There are two sets of studies out there that suggest that the slow speeds on the iPhone are not due to the phone itself, but overloaded networks.
First: Wired did a study that asked users from around the world to submit their speeds to the website. There was a great amount of regional variation, from slow EDGE-like 3G speeds to higher speeds in countries like the Netherlands, which have had more time to develop their 3G networks.
Below is an excerpt from appleinsider summarising some key results:
In particular, participants in Australia reported the slowest average 3G download speeds of about 759 Kbps, while users in Germany and the Netherlands reported the fastest average 3G download speeds of approximately 2,000 Kbps.
When breaking down regional results tied to a specific carrier, AT&T of the U.S. reportedly tied for third with Telstra, Telia and Softbank, with users of those networks reporting average download speeds of roughly 990 Kbps. European T-Mobile users reported the fastest average speeds of 1,822 Kbps, while Canadian carriers Rogers and its partner Fido ranked second with an average download speed of about 1,330 Kbps.
However, Wired said that US participants account for more than 75 percent of zero-data results, presumably because those users were dropped from AT&T’s 3G network during their speed tests. Among the U.S. areas that fared the worst were some major metropolitan areas, such as San Francisco, where 10 out of 30 participants reported 3G speeds that barely match that of EDGE.
So as you can see, US seems to get a lot of dropped 3G, and speeds are slower than Canada, and EDGE-like in areas like SF.
Second study:
Some Swedish company did a test on the iPhone’s antenna, and found that reception was pretty normal:
We compare the results with those of a Sony Ericsson P1 belonging to Bluetest’s CEO Mats Andersson, and my Nokia N73. The P1 is a little better at receiving signals and the N73 a little better at transmitting signals. But the difference is small. The difference between the iphone’s and the P1′s receive sensitivity is 2 dB.
So there ya have it – your iPhone are normal! Phew, the 3G slow iPhone speeds are not due to bad iPhones after all!
My 3g 16G iPhone has been getting top download speeds of 456k. I tried everything from resetting phone to calling AT&T to getting new sim to taking to apple store and getting new phone. Nothing. Strange enough, my wires 3G 8G gets download speeds of 1700K, I swapped SIM cards and hello. My sim in either phone gets same terrible speeds but he sim in either phone gets same great speeds. Informed AT&T and they said there was no limiter on my number. What gives?