1020 on T-mobile - data roaming in 2G area

[poots1101]

So I have a non-pentaband (rm-875) sim unlocked 1020 on T-mobile in the US. It's been working fantastically - get HSPA in Des Moines metro, which is fast enough for me (I know when des moines finally gets 4G LTE i'm screwed but oh well). since we switched from verizon, my wife was able to keep her Droid DNA phone, since that was one of the few Verizon phones that came sim unlocked.

at any rate, over thanksgiving we went to her mom's place in rural iowa. it's in a 2g area. she was able to get data just fine (albeit slow as crap - yay 2g!), but i wasn't able to get a data connection. only until i went into settings and allowed data roaming was i finally able to get data. on her DNA data roaming was set to off.

my question is: do i need to change any of my apn settings? also, if i just kept data roaming on, would i run into t-mobile's domestic data roaming limit? would she run into a limit as well?

FYI - when i searched for networks at the time instead of saying t-mobile it said iWireless.

any hints/tips would be appreciated.

 

[antiochian2010]

Part of Los Angeles is refarmed - most of it anyway so I have full LTE for the most part. When I travel east towards Palm Springs I go through areas that are still not refarmed and phone drops all the way to Edge. When I was in Canada and data roaming, I was able to get 4G on Rogers network, but never got LTE. Was in Edmonton, Calgary and Montreal several weeks ago.
Phone: Unlocked AT&T USA Lumia 1020
Home Service: T-Mobile USA