iphone 4s - HOTSPOT - WILL NOT STAY CONNECTED

My 4s has the same sickness. Not good for taking online test. Apple you need to fix this or refund me the extra I'm paying Verizon for a hotspot. If I knew this I would have kept my palm pre and saved myself $20 a month.

Yep, having exactly the same issue. In fact it's dropped 3 times just trying to reply to this thread. The reason I upgraded to the 4S from my 3GS was for the upgraded 3G speeds so I could tether my unlimited 3G connection as my landline broadband is so slow as to be unusable.

I've tried everything from turning off the Bluetooth to setting static routes but it's still rubbish. Watching films on Netflix is a painful experience as use lose the thread of what's happening because you have to keep resetting the connection.

Come on Apple, get it sorted.

well i contacted apple support and this is the solution so far... reset your network settings in your phone.. go to settings, then general, scroll to bottom of list and choose reset, then reset network settings.

i also turned off any other devices that may be send out wireless signals such as my printer, home alarm etc... so far it seems to be working

Unfortunately it doesn't work for me. I have reset the network settings so many times now I could almost do it blindfold and there is no other networks or transmitters near me. The only way I can use the personal hotspot is on usb, which is useless for my iPad 2 and my Xbox 360.

so frustrating i know. contact apple support via express lane.. i hope they can help.

I have been having that problem for 6 months and my IT guy finally found a solution by mining the web. I don't know the source of the answer to give credit but it works !

Text of blog posting below:

t does, thanks! I was getting really frustrated with connecting my iPad to my 4S via Personal Hotspot. After a fresh boot of the phone it would work as expected but if the connection was terminated (say by switching hotspot off and on) or after the two hadn't been connected for a while it got into this state where I could see and connect to the hotspot but it would drop a few seconds later then try again over and over.

After a lot of experimenting I finally figured out that there seems to be a pretty serious bug in the hotspot's DHCP server. AP discovery and WPA authentication work great but in this weird state the iPhone will not give the connecting device an IP. The only solution to fix the DHCP server is to reboot the phone.

That being the case, grasshoppertrekker's advice is bang on - you need to give the connecting device a static IP address. This gets around the DHCP issue.

For the less technically inclined, here's how to do that with an iPad:

- Reboot your phone and connect to the hotspot as usual and ensure the connection works

- On the iPad go to Settings - WiFi and tap the arrow to the right of your iPhone's name

- Write down all the values you see under the DHCP tab

- Tap the Static tab (or Manual)

- Enter in the same values you just write down

- Hit "WiFi Networks" at the top to go back

The iPad will now reconnect using the same settings as DHCP would have given it, but without relying on the broken DHCP server.

Optional extra: Instead of using whatever DNS values the DHCP server (and by extension your mobile data ISP) gives you, use OpenDNS IP's instead. This will speed up YouTube due to their partnership with Google and prevent your ISP from traking your web usage via DNS interception. To do this enter the following into the DNS field under the Static tab: 208.67.222.222,208.67.220.220 (note the comma)

Interesting idea - I can confirm that entering in the same values seems to do the trick. I might try upping the ip address by 2 or three (just the final number on the first static address - in case I allow others to use my hotspot so I don't run into issues with duplicate addresses.

Thanks for the tip!

Simon

Hi All,

I was having the same issue with my 1 week old iPad 3 connecting to my iPhone 4.... I FIXED IT FOR GOOD! Here is what to do....

Go to the Settings>General>Bluetooth and PAIR both devices to each other.... THAT'S IT! Simple...

Now for the better part... If you're always going from one place that has wifi to another place that has wifi all you have to do is leave the iPhone Hotspot ON and when you get to a wifi just turn off bluetooth on the iPad (so as not to always be using your cellular data) and when you're not in wifi anymore turn bluetooth on the iPad back on and connect to iPhone.

I hope this helps most of you. Haven't tried pairing my laptop yet but no reason why this shouldn't work the same if your laptop has Bluetooth.

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Heath