[Samsung Galaxy Nexus] brian85:
EDIT: A user mentioned that if you have unlimited data, trying to get on the correct HSPA+ plan could mess with that, so don't try this unless you want to risk losing unlimited data. I'm completely unsure if it would keep your unlimited data or not, but I thought I'd throw that out there.

So for those of you who are either coming from the iphone or another non-4g hspa phone (or are new to AT&T) and using the galaxy nexus, you will be put on the regular smartphone data plan. First of all, there are 3 different data plans for smartphones:

regular smartphone data

smartphone data for 4G phones

smartphone data for 4G LTE phones

The data plan you want to be on with the GN is the "smartphone data for 4g phones" which is the HSPA plan. Like I said, most of the people activating a GN on AT&T will automatically be put on the regular smartphone data plan, which will limit your speeds, even if your phone shows it's on HSPA.

After spending about an hour on the phone with AT&T customer service, I FINALLY found someone who knew EXACTLY what the GN was and what I wanted to do. Basically, the AT&T systems DO NOT allow employees to even manually override and put a 4G data plan on our account for the GN, so the guy had to do a workaround and he activated an atrix on my account, put my account on the 4g HSPA plan, and then reactivated my GN which KEPT the 4g plan on there.

After this, my speeds have dramatically improved. I always thought the phone would only switch to "H" in the signal bar when using heavy data (I thought it was a phone feature...you guys know how it always switches from 3g to H constantly? This is what I'm talking about), but after getting the 4g hspa plan on my account, the phone stays on H for MOST of the time. It'll still switch to 3g, but before making the change, it was showing 3g most of the time.

In conclusion, there are two ways to do this which the guy explained to me:

1. You can find someone with an AT&T 4g phone (atrix, insprie, infuse, s2, etc), pop in your sim in THEIR phone to activate that phone on your account, go to "manage features" on your account, switch to smartphone data for 4g phones, and submit. After that, pop the sim back in your nexus and it will keep the 4g plan.

2. Or if you don't know anyone who has one of these phones, call up 611 and have them do it for you (which is what I did). I'll be honest, it's a pain in the ass because you actually have to find someone who knows what you are trying to do and knows what the galaxy nexus is (not to be sexist...but I spoke to 3 women and they had no idea what I was trying to do...the first guy I talked to knew exactly what I wanted).

Once you find a person who knows about the GN and unlocked phones in general, explain that your account has the regular smartphone data plan on there which is limiting you to 3g speeds even though you have an HSPA phone (this is where the customer service person knowing what the GN helps out a lot), and you need him to manually put the 4g plan on your account. Since the system won't allow this, he needs to use an IMEI number from any of their 4g phones (atrix, infuse, inspire, etc), actiivate that on your account, then switch it over (basically same as step one except you aren't physically putting your sim in another phone).

Hope that helps. I'm happy as hell now because it was bothering me to be limited to 3g speeds even though I have an HSPA phone.

I tried to get a direct line for you guys to call the guy I spoke to, but unfortunately he didn't have one.