A recent ad by T-Mobile (below) compared the speed of the iPhone 4S on AT&T’s network with 4G speed on T-Mobile through two motorcycles. The man puttering along on an old-style commuter bike represented the iPhone 4S while the blur of a woman on a sleek sportsbike represented T-Mobile’s 4G network. Is T-Mobile so much faster than AT&T that T-Mobile is a blur in comparison?

According to recent benchmarks by PC world, T-Mobile’s 4G download speeds (at 5.53 Mbps) are on average more than two times faster than AT&T’s 3G network (2.62 Mbps), which is the standard the iPhone 4S uses. While that’s not quite a “I can’t see the other guy” difference in speed, it’s considerably faster. But it’s not the fastest network AT&T offers. AT&T’s 4G network (9.12 Mbps) was found to be almost twice as fast on average as T-Mobile’s. All the ad really shows is that 4G has the potential to provide a faster internet connection than 3G.

Chart from PC World

That said, my primary internet connection this month is my last-gen iPhone 4. According to Speedtest.net, it is currently providing my tethered laptop with 5.62 Mbps in download speed, 0.85 Mbps in upload speed, and a ping of 63 ms on a rainy day in downtown Ottawa. Those speeds aren’t absolutely stellar, I’m not going to be gaming with a benchmark ping of 63 ms, but I’m getting adequate browsing speed from Bell (at a few hundred kilobits a second faster than T-Mobile’s 4G average!).

It's not 4G, but its better than my last DSL connection.

Whether or not 4G networks themselves can provide you with a significantly faster browsing experience than 3G really depends on the quality of service in your area more than anything else. If you live in an area where either standard can comfortably stream Netflix over the air, the primary concern is no longer how fast you can pull data from the internet. At this point the real questions we should be asking are “how much data can I get?” and, “at what cost?”

How fast is your phone’s internet connection? Let us know in the comments thread below.