iPhone 4 Greatly Increases Upload Speeds

Support for High Speed Uplink Packet Access (HSUPA) means that the iPhone 4 delivers much higher upload speeds then previous generation devices.

Lacking support for HSUPDA, the iPhone 3GS was limited to just 384 kbps uploads. The new iPhone 4 can reach upload speeds of up to 5.76 Mbps.

AppleInsider notes that in the USA, AT&T's 3G HSUPA network operates with typical speeds ranging from 0.5 to 1.2 Mbps. Other countries with better more established 3G networks could see greater speeds.


Both Gizmodo and AppleInsider performed some basic upload test and were impressed by the improvement. Gizmodo found that in New York the iPhone 3GS uploaded at around 0.1 Mbps, while iPhone 4 was able to achieve uploads better than 0.6 to 1.4 Mbps. AppleInsider saw speeds at around 1.5 Mbps down and 0.7 Mbps up in San Francisco.

You can visualize the increase by looking at the chart below.

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