APN setting change placebo?

[jtc411]

So I got my Nexus 4 today and absolutely love it coming from an iphone 4s. But as I've been researching the phone before I bought it I read of ATT issues and how the APN settings need to be changed to get faster speeds. Once I booted my phone I started browsing and it was just as quick if not quicker than my iphone was on hspa+. I then ran a speed test and like everyone else, had horrible speeds almost not registering. I then changed the APN settings and went up to 5 megs down 1 up which is about what I always got on my iphone. Now browsing didn't seem any quicker, app downloads were the same. I deleted the APN and went back to stock and used hotspot. I ran a speed test on my computer with stock APN and received 6 down 1.5 up. When I ran the speed test on the phone I received .001mb and 1 meg up. I could have missed this somewhere but I believe the APN change isn't actually giving you anymore speed/bandwidth. I believe there is something with the APN settings and the way it uses the speed test app.

I believe the speedtest app is used way too religiously and I don't think its always accurate and especially when its portraying something differently with settings, but not seeing any logical change.

Thoughts?

 

[Unicorn Rancher]

It's possible that changing the settings will force some sort of connection renegotiation or resync, and that's what gets you better speeds. Like a soft reboot.

 

[greydarrah]

Att specifically has speedtest.net blocked. That's why your speeds are so dismal when using the default APN. Id you leave the proxy name blank, it works great. Other than speedtest, everything else on your phone works normal, including your data speeds. As far as the speeds themselves, they definitely can vary. My guess it's related to the server you happen to connect to as well as the data traffic at the time you run a test. It's just a momentary indicator. I wouldn't sweat it too much.