Verizon iPad 2s suffer 3G blindness
Searching? Roaming? Rebooting? Cursing
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Updated Owners of Verizon's iPad 2 are complaining on Apple's support forum that their fondleslabs are having problems connecting to Verizon's CDMA 3G network.
Last Saturday, a user with the handle of nixxon2000 began a thread on Apple's iPad discussion board saying that he or she was unable to get a 3G connection. Since that initial posting, 83 other users (and counting) have chimed in, prompting nearly 13,500 page views.
The problem manifests itself in two ways: either by simply not connecting to the Verizon network, and instead displaying "Searching..." at the top of the display, or by displaying "Roaming..."
Poster nixxon2000 reports having spent two hours at an Apple retail-store Genius Bar trying to get to the root of the problem, only to discover that "They have no idea why its doing that."
Another poster, Dambuilder, reported that after navigating up Verizon's support ladder, he or she was told that "the constant roaming indication is a bug that they presently have no solution for."
Other users, including some at iPadForum, have reported successful reconnections after rebooting, while others have not found relief using that method.
Yet another poster, ethynol, solved the Roaming problem "after 2 calls to Verizon and hours on the phone." Apparently that annoyance is related to Verizon's Preferred Roaming List (PRL) database, and can be fixed by deleting all content and settings, then restoring and syncing.
These problems have surfaced (thanks, Cnet) just days after Verizon's execs were no doubt feeling smugly satisfied at the news that the research firm ChangeWave had released a survery that determined that AT&T's iPhone 4 dropped over two-and-a-half times as many calls as Verizon's iPhone 4.
The expansion of iOS devices – both iPhone 4s and iPad 2s – to the Verizon network was heralded by Apple-product fanciers as a welcome development, seeing as how AT&T has been roundly excoriated for its inability to support the data-hungry hordes of iOS users.
With the Verizon iPad 2 now displaying connection problems, however, that excitement may become a bit muted – even though at this point it has not been determined if the Searching problem is caused by Verizon's network or by Apple's iPad 2. No matter – in the consumer-electronics biz, perception is reality.
Although, as one commenter to a Business Insider story about these very problems put it: "Cmon, folks surely you can find a way to make this at&t's fault. Your just not trying hard enough." ®
Update
Friday afternoon, Apple acknowledged the Verizon iPad 2's 3G problems, telling All Things Digital: "We are aware that a small number of iPad 2 customers have experienced connectivity issues with the Verizon 3G network and we are investigating it.”
COMMENTS
Ya know...
I still don't see the point of having 3G on a device that cannot (could if carriers allowed it) make phone calls. Call me crazy but those data fee/plans start to add up after a while for each damn device I might use.
I'm just looking for a laptop replacement, tired of hauling them around in my work backpack when a tablet type thing would lessen the load to a notebook sized leather folder.
I'm thinking the TF101 Asus Eee Pad Transformer... droool.................. me wants....
Paris.. because it's Friday night and she needs her 3G (three guys).
Agreed
Why do we need spereate data plans for our phones, tablets, and potentially other devices (probably new PSP and/ or DS etc.)
Maybe they should just make it easier to tether you're mobiles connection with whatever device. Most people have their phones everywhere they go with them.
Ohh that's right, you aren't then tied to two or three contracts costing £25 each/ month....
Point of 3G
"I still don't see the point of having 3G on a device that cannot (could if carriers allowed it) make phone calls."
The point of 3G is to have ubiquitous data coverage, not just when you are within range of some wifi access point. Amusingly, CDMA does not even use 3G for voice, all voice service is carried over the older 1X network... (older, but tweaked heavily to provide good voice service.) EVDO does not have the speed of HSPA+ (it's max speed is 3.1mbps) but with an older EVDO Rev 0 card (which maxes at 2.4mbps) I've gotten between ~768kbps and 2mbps for literally 1000 miles heading out east, and for 970 out of 1000 miles heading south (from the midwest to New Orleans) (I had ~80kbps through 1X for the other 30 miles). If I drove west to Los Angeles, I should have EVDO almost the whole way to the west coast (about 1800 miles).
The GSM carriers don't have anyhwere near the 3G coverage, but have virtually continuous coverage in the northeast corridor, and in California. They have loads of "islands" of coverage, the small "islands" you can at least get your 3G riding a train or cab across town (or driving, obviously just for telling it to stream music before you start moving). Other "islands" do extend a good 50 or 100 miles or more.
If you don't care about that, then by all means, get a IPad without 3G, get a PDA (if you can still find one) or find a used "smartphone" and just use it without phone service -- which effectively makes it a PDA. (You could of course get a *new* smartphone, but with US cellcos subsidizing smartphones so heavily, a phone that retails for like $700 will sell 6 months to a year old for like $150.)
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