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Original URL: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/04/08/verizon_ipad_2_3g_problems_surface/

Verizon iPad 2s suffer 3G blindness

Searching? Roaming? Rebooting? Cursing

By Rik Myslewski in San Francisco

Posted in Tablets, 8th April 2011 19:13 GMT

Agentless Backup is Not a Myth

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 [1] 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 [2] 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 [3], 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 [4], have reported successful reconnections after rebooting, while others have not found relief using that method.

Yet another poster, ethynol [5], 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 [6]) database, and can be fixed by deleting all content and settings, then restoring and syncing.

These problems have surfaced (thanks, Cnet [7]) 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 [8] 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 [9] 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 [10]: "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.”