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Canadian iPad 3 owners: LTE Question

hNicolas

hNicolas

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Dec 4, 2008
377
66
Ottawa, ON
Has anyone been able to activate LTE from their iPad? I purchased my iPad from Apple and asked for the Rogers sim, but I haven't been able to activate 4G or even 3G for that matter, from my iPad. I have heard rumors that most Canadian users are having to call in to activate and are still having problems. I spoke to a Rogers rep., and was told to go to a Rogers store! I want to know if this is only a Rogers problem. Has anyone had better luck with the other carriers?
 
For some odd reason prepaid plans (ones activated on iPad directly) are NOT in Canada for the iPad 3. You have to sign up for the monthly flex rate plans in store for all 3 carriers. iPad 1/2 work with prepaid though.
 
Yeah, I ran into the SIM problem on Friday. Rogers mailed out the LTE SIMs but when I popped it into my iPad I couldn't signup for the plans on the iPad itself.

I called Rogers and they said you need to sign up for a monthly plan with them rather than on the iPad for LTE SIMs. Apparently, the pre-paid Rogers SIMs only do 3G. I use cellular data every month, so signing up wasn't really a problem for me, but I didn't like it.


http://www.ipadincanada.ca/rogers/n...ncing-no-service-with-bundled-microsim-cards/
 
Last edited:
HelveticaNeue said:
Yeah, I ran into the SIM problem on Friday. Rogers mailed out the LTE SIMs but when I popped it into my iPad I couldn't signup for the plans on the iPad itself.

I called Rogers and they said you need to sign up for a monthly plan with them rather than on the iPad for LTE SIMs. Apparently, the pre-paid Rogers SIMs only do 3G. I use cellular data every month, so signing up wasn't really a problem for me, but I didn't like it.


http://www.ipadincanada.ca/rogers/n...ncing-no-service-with-bundled-microsim-cards/
Click to expand...

Wait on there website they have iPod plans contract free from 15 dollars for 250mb. It's a lie????
 
For the prepaid plans to work, the SIM card (at least the Rogers ones) has to be preactivated before inserting it into the iPad. All SIMs that are delivered with iPads and even the ones that are in stores are set up for post paid plans, so they must be preactivated for it to work.

We used to have actual preactivated SIMs but they've since changed that.

Keep in mind that the prepaid plans do not support LTE at the moment.

Source: I'm a Rogers employee.
 
AppChat said:
Wait on there website they have iPod plans contract free from 15 dollars for 250mb. It's a lie????
Click to expand...

The LTE plans they are offering are 100% contract free, but you have to go to a Rogers store or call Rogers to set them up. They are month to month and you can cancel anytime. You just can't sign up for them on the iPad itself like you could for the 3G plans.
 
HelveticaNeue said:
The LTE plans they are offering are 100% contract free, but you have to go to a Rogers store or call Rogers to set them up. They are month to month and you can cancel anytime. You just can't sign up for them on the iPad itself like you could for the 3G plans.
Click to expand...

do u tihk its worth the extra 129 for 4g?

i already have an iphone that can do personal hotspot
 
HelveticaNeue said:
The LTE plans they are offering are 100% contract free, but you have to go to a Rogers store or call Rogers to set them up. They are month to month and you can cancel anytime. You just can't sign up for them on the iPad itself like you could for the 3G plans.
Click to expand...

Are you talking about the postpaid plans, or prepaid like previous iPad offerings?
And can you cancel and reactivate on your iPad?
 
Only post paid flex plans support LTE right now. Activation is required, but no contract or commitment. 30 day advance notice for cancellation.

I've been using Rogers in Vancouver. So far LTE is acceptable. How are other users on Bell and Telus?
 
hNicolas said:
Are you talking about the postpaid plans, or prepaid like previous iPad offerings?
And can you cancel and reactivate on your iPad?
Click to expand...

Rogers has a special on this month. They will waiver the setup fee and they will double the amount of data download for the next 2 months. So it's no different than the prepaid account.
 
I don't have my iPad yet, it's coming this week but according to Rogers site, Halifax isn't LTE covered anyway. I was wondering if because we're not LTE covered, if I'll still be able to buy my data plan on my iPad? However, Apple sent me a LTE sim card.

This could have been so simple, but they've made it confusing. I also only WENT with Rogers because they said they have on-device data activation. Come to find out its only for iPad 1&2. But like I said, if you're not covered by LTE in your area.. can you do on-device data plan activation? :confused:
 
hNicolas said:
Are you talking about the postpaid plans, or prepaid like previous iPad offerings?
And can you cancel and reactivate on your iPad?
Click to expand...

I am talking about the flex post paid plans. They are contract free and you can quit anytime. You can't cancel and deactivate them on your iPad, though. You have to contact Rogers, which sucks. I really wish Rogers would just give out per-authorised SIMs for LTE. Signing up on the iPad and managing your account from Settings is much better for the customer.

----------
AppChat said:
do u tihk its worth the extra 129 for 4g?

i already have an iphone that can do personal hotspot
Click to expand...

Personally, I would never buy an iPad without the cellular connection. I want to use my iPad everywhere and hate being tethered to Wifi hotspots.

As for using the Wifi hotspot on my iPhone, I would find it very annoying to loose the battery life on my iPhone from hosting the connection. Also, since the iPhone suspends the connection after a period of inactivity, that would mean everytime I want to use my iPad I would need to dig out my iPhone and reinstalling the hotspot to host the connection.

