iPad Performance Tethering IP5 LTE on Wifi Ipad 3?

I only get a few hours out of my battery when WiFi tethering. Internet speeds match those of the phone though and the phone runs fine during this time as well. So the only negative is the battery life - you're running both the cellular data radio and the WiFi radio which pretty much doubles the battery usage.

ljx718 said:

Im thinking of getting rid of my unlimited plan and getting the 5gb w/ tethering ( only $15 difference with corp discount) to tether my ipad, but i dont know if the performance is hindered in any way.

Any of you with any experience care to comment?

i know the iphones battery wouldnt last as long, but how effected is it?

is the ipad's battery effected as well? what about speeds?


i dont want to get rid of my unlimited then come to find out it doesn't work all that well.

thanks for any help.

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I've tethered in the past but most of the time I have access to a power supply so battery usage wasn't a concern. Not sure if there are any published tests on battery life for tethering but I'm going to guess it would, at minimum, be like you were using your iPhone for the same tasks, and maybe no worse than a 50% increase from that (just a guess). So if you were to surf for a period of time on the phone and that would normally drain 10%, I'd expect 10-15% from doing that while tethered.

I'd assume the iPad's batter would drain at the same rate if you were tethered to an iPhone or just connected to any other wireless network.

When you say speed, are you referring to connection speed? It should be whatever you're able to connect to with the iPhone.

How much data do you use each month on your unlimited plan? How much more do you plan on using with the iPad? If you don't plan on exceeding 5GB, there is your answer. Weigh the additional cost of LTE vs a tethering plan and that can help you decide. Also, how long do you plan on keeping it? The added cost of LTE isn't recouped at resale. Maybe a small factor to consider.

ljx718 said:

Im thinking of getting rid of my unlimited plan and getting the 5gb w/ tethering ( only $15 difference with corp discount) to tether my ipad, but i dont know if the performance is hindered in any way.

Any of you with any experience care to comment?

i know the iphones battery wouldnt last as long, but how effected is it?

is the ipad's battery effected as well? what about speeds?


i dont want to get rid of my unlimited then come to find out it doesnt work all that well.

thanks for any help.

Click to expand...

Your performance is hindered on your unlimited plan, because they throttle you once you get to 2G. With the tether plan, you get 5G un-throttled.

For battery life, I'm planning to use Bluetooth instead of WiFi, which is what I do with my Air to iPhone 4. Bluetooth uses less battery than WiFi. So you can turn WiFi off on both devices and in theory save battery life on your iPad. Of course going through the iPhone it will take the battery down, but not as bad as with WiFi.

No performance is lost. I dropped my unlimited plan for tethering and I couldn't be happier.

As for battery, I've tethered for my entire lunch break and didn't notice a significant drop. Of course, I couldn't care less about the battery usage as I have chargers everywhere. YMMV. FWIW, I've tethered over Bluetooth and was only losing about 2% per 20 minutes on the iPhone.

As for speeds, I've noticed that if I'm getting 17 Mbps on my iPhone, I'll get roughly the same when tethering over Wi-Fi. LTE speeds aren't extremely fast in my area, but they work for me.

When getting tethering, remember that you know have a Wi-Fi network in your pocket at all times. Before when I didn't have tethering, I felt I was missing a key feature on my iPhone. I've already used it on multiple devices and wouldn't go back to unlimited for anything.

(While this may not apply to you, as a PC tech I need tethering in the event someone's Internet is down and I need to update software or test a VPN. It has honestly worked wonders for me.)

Look into a Mophie case/batttery for the phone - I love mine and adds minor bulk....I get to 4pm when batt on phone is down to 20% , flick the switch and have another full battery - perfect for road warriors...

so I have unlimited data and dont want to change my plan, but my wife has a 2gb data plan for $25 and I called att today and they said to use hotspot she has to upgrade to the 5gb plan which is for $50 with discount comes to around $39. that will be an increase of $14 or so which we don't mind.

what they also said that my wife cant revert back to the 2gb once upgraded.

What I want tp know like the OP how much battery will be drained phone teh iphone in case there is no charging option.

Can you watch a moveis on netflix with tethering?

will we be able to use the ipad and its maps as a navigation device while on the road by tethering the iphone as a hotspot.

Or for maps and navigation one needs a cellular ipad.

kindly suggest if changing my wifes data plan wouldbe a good move or not.