GN & AT&T HSPA+ speeds - not as good as GSII

[daystrom]

Little background...came from a Skyrocket and I live in an LTE area. My wife and son both use GSII's.

I made the mistake of giving AT&T my Galaxy Nexus IMEI number which caused my data plan to change to Datapro 2GB for Smartphones which forced me to use the wap.cingular APN.

I was able to get AT&T to switch my plan to Datapro 2GB for Smartphones on 4G and am using the Phone APN now.

The question I have is my wife's and son's GSII consistently get 7Mb/s down and 1.5 up using the same APN and speedtest server.

My Nexus struggles to get 5 Mb/s down and 1 up, again using the same APN and speedtest server tested right after each other.

Do the GSII's have better radios?

Love my Nexus but just don't get why it can't perform as fast as the GSII. I'm on the stock Jelly Bean ROM.

Todd

 

[Wolfedude88]

Are they both using GS2 skyrockets, I am a little confused sorry. Don't know if they are using regular GS2's or GS2 skyrockets. If they are using skrockets, it is because of LTE and Galaxy Nexus is only HSPA+

 

[Skyroket]

Yes skyrocket has LTE module and if you live in LTE area they should get between 20Mb/s and 40mb/s. I switched from skyrocket to nexus and my speed went down to 5mb/s and 1.5mb/s up which i find ok for my needs.

Why did you give em your IMEI number? At&t is so greedy company you should never trust them.. now they know you're using unbranded att phone. They will make sure your service isn't good so you would go out and buy a new phone from them.

 

[wickets]

not sure about any ATT conspiracies to mess with speeds but it is well known that the nexus isnt close to other phones when it comes to the radio......its just one of those things you have to deal with.....

 

[daystrom]

The two GSII's are just that, normal GSII's. I thought they would be a fair comparison since they are all HSPA+ radios.

The area I am in is an LTE area so it should have an enhanced backhaul with great speeds. The GSII's are able to take advantage of that by giving a consistent 7Mb/s download speed.

 

[daystrom]

Why did you give em your IMEI number? At&t is so greedy company you should never trust them.. now they know you're using unbranded att phone. They will make sure your service isn't good so you would go out and buy a new phone from them.

As much as I'd like to believe that, their systems think I am now on a GSII. That was the only way I was able to get them to switch my plan back to a 4G provisioned plan so I could use the Phone APN. Used the IMEI number of my wife's phone and changed the last two digits.

 

[brounmoney]

You are never going to get much more that 5mb on hspa+ on the Gnex or for that matter any phone. I think your slowed speeds might be because you gave them that crazy IMEI number. They are giving you service for the wrong phone. Just a thought. I would never give them info about my Gnex. They have no idea that I have mine and I want to keep it that way.

 

[daystrom]

You are never going to get much more that 5mb on hspa+ on the Gnex or for that matter any phone. I think your slowed speeds might be because you gave them that crazy IMEI number. They are giving you service for the wrong phone. Just a thought. I would never give them info about my Gnex. They have no idea that I have mine and I want to keep it that way.

My plan on AT&T's site is coded as HSSMT2GBH which is 2GB for Smartphones on 4G. This is the same plan that my other HSPA+ phones are using which get better throughput. I am on the right plan and am using the correct APN.

 

[Trooper]

I would not doubt if they were doing something since its not an AT&T device. I have a GSM Nexus running on Straight Talk AT&T and my speeds are not all that great. I was thinking of going directly to AT&T but after seeing your post, dunno if its worth it.

T-Mobile is an option I am considering however.

 

[daystrom]

I don't know how they would know at this point as the IMEI number on my account is of a Galaxy SII that AT&T sells. not a Nexus.

 

[Skyroket]

I don't know how they would know at this point as the IMEI number on my account is of a Galaxy SII that AT&T sells. not a Nexus.

It was a joke lol! GNex has no relationship with at&t and i dont think at&t tested it on their network.. It might need some tunning and so on. Back in 06 i got myself European unlocked nokia n90 to use it on att network. It was a 3g phone but i never saw a 3g icon. Not to mention the radio reception was horrible.. I could lose it on the open field surrounded by att service towers.. I used till apple released the first iphone.

So it might be just that and consider the fact that we have more than 2 major gsm carriers in the states(and the rest of the world) the phone just cant be tuned for every carrier so it would work properly.. Google prob. just took basic settings and shipped it.

Att and other gsm companies have their phones specifically built for their networks

 

[daystrom]

Yeah you're probably right. Just didn't know if there was some obvious reason or not. Still love the Jelly Bean goodness though!

 

[Trooper]

It was a joke lol! GNex has no relationship with at&t and i dont think at&t tested it on their network.. It might need some tunning and so on. Back in 06 i got myself European unlocked nokia n90 to use it on att network. It was a 3g phone but i never saw a 3g icon. Not to mention the radio reception was horrible.. I could lose it on the open field surrounded by att service towers.. I used till apple released the first iphone.

So it might be just that and consider the fact that we have more than 2 major gsm carriers in the states(and the rest of the world) the phone just cant be tuned for every carrier so it would work properly.. Google prob. just took basic settings and shipped it.

Att and other gsm companies have their phones specifically built for their networks

Agree with this. Another reason I may switch to T-Mobile but again, I myself use wifi a lot so its not always a huge issue for me. As long as I have enough data to use GPS when I am driving then I am a happy camper.

 

[brounmoney]

I don't know how they would know at this point as the IMEI number on my account is of a Galaxy SII that AT&T sells. not a Nexus.

Ok so I thought you said that you gave them IMEI in which you changed the numbers? Also if you gave them an IMEI for a GSII then things could be kind of crazy. You could be getting only 3g speeds not 3g+ cause you gave an IMEI for the sII.

 

[aurora40]

You are never going to get much more that 5mb on hspa+ on the Gnex or for that matter any phone.

There are areas where I get 8-9Mbps pretty regularly.

To the OP, are the SII's in question capable of HSPA+42? If so, I believe it uses multiple connections to get the extra speed, so even in an area with speeds well within the theoretical max of an HSPA+21 phone, they would likely be faster.

I could be wrong, I've never owned ah HSPA+42 phone. But my understanding is, say in an area where you can get ~5Mbps on a normal HSPA+ phone, they might be able to get closer to 10Mbps with the same signal strength/etc (assuming it wasn't the backhaul that was the limiter).

I have tried my GNex on an ATT sim just to see what speeds were like in my area. But it was out of an old Blackberry, so it wasn't that relevant to compare data speeds between devices.