iPad iPad vs iPhone cellular connections

[diane143]

I was away in an area last week that had spotty Verizon connections in spots. The house I stayed in had no wifi, so I turned on cellular on the iPad, which I've done in the past year with no issues.

There would be times I'd have 3 bars and an open circle and it would spin and spin and go nowhere. There would be times I'd have 2 bars and 3G and nothing would happen. Anything on the internet was painfully slow. I could do things on the phone sitting in the same chair that I couldn't do on the ipad. By Saturday night, I couldn't even get a simple email to go out. I turned it on and off a couple of times.

My phone is a 4s and the iPad was the first retina display March 2012. I thought they'd be more alike with connectivity. They are both up to date with OS updates, and both on Verizon.

Is the iPad worse or could something be wrong with mine?

Thanks!

 

[takeshi74]

It's really impossible to say based solely on your post. If you suspect a hardware defect then have it checked out.

 

[colodane]

It is possible that you were in an area where data roaming was required and you had it turned off on the iPad. I get the same symptoms on my iPad 2 when in that situation.

 

[diane143]

It is possible that you were in an area where data roaming was required and you had it turned off on the iPad. I get the same symptoms on my iPad 2 when in that situation.

I had high hopes, but it's off on both. Now that I'm in that in that section I realize I have LTE turned off, and it looks like they have LTE where I was.

I'll test them in another place this weekend and I'll have to remember to turn on LTE when I go down there again.

 

[JackieInCo]

Not unheard of at all.

On my iPad Mini using an AT&T data only sim at my house, I can not get any kind of data at all. Edge frequently displays. No LTE at all. No data no matter what time of the day.

Using that same sim in an iPhone 4S, I can get data at my house depending upon how I hold the phone and what time of the day it is. No data during the day but up to 2GB at night as I said, depending on how I hold the phone.

I have no trouble getting data at all using T-Mobile on both. On the Mini on T-Mobile at home, I get LTE. On the 4S, speeds up to 8Mbps.

Yes, the device can make all the difference in the data that you can get.

 

[diane143]

Not unheard of at all.

On my iPad Mini using an AT&T data only sim at my house, I can not get any kind of data at all. Edge frequently displays. No LTE at all. No data no matter what time of the day.

Using that same sim in an iPhone 4S, I can get data at my house depending upon how I hold the phone and what time of the day it is. No data during the day but up to 2GB at night as I said, depending on how I hold the phone.

I have no trouble getting data at all using T-Mobile on both. On the Mini on T-Mobile at home, I get LTE. On the 4S, speeds up to 8Mbps.

Yes, the device can make all the difference in the data that you can get.

Thanks Jackie, just the real world experience I was looking for. I did try it on my overnight Saturday. I turned on LTE and everything was blazing fast for all of 5 minutes (after having to reboot it to enable LTE). After that, speeds slowed to a crawl and some sites refused to load. Despite having 3+ bars at the hotel, I had to switch to wireless to upload anything from either device. Last year I remember wireless being really sketchy at this location and I was in the room next to last year, with the wireless modem outside the door.

Next time I'm in the area I will probably have a genius check it out to be sure it's not a hardware issue.

The other thing I noticed is that on wireless at the hotel, I was able to stream a movie with little buffering. I tried to finish watching it at home and it's extrememly painful, but it works better on the phone than the iPad. Comast did obsolete my modem a couple of years ago though so maybe I just need to suck it up and buy a new one.

 

[JackieInCo]

I had bought my DSL modem back in 2008 and at my house one morning there was a power failure. When the lights came back on, the modem failed. I ordered a new one and also got upgraded to the fastest speeds that they offer for the same price that I was paying for the lower speeds. At the time in 2008, the faster speed wasn't available here so I could only choose the one speed.

I downloaded 5 5GB TV shows last night in under an hour.

Also, I noticed that sometimes my iPad will speedtest at the download speeds that I get on my MacBook and other times, it will barely test out at 1Mbps download. Not sure why but my iPhone will do the same as will my Nexus 4 and Nexus 7.

Not sure if the speedtest app is really all that accurate.