This is likely a coverage issue. If you are in an area with HSPA+ coverage built up, you should be able to take advantage of the higher speeds without any intervention from you.

In my experience, the APN you select (most folks seem to select between epc and internet2) does not really make a huge difference in speed (though ymmv)

The fastest speed I have ever seen on my n900 utilizing the T-mobile USA network was about 3Mbps down. Like I said, the speeds you get are highly variable depending on the coverage in your area. Finally 3Mbps is slower than hyped, but when I get those speeds, it is certainly fast enough for me to forgo paying for wireless when I am on the road...

You know what I just realized? My speeds at times test exactly at those speeds. Also, I just checked it again and i got 66Kbps... which is still TERRIBLE. Compared to Verizon. How the hell does Tmobile even sell customers this bullcrap? This is insanity. I never realized how terrible my speeds were, I'm so chewing out the people at the Tmobile store today.

If you look at the coverage map for my area its solid HSPA+ and not to mention I always have full bars and am constantly switching between 3.5G and 3G... So annoyed.

All is fixed.

I had Tmobile in Florida and got hspa+. The speedtests would give back 10 mbs avg.

I had to call Tmobile and they "activated other towers" my speeds increased 2x-3x

o whoa, can we have more details? when i called tmobile, all they did was put it on another tower, which did not do anything.

That's what they told me too. But it finally fixed my issue... which is ******** tbh. Why? Because all of a sudden I was getting 3.5G all over the city as opposed to sporadically. Imo, what they goofed on was the fact that they still had me using a Samsung Gravity... which I only had for like 30 days.