Prepaid SIM card from AT&T didn’t provide cellular service on my iPad 12.9 after the AT&T rep tried for hours to make it work

I had recently signed up at AT&at for prepaid service on my iPad 12.9 and as soon as I inserted the SIM card I could see that the iPad showed that there was an active SIM card from AT&T in the device but was not able to provide service even after the rep tried everyfir hours, tried with the AT&T tech center, called customer service from the store. The iPad is in mint condition and worked perfectly with the T-Mobile SIM card for years up until the point that I tried the AT&T card for the same exact type of cellular service. We reset the device, downloaded the latest Apple software, checked every setting, took out the SIM card and put it back in a thousand times, tried all of this repeatedly over and over with different SIM cards, even tried an eSIM but at the end of the day AT&T was unable to provide cellular service to the iPad 12.9 Pro

iPad Pro, iPadOS 17

Posted on Aug 6, 2024 12:36 AM

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Posted on Aug 6, 2024 2:55 AM

The majority of mobile phone SIMs are not correctly provisioned for use with tablet computers. If they work at all, they may not provide access to the full range of cellular services. This is not a limitation of the iPad, but of the Cellular network provider.


If using a physical SIM with iPad, you will require a DataSIM explicitly provisioned for iPad or mobile broadband (a.k.a. MiFi).


Be aware that an iPad, whether a Cellular model or not, is not capable of directly accessing Cellular Voice or SMS/MMS Messaging features. An iPad with either WiFi or Cellular connectivity alone can only access IP-data services. If you have added a DataSIM and Cellular plan to a WiFi+Cellular model of iPad, the number associated with the SIM card is only used to identify your account for billing purposes. This number is not used for making calls or sending messages.

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Question marked as Top-ranking reply

Aug 6, 2024 2:55 AM in response to dakotajewels

The majority of mobile phone SIMs are not correctly provisioned for use with tablet computers. If they work at all, they may not provide access to the full range of cellular services. This is not a limitation of the iPad, but of the Cellular network provider.


If using a physical SIM with iPad, you will require a DataSIM explicitly provisioned for iPad or mobile broadband (a.k.a. MiFi).


Be aware that an iPad, whether a Cellular model or not, is not capable of directly accessing Cellular Voice or SMS/MMS Messaging features. An iPad with either WiFi or Cellular connectivity alone can only access IP-data services. If you have added a DataSIM and Cellular plan to a WiFi+Cellular model of iPad, the number associated with the SIM card is only used to identify your account for billing purposes. This number is not used for making calls or sending messages.

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Prepaid SIM card from AT&T didn’t provide cellular service on my iPad 12.9 after the AT&T rep tried for hours to make it work

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