem though. Away from our home wifi connection, we tried using Siri several times on 3G. Each time Siri said they were unable to connect to the network. Obviously I don't have Siri on my 4 to use as a comparison, but I have to believe that Siri *should* work just fine on a typical 3G connection. Sprint definitely has some issues to work out.
That's disgusting, uncalled for and sophomoric.
Well, duh...that's why he said it
Sprint Sucks big time. I got an iPhone 4s on launch day with sprint, and 7 out of 10 times I was unable to use Siri because of network issues. Not to mention a simple webpage which is not graphic intensive, took over a minute sometimes to load. I was never able to get speed that reaches 1 Mbps, my best result was 0.89 down 0.23 up. Anyway I returned the phone, because I wasn't willing to fall for sprint stunt that they r working on a fix, and then I would be way pass my 14 days return window, then be stuck with a phone that is of no use, and would be hit with ETF if I wanna opt out. Hahahaha, nice try sprint with your mediocre network. Verizon is king.
the Siri problem was an apple problem not sprint
first week i couldn't hit siri on AT&T and wifi