Verizon, AT&T iPhones load web pages at same rate, firm reports

I've used the StreamToMe app a number of times, over both 3G and restaurant wi-fi's, to stream movies from my home computer (a 2007 vintage Mac Mini (Intel) connected via Ethernet cable to router and thence to cable broadband connection) to my iPhone 4 (Verizon). It's _not_ typically set for maximum resolution, since I'm not sure my Mini would re-scale on the fly smoothly for that. I've noticed little or no difference in the streaming video smoothness between a wi-fi connection vs 3G, save that using someone else's wi-fi leaves me at the mercy of how much bandwidth their connection has available. That is, 3G does as well for that as good wi-fi, at anything other than high resolution at least; and better than overloaded or weak wi-fi.

I've even left it running to listen (not watch) while driving, and didn't notice any glitches in the sound on one route; so the coverage was good enough and the switching between towers reasonably transparent. But I think I recall that driving another route, I did have a dropped connection, although I could get it back again by the time I had a moment to fiddle with it. So _continuous_ coverage over a route will always be an issue for continuous contact while in motion, be it phone calls or streaming data.

But in my area, Verizon's coverage is generally accepted to be better than AT&T's. So whichever may be faster in theory, I'm well pleased; it does as much as I'm likely to get of what I want it to do.

Since we're not talking about a lot of data with viewing a web page and usually a faster render is achieved with better hardware it's seems reasonable.

I use Safari once in a while, but I stream music and video more often than anything else. I also upload photos constantly, so this study doesn't really pertain to data hungry apps.

Interesting...on the day I got my Verizon iPhone, I walked into my bosses office. He's CTO of a Fortune 500 company. He has a corner office, on the ninth floor with line of sight to the cell towers. He placed his AT&T iPhone and my Verizon iPhone side by side on his table and launched ESPN.com on both at exactly the same time. We were both surprised that the Verizon phone loaded the site 2xs faster. When the site was loaded he tapped a video. Honestly, the Verizon phone played the entire video before the AT&T phone had finished loading the main page. Not at all what we expected. (His phone was an iPhone 4.)

Just saying everyone's mileage may vary. I've been very pleased with my phone.

I went to a Verizon store to play with the iPhone.

I made sure the WIFI was turned off... and I loaded a bunch of web pages.

It felt fine to me.

I use the data hungry maps app a lot. At least every morning and every evening for my commute. So I think I'd notice a difference.