For me, the extra $130 is nothing compared to the constant inconveniences I mentioned above. I love having my iPad's Internet connection just work all the time.
 
I got the wifi one and opted out of the lte version
The lte plans are just for Toronto and few other cities and I travel to rural areas that don't have lte just 3G

Maybe in summer when iPhone 5 comes out , I dont mind using the hotspot to lte then
 
HelveticaNeue said:
I am talking about the flex post paid plans. They are contract free and you can quit anytime. You can't cancel and deactivate them on your iPad, though. You have to contact Rogers, which sucks. I really wish Rogers would just give out per-authorised SIMs for LTE. Signing up on the iPad and managing your account from Settings is much better for the customer.

----------



Personally, I would never buy an iPad without the cellular connection. I want to use my iPad everywhere and hate being tethered to Wifi hotspots.

As for using the Wifi hotspot on my iPhone, I would find it very annoying to loose the battery life on my iPhone from hosting the connection. Also, since the iPhone suspends the connection after a period of inactivity, that would mean everytime I want to use my iPad I would need to dig out my iPhone and reinstalling the hotspot to host the connection.

For me, the extra $130 is nothing compared to the constant inconveniences I mentioned above. I love having my iPad's Internet connection just work all the time.
Click to expand...

theres also the extra expense to factor in. i beleive minumum monthly ayment of 15 dollars for only 250mb for ipad data plans. do u consider that worth it for your purposes?
 
I'm with Rogers, and they let me change my 6gb 3G iPhone data to 6gb LTE at no cost, and add the new iPad as a data line for 15/month. They have a promo on to permanently reduce your value pack coat by 50% as well, so in total my bill is up 5$/month but I have 6gb pf LTE data to use on my new iPad and iPhone per month.

Sweet ass deal IMO.
 
Fynd said:
I'm with Rogers, and they let me change my 6gb 3G iPhone data to 6gb LTE at no cost, and add the new iPad as a data line for 15/month. They have a promo on to permanently reduce your value pack coat by 50% as well, so in total my bill is up 5$/month but I have 6gb pf LTE data to use on my new iPad and iPhone per month.

Sweet ass deal IMO.
Click to expand...

^ This looks like a good deal, if they let me change my iPhone data plan to LTE
I will gladly pay the sharing fee for my iPad if it comes out to be $5.00. But did you get the value pack 50% discount on an existing plan or new? To pay an extra $15.00 a month though, to use data that I have already paid for is robbery, it's just the principal, I hate paying them more for no added value.

It still sucks that they are reeling us with plans rather than making it easy to buy data whenever you need it. For the occasional user its not fair at all.
 
AppChat said:
theres also the extra expense to factor in. i beleive minumum monthly ayment of 15 dollars for only 250mb for ipad data plans. do u consider that worth it for your purposes?
Click to expand...

I do. Absolutely. I suppose it is something everyone has to decide for themselves: Just how much does $15 mean to them? I am definitely not wealthy but I can easily waste $15 on lunch, or a couple lattes, or some other small meaningless purchase that I didn't even realize I made. The main test for me is that when I see the $15 dollar charge on my credit card every month I don't grimace or regret it, I know it was one of the few items listed on that credit card statement that was well worth it's value.

Oh, and in two years I only went over the 250MB limit once.

I know $320 ($130 plus $15*12 over the year) seems like a lot of money when you think about it all at once. But if you calculate how much you spend a year on coffee or beer or anything, it always sounds horrible.

Really you just need to decide how much you are going to use the iPad when away from Wifi and know yourself well enough to decide whether the minor annoyances (noted in a previous comment) associated with using tethering would bother you.

Update: Just thought I'd share some Canadian LTE speeds while I'm here. I don't get LTE in Oakville, but at my Office on the Oakville/Mississauga border I am getting 22Mbps up and 18 down with only 1 bar.
 
Last edited:
Fynd said:
I'm with Rogers, and they let me change my 6gb 3G iPhone data to 6gb LTE at no cost, and add the new iPad as a data line for 15/month. They have a promo on to permanently reduce your value pack coat by 50% as well, so in total my bill is up 5$/month but I have 6gb pf LTE data to use on my new iPad and iPhone per month.

Sweet ass deal IMO.
Click to expand...

hey did you have to call them to get this deal? or did you go to a store?
I called them 3 times and none of them was able to find this on their system..
 
Just got my Telus SIM delivered, and called Telus. Was going to have my iPad added onto my Telus iPhone data plan ($30 for 6GB), so they'll share the data. Cost - $10/month. But partway through setting up the plan, they came back and said they couldn't offer that anymore, and the only option was tethering. Need to phone and complain to somebody about that...

Ended up signing up for the flex plan, for $5, with no overages for the next two months. Figure that will let me find out what my usage will be like, then I can decide where to go from there. Or maybe they'll come back with the $10 data sharing option

Speeds just west of downtown Edmonton:
37ms ping, 18.66Mbps down, 19.79Mpbs up. Only getting one bar of signal strength though, and my iPhone is at 3 bars.

C
 
Does Bell offer any bundle discount if you have Bell Sat TV?

Anyone compare tethered speeds vs a dedicated sim?
 
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