Hey Josh,
Sorry this is a WAAAAY late respone. lol But as far as the data speed goes. Some towers can put out more mbs. Reason why is because if that tower is in a heavy user area, then they have to increase the speed of that tower to handle the bandwith of all the users. So if it's at a heavy usage, then it can go down to 2mbps, otherwise if not, it will allow users to experience 11mbps or whatever that tower is at for data speed.

I live in the east bay area.