Nexus 4 with ATT (thoughts )

**mlife817** · 03-13-2013, 11:50 PM

still waiting on my nexus to arrive and was thinking of using ATT instead of t-mobile are there any issues or proper steps that need to be taken for device to work properly or will it work same. was just thinking att probaly hs better hspa + speed thoughts

**Channan** · 03-13-2013, 11:59 PM

T-Mobile has a faster HSPA+ network but AT&T has a bigger one.

**williams448** · 03-14-2013, 06:23 AM

AT&T is the bigger network with better coverage. HSPA+ 10 & 15 is plenty fast enough. Having faster speeds is not worth having that connection dropped b/c you chose the 4th biggest network in the U.S.

**TRSpeed3** · 03-14-2013, 08:26 AM

I'm on AT&T ( Like mentioned above I'd rather have broad coverage than fast speeds in limited locations) However, if Tmobile is good in your area then I would take advantage of that.

As far as AT&T, it took them awhile to figured out how to get me on the right data plan. For some reason when they would add the 4G Smart phone plan it would revert back to my basic Data for smart phone plan. The guy was very helpful and was able to set a dummy IMEI for a HTC lightning bolt and got me hooked up. I played around with several APN settings as well, but as of now I'm getting about 7mbs which isn't blazing but it works great for me. (Most of the time I'm on 35mbs wifi so I can't complain) If you like I could post my APN setting for you to check out.

My words of advice are be patient, out of the box mine was aggravating but very worth it in the end. I have all my issues hammered out and the phone is working great.

**planoman** · 03-14-2013, 09:22 AM

I am on att post paid. Good HSPA+ Speeds and coverage. T mobile is also good in my area and has faster speeds.
I was already on an LTE plan for att so just poped my SIM in and it worked fine. I tweaked the APN a bit and everything works fine.

I guess it depends on the networks where you are and where you travel if any.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I317

**greydarrah** · 03-14-2013, 09:56 AM

They both work well as long as you have good coverage from each in your area. Att is not slow, but Tmo is about 2 to 3 times faster on H+. Why don't you just order a SIM from each and try them both out. That's one of the great advantages of an unlocked phone.

**The_Observer** · 03-15-2013, 12:17 PM

Switched to N4 from my earlier phone which was a Moto Atrix 2, so that was non-LTE as well. Had to go and get a new MicroSIM from the ATT store, but being a corporate store and not an authorized reseller, I got the new MicroSIM for free (authorized retailers charge upto $25 for that). When you get the MicroSIM, pop it into your N4, and hopefully you should be good to go OOTB. I have been reading that some people do face issues, and need to call up ATT to solve them, but luckily that wasn't the case with me. AFA the speeds go, I am getting decent speeds with HSPA+, a notch better than my earlier phone, but I never was an LTE user to begin with, so not really sad about not having LTE now either

**kallemia** · 03-15-2013, 12:30 PM

What tweaks did you do to the APN? I have an LTE plan as well.

Thanks in advance!

Karl

**NexusGirlX** · 03-15-2013, 03:38 PM

An excellent example of how location matters:

At my house on AT&T, I get about 0.00Kbps to about 1MB. The 1MB speed is at night at about 1AM when no one uses the network. Verizon was even worse with no 3G and dropped calls.

When I got my Nexus 4, I signed it with T-Mobile and get about 17-21Mbps at my house. Unfortunately, you won't know what you get until you buy a phone and try it or know someone with the same phone.service that you can look at first.

**tmx31415** · 03-15-2013, 05:01 PM

No problems with at&t in Detroit.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

**Greg C** · 03-15-2013, 05:46 PM

10.5 - 14.4 mbps is what I'm getting from AT&T in the Grand Rapids, MI area.

**Only1Z** · 03-15-2013, 08:22 PM

Originally Posted by NexusGirlX

An excellent example of how location matters:

At my house on AT&T, I get about 0.00Kbps to about 1MB. The 1MB speed is at night at about 1AM when no one uses the network. Verizon was even worse with no 3G and dropped calls.

When I got my Nexus 4, I signed it with T-Mobile and get about 17-21Mbps at my house. Unfortunately, you won't know what you get until you buy a phone and try it or know someone with the same phone.service that you can look at first.

