T-Mo vs. AT&T versions on Net10

[guy48065]

My daughter just bought a used T Mobile G2 to bring on our Net10 family plan. I warned her to get an AT&T-branded phone because of info I read on Net10's website that says you only get LTE speed with an AT&T-branded phone. She didn't listen :-/
I've also seen many pages of complaints of data issues for the T-Mo phones used on the Net10 network.

Nothing I see in the specs explains why T-Mo version doesn't and AT&T version does, on the same AT&T towers that Net10 uses. Can someone clue me in what the difference is?

 

[Rukbat]

Look at the frequencies (or bands, depending on which site you're looking on) the two phones use. The TMobile phone is missing one of the LTE bands that AT&T uses.

It's not a matter of a TMobile phone having data speeds like we had 20 years ago, it's that she's not going to get 40mbps download tests. (In the real world, installing apps, reading web pages, the speeds are a LOT slower than the test speeds so it won't make a heck of a lot of difference. Some, yes, but not enough to lose a daughter over.) And if, in a week or so, she complains about the speed, DO NOT say "I told you". Kids hate when we're right.