The Carrier Question

Now that that iPhone 4S is out there, the biggest question seems to be: which carrier to go with in the U.S.?

AT&T gives you speed — they’re the only network currently supporting the 14.4 down that Apple mentioned on stage yesterday. But AT&T blows in big cities like San Francisco and New York. It’s hard to vote for speed when you can’t even get a connection at all.

Sprint gives you unlimited. Their plans are clearly going to be the best from a cost perspective. And, as the new kid on the block, they will likely have the least congested network. But they’re also the third-place carrier.

Verizon gets you reliability. They’re the most expensive and don’t offer speed or unlimited. But you pay for the quality of their network.

Right now, I’m torn. I won’t go back to AT&T because of my awful experience the last time. But Verizon versus Sprint seems to be a toss-up.

I think having the iPhone on three carriers in the U.S. is ultimately going to be a very good thing for consumers. Instead of taking features away and raising prices as AT&T and Verizon have been doing for years, they may be forced to actually compete with incentives for users.