[Atrix 4G Android Development] bwg123:
Possible SPEED decrease!

First and foremost, I want to thank richhed for posting this "How To" as I despise AT&T's rules and refuse to get rid of my unlimited data plan but most definitely want to use all the features I have on my phone.

Anyway, I'll be honest and say I worked for AT&T for 3 years until recently. I'm happily employed elsewhere (that company wears you down!) but still maintain a close connection with those previous co-workers. I won't go into a whole lot of details as to where my info comes from, and no one HAS to believe me, I'm just putting it out there to help future developers and hackers.

So to get to my point: this message is going to be longer than I intended. But for my point to get across, I want to make sure people understand the back story first. Here it goes..

As many people are aware, AT&T uses multiple APN's or access point names for various systems in their network. Depending on the dataplan added to someone's account, various APN's are or are NOT provisioned.

The "public" APN's that exists are:

wap.cingular

isp.cingular

PHONE

BROADBAND

blackberry.net

PHONE came around less than 2 years ago and BROADBAND came around at the release of the first iPad.

ONE YEAR AGO (give or take), these were the purposes of the APN's:

wap.cingular: provisioned on almost all plans (except aircards) & for MMS - primarily used for feature phones, Windows Mobile (Windows Phone), Android, blackberry "MediaNet" browsing, Palm's, Nokia's - provisioned on iPhone data plans but NOT used by iPhones (by default)

isp.cingular: provisioned only on AirCard (dataconnect) plans, Windows Mobile & Blackberry tethering plans. This is the APN these services connected through.

PHONE: used soley for iPhone - only provisioned on iPhone data plans

blackberry.net: used by Blackberry push services and the BLACKBERRY Browser on Blackberry devices.

BROADBAND: after the release of the iPad, this was the APN all iPad data was routed through

Now this is all beautiful, but who gives a **** about what they were used for a year ago? Well, AT&T has changed their setup dramatically since the release of tethering plans on iPhones and with the iPad.

The biggest change has happened with their now released "4G" (HSPA+) phones.

Since the obvious name change from Cingular to AT&T, the company has been trying to get away from the WAP.Cingular and ISP.Cingular APN's. I am told that in the upcoming years these plans will be removed, but that's pretty much impossible at this point.

Essentially, in the future we're only looking at:

PHONE: for every device

BROADBAND: for tethering / aircard plans

Like I said I NO LONGER work for the company so I cannot easily just look up which plans enable what APN's but I can say pretty much all plans currently enable WAP.CINGULAR and PHONE. ONLY tethering / dataconnect plans can connect to BROADBAND.

"Seriously, what's the ****in point? Just get to it!"

Okay, so here's what I'm getting at:

If anyone with an AT&T issued Atrix checks out the "Network settings" and looks at "Access Point Names" they will find FOUR options.

AT&T US: wap.cingular

AT&T US HSDPA: PHONE

AT&T US Tether: BROADBAND

AT&T US MMS: wap.cingular

Depending on the data plan which you currently have, your phone will decide which to connect to.

Example: if someone puts a sim with a blackberry plan (wap.cingular & blackberry.net provisioned) into their ATRIX, the ATRIX will use "AT&T US" and connect fine to the internet, but will NOT access the tethering function.

However, if someone puts in a sim with the ATRIX (android) dataplan (wap.cingular & PHONE provisioned) into their ATRIX, the phone automatically connects to "AT&T US HSDPA". Why does the phone choose that over "AT&T US" when it can technically connect to either? AT&T set the phone up to choose the HSDPA option first as THAT APN is provisioned with extra throughput!

I can't give out specific numbers, but I can say that WAP.CINGULAR has a speed cap, and that cap is SIGNIFICANTLY lower than that of the "PHONE" APN. Essentially, using your trick, richhed, if people are happy with it, don't change anything. But, if they CAN CONNECT to "AT&T US HSDPA" and their data plan has the "PHONE" apn enabled, then I would recommend using THAT apn instead. To quote AT&T, "This is the only APN CERTIFIED for 4G speeds."

Sorry this message was so long winded, but hopefully at least one person will get some use out of it.

- bwg