Your APN settings are wrong on AT&T. That's why you are seeing those speeds. It's actually not the real speed. But because of your APN settings, Speedtest isn't working correctly.

**Jnorton2724** · 03-15-2013, 08:38 PM

Using AT&T currently and have been for awhile. I'm in a good T-Mobile area and their service drops occasionally in certain areas but the speeds are faster. AT&T is a lot more reliable and the speeds are more then fast enough for daily use. After my contract ends though me and my girlfriend will be using our Nexus 4's on t mobile because its a better deal monthly.

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

**NexusGirlX** · 03-15-2013, 10:15 PM

That is on an iPhone with the only settings it can except, meaning these are the speeds I really get on that iPhone. there are no APN settings to configure. Its an AT&T iPhone.

**JamesTBurns** · 03-15-2013, 11:44 PM

I have used the Nexus 4 on both T-Mobile and AT&T in southern California, I am getting ready to eat an ETF to move completely to TMO.

AT&T is faster where I live, but I am capped at 3GB, have not had a bill less than $97 yet, and always seem to be getting surprised with backlogged data use on the last day of the billing period. I bought a T-Mobile SIM in Los Angeles for $60 (one month, 2GB 4G) and was getting faster speeds on their network on my Nexus 4 than I was on AT&T LTE with my Lumia 920. Now that I am selling my LTE device, I see no reason to stay with AT&T.

**NexusGirlX** · 03-16-2013, 05:51 AM

I wanted to point out how bad AT&T is in my area as compared to T-Mobile. I did a speedtest.net test on my Nexus 4 with a T-Mobile prepaid account and an AT&T iPhone 4S obviously with the simcard that it came with when I bought the phone at Radio Shack back in January. There is no APN to configure on the AT&T iPhone since it is locked to AT&T, the only carrier it is designed to run on. I get the same AT&T results when I use the AT&T sim in my Nexus 4 and configure the APN. I also get the same results using an AT&T data only sim in my Nexus 7. AT&T is just plain garbage in my area. They were rated the worst in speed and CS last year here in Colorado and the average speeds were about .5Mbps in that poll. As you see, things haven't gotten better. I also had a Verizon iPhone 4S that was just as bad as the current AT&T 4S that I have now. It was so bad, I broke my contract early and sold the iPhone back in January. I'm about to do the same with the AT&T 4S.

Both tests were run a few minutes apart in the same exact room in my house. Not sure why the N4 says I am in Bloomingdale but I get the same results when it picks a server here in Denver. It won't show me Denver in the change server screen. EDIT: Got Denver to show up by turning OFF GPS so I attached the screen cap also so there are three.

AT&T iPhone 4S screen cap and Nexus 4 screen cap using T-Mobile:

**Tall Mike 2145** · 03-16-2013, 09:21 AM

Not that it matters for me (thankfully) but I have recently learned that T-Mobile has either one or two cell towers in the Fort Myers/Cape Coral area. I also learned that, for some reason that I can't make heads nor tails out of, Florida presently has a moratorium on building cell towers. Perhaps someone here who's more knowledgeable can add some insight to this.

**royalpig180** · 03-16-2013, 10:39 AM

T Mobile's network is plenty strong for me where I live, but when I travel, I find that friends with AT&T have 3g in places where I don't have signal other than AT&T 's network. But like a previous poster pointed out, this is the beauty of an unlocked phone. You can try one carrier out, and if you're unhappy with their coverage, you can just try another...

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Android Central Forums

**Pema108** · 03-16-2013, 07:56 PM

Originally Posted by The_Observer

Switched to N4 from my earlier phone which was a Moto Atrix 2, so that was non-LTE as well. Had to go and get a new MicroSIM from the ATT store, but being a corporate store and not an authorized reseller, I got the new MicroSIM for free (authorized retailers charge upto $25 for that). When you get the MicroSIM, pop it into your N4, and hopefully you should be good to go OOTB. I have been reading that some people do face issues, and need to call up ATT to solve them, but luckily that wasn't the case with me. AFA the speeds go, I am getting decent speeds with HSPA+, a notch better than my earlier phone, but I never was an LTE user to begin with, so not really sad about not having LTE now either

This mirrors my experience exactly...have an Atrix 2, got a free no-hassle micro sim, popped it in the Nexus 4 and was good to go out of box.

