Personal Hotspot cutting in and out

Same here. Except I can't connect to my hotspot