A survey of more than 2,000 iPhone 3G users shows that problems with the device strongly correlate to which network carrier is being used, rather than the device itself.

Wired.com surveyed 2,636 iPhone users in the United States, Europe, Australia and Canada. The results showed variation by country, major metropolitan areas and carrier.

“In our view, that notes is a strong indicator that performance of the mobile carrier’s network is affecting the iPhone 3G more than the handset itself,” wrote Brian X. Chen of Wired.com. “[I]t’s highly unlikely that Apple is going to wave a magic wand and say, ‘3G problems, be gone’ with a software update. Before Apple can build such a claim, it needs to wait for all of its carriers to optimize 3G network behavior — in terms of number of towers, how they’re positioned and how much bandwidth each tower can handle.”

AT&T in the Middle

The survey ranked U.S. carrier AT&T third,

tied with Telstra, Telia and SoftBank. AT&T users averaged 990 Kbps, half of the 1,822 Kbps averaged on T-Mobile’s European networks but miles beyond the 390 Kbps offered by Australian carriers Virgin and Optus. The average in Australia was 759 Kbps.

But the huge majority of participants reporting “0″ speeds, meaning they dropped off of 3G entirely, were AT&T customers in the U.S. Out of more than 1,600 survey participants from the U.S., 63 reported speeds of 0. Only 80 participants worldwide reported speeds of 0.

In the American cities that should be the most built-out for 3G, many users are getting no better than EDGE speeds, the survey found. In San Francisco, one-third of respondents (10 out of 30) reported speeds just barely better than EDGE. that is probably considering the number of iPhone 3G users are overwhelming the available 3G towers, the report said.

More Anecdotal Evidence

The…

Original post by Erika Morphy