**Chex313** · 03-16-2013, 09:12 PM

I hate At&t because of their greed. (and I'm a lucky one , with 24%Fan discount and work pays a portion of my bill,and the rest is a tax write off) They are still too Greedy!

The service for me is excellent, it is all about location. I drive weekly from the Canadian boarder as far west as Cincinnati, OH. south to SC. and east to the coast and its rare when I am not on 3G. So the coverage for the eastern corridor is good.

As a side note my i5 receives added LTE coverage often enough to be a surprise. The last time my 16 year old showed me her speedtest it was at 41mbs down. Looking forward to a Nexus that has LTE, that's for sure.

**Only1Z** · 03-16-2013, 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by NexusGirlX

I wanted to point out how bad AT&T is in my area as compared to T-Mobile. I did a speedtest.net test on my Nexus 4 with a T-Mobile prepaid account and an AT&T iPhone 4S obviously with the simcard that it came with when I bought the phone at Radio Shack back in January. There is no APN to configure on the AT&T iPhone since it is locked to AT&T, the only carrier it is designed to run on. I get the same AT&T results when I use the AT&T sim in my Nexus 4 and configure the APN. I also get the same results using an AT&T data only sim in my Nexus 7. AT&T is just plain garbage in my area. They were rated the worst in speed and CS last year here in Colorado and the average speeds were about .5Mbps in that poll. As you see, things haven't gotten better. I also had a Verizon iPhone 4S that was just as bad as the current AT&T 4S that I have now. It was so bad, I broke my contract early and sold the iPhone back in January. I'm about to do the same with the AT&T 4S.

Both tests were run a few minutes apart in the same exact room in my house. Not sure why the N4 says I am in Bloomingdale but I get the same results when it picks a server here in Denver. It won't show me Denver in the change server screen. EDIT: Got Denver to show up by turning OFF GPS so I attached the screen cap also so there are three.

AT&T iPhone 4S screen cap and Nexus 4 screen cap using T-Mobile:

Your speed test app isn't working because of the APN settings...iPhone or not. My SIM card had default settings that did the same exact thing. Does it really feel like .1 Mbps down and 0 up? The app just isn't working. There is info about this all over the intraweb.

**NexusGirlX** · 03-17-2013, 02:11 AM

Originally Posted by Only1Z

Your speed test app isn't working because of the APN settings...iPhone or not. My SIM card had default settings that did the same exact thing. Does it really feel like .1 Mbps down and 0 up? The app just isn't working. There is info about this all over the intraweb.

Yes, it really feels that slow and IS that slow. As I said, I got those same exact speeds on a AT&T data only sim in my Nexus 7. AT&T IS that slow in my area. Really, it IS That slow. The speedtest app can't be broken on a Nexus 4, Nexus 7 and every iPhone I have ever had.

I have pages that won't load and apps that won't work all the time giving the no network message. I know enough about phones and APN settings to know it's not those.

Over 9 minutes to download a 7MB song.

**Channan** · 03-17-2013, 07:03 PM

So I just got my T-Mobile SIM activation kit yesterday and I've been testing out the speeds around town on my Nexus 4.

Yesterday:

Today:

The rest of my family is on AT&T and they only get 2-5Mbps on HSPA+. Since the Nexus 4 doesn't have LTE you might be better off going with T-Mobile if they have good coverage in your area.

**wildmangk** · 03-30-2013, 02:12 AM

Originally Posted by TRSpeed3

I'm on AT&T ( Like mentioned above I'd rather have broad coverage than fast speeds in limited locations) However, if Tmobile is good in your area then I would take advantage of that.

As far as AT&T, it took them awhile to figured out how to get me on the right data plan. For some reason when they would add the 4G Smart phone plan it would revert back to my basic Data for smart phone plan. The guy was very helpful and was able to set a dummy IMEI for a HTC lightning bolt and got me hooked up. I played around with several APN settings as well, but as of now I'm getting about 7mbs which isn't blazing but it works great for me. (Most of the time I'm on 35mbs wifi so I can't complain) If you like I could post my APN setting for you to check out.

My words of advice are be patient, out of the box mine was aggravating but very worth it in the end. I have all my issues hammered out and the phone is working great.

Could you post your APN settings please?????

Sent from my iPad Mini using Tapatalk