The Samsung Galaxy S24
mtavery24's profile

Mentor

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37 Messages

Tuesday, January 14th, 2014 1:35 PM

Nexus 5 AT&T Download Speed Issues (Please Help)

Good morning,

 

    I have a Nexus 5 activated on AT&T but i seem to be having problems with my download speeds on LTE.  My account seems to be provisioned for LTE and my phone shows im connected to LTE but I typically am getting only around 3mbps download while my upload could range from 7-15mbps.  I am using the default APN's that were populated when my sim was activated (ATT Phone and ATT WAP).  My wife has a AT&T branded Moto X and she will get around 17mbps down while I get the 3 down with much higher upload speeds.  Even when I changed my APN settings to match hers exactly, the problem still remains.  When I run speed tests using the default APN settings, ATT Phone, the download speeds usually starts out much higher (say 6-7mbps) but then quickly drops down to around 3 and hovers around there (almost like its being capped/throttled).  The strange thing is that if I changed the ATT Phone APN to pta instead of phone, my download speeds will get up to around 11-12.  Im not sure how these APN's work and what the different between phone and pta, but it almost seems something is going on with the phone APN and it seems to be specific to my account and maybe how it is set up.  My Nexus 5 was activated in a corporate store with them entering the IMEI number.  Im not sure what could be happening but I was hoping somebody on these forums.. especially if there are any higher up Tier 1-2 techs on these forums, that could really help me out on this.  I would appreciate any help I could get to get the full LTE speeds that I do not think I am receiving.  Thanks in advance

 

Mark

Guru

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450 Messages

10 years ago

Hi mtavery24,

 

I'm using a Nexus 5 personally and have not run into the issues you are describing. One suggestion that I would have is to make sure you first go and get a new SIM card (free at any AT&T Company Retail Store) and ensure that the IMEI is set up correctly on the account (From what you said it already is so that sould be good). Sometimes the SIM cards go bad and if they are going bad, it can cause a lot of network issues.  Remove your APN settings BEFORE they change the SIM and shut off the phone. The ones that download onto your device should work fine (that's what I'm using).

 

Lastly make sure they have the right data plan set up on your account. From what your describing, it doesn't seem like the LTE data is set up properly.

 

If that doesn't resolve your issues I would recommend that you send a Private Message to  ATTCustomerCare is part of the AT&T customer service team, They may be able to resolve your Issue. You can expect a reply via return PM(Blue envelope top right of screen) between the hours of 7am-10pm CST Monday - Friday, should hear back within 2 to 3 business days.

Mentor

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37 Messages

10 years ago

Thanks for the quick reply.  Yeah i did stop into a corporate store last night and picked up a new sim card.  I had provisioned correctly and im still having the same issues.  So I dont think its with the sim card.  I spoke with online chat reps many times and they all confirmed that my account was properly set up for LTE provisioning.  Under the features on my line, I have "Mobile Share Value Smartphone 4G LTE with Visual Voicemail" so it does appear I have the correct LTE data plan for my line.  And they did verify the IMEI number was entered in correctly.  Im just not sure what else I can do.   The only other thing I have read about that others have done was to have the IMEI number of a supported AT&T LTE phone, like a LG G2, registered first on the account, then just swap the sim into the Nexus 5.  Im not sure how that helps or how to even do that.  Any other suggestions?  Thanks again for the quick response and the help on this

ACE - Expert

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6.6K Messages

10 years ago

Mark, have you tried swapping SIMs with your wife and running tests both with her SIM in your Nexus and your Sim in her Moto X to see what speeds you get?

Mentor

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37 Messages

10 years ago

No I have not.  Would this be to make sure my sim card is not the issue?  If so, I have already replaced my sim card once and both have produced the same results so im thinking its not a sim card thing...  but if I am not thinking about this correctly, please let me know what your thinking..  Thanks

ACE - Expert

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6.6K Messages

10 years ago


@mtavery24 wrote:

No I have not.  Would this be to make sure my sim card is not the issue?  If so, I have already replaced my sim card once and both have produced the same results so im thinking its not a sim card thing...  but if I am not thinking about this correctly, please let me know what your thinking..  Thanks


Not so much the SIM card itself but to determine whether the problem is specific to your phone, your account/SIM or the combination of both. If your wife's SIM is exhibiting the same behavior in the Nexus, maybe it's the phone itself that's at fault. If your speed is slow in the Moto X, then it's something with your account. If the switch eliminates the problem completely (yours gains speed, the wife's SIM doesn't slow down) then it points to something specific to the combination of your phone and SIM. Regardless, it'll be additional data you can take to the customer service and hopefully that'll give them an idea of what's happening.

Mentor

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37 Messages

10 years ago

i was about to do some testing by swapping the sim cards when i realized that the nexus 5 sim card is micro while hte moto x has a nano... so wont be able to do it.....   i did do another side by side speed test on lte comparing my nexus 5 with default apns vs my wifes moto x and i was getting 8.4 down and 3.35 up while hers was only getting 5.74 down and 5.96 up.  both of us had the same -101 db signal strength on lte.  so at least at this point, my phone seems to be more normal compared to my wifes (where now hers had the slightly higher upload compared to download speed).    In the end, maybe our network around here and the cleveland area is just very screwy or something.  Im just trying to eliminate the possibility that is could be hardware related with my nexus... because all day i was getting a max of 3mb down no matter where i was in the cleveland area... but as of right now, all seems to be more normal for my phone... of course i want the hight lte speeds =).   I am still waiting to hear back from AT&T about my ticket that is still out there so hopefully when i talk to them, they will have some updates for me on if they have found anything on their end that could be causing it or if the network around my area has just been all over hte place the last few days.  will keep you posted

Mentor

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37 Messages

10 years ago

spoke too soon..... last speed test was max 1.76 down with about 5.25 up.... back to being confused lol.... i really need to stop checking this.... could anybody recommend a reliable way to do a speed test on your phone?  i am using the speedtest.net app.  should i be using something else or maybe even a specific non flash website on my phone?

ACE - Expert

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6.6K Messages

10 years ago


@mtavery24 wrote:

spoke too soon..... last speed test was max 1.76 down with about 5.25 up.... back to being confused lol.... i really need to stop checking this.... could anybody recommend a reliable way to do a speed test on your phone?  i am using the speedtest.net app.  should i be using something else or maybe even a specific non flash website on my phone?


I use the same app and I get hugely varying results. My best was something like 48 down, 13 up (although other times I've seen upload reach almost 22 with down being in the high 30s) and my worst was something like 0.3 down, 0.25 up — all on LTE with comparable signal strength. Also, about 30% of the time my download speed is slower than upload. All on the same Galaxy S4 GPE phone.

 

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/513901777

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/657073522

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/520316738

Scholar

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151 Messages

10 years ago

I believe what's happening is when you went into the corporate store, the associate put the nexus 5 imei. And since it's not an official att phone they purposely slow down your account. What you need to do is get your old imei and chat with an online rep and pretend like if your going to return the nexus 5 so they can put your old imei on the account and then you should have faster speeds

Contributor

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1 Message

10 years ago

I had a Nexus 4 on AT&T.  You will need to go to the store or call the 800 number and they will need to add an IMEI of a known 4G LTE Device and associate it with you account in order to get LTE.  Non-Known Devices without adjustment will only get 3G Speeds.

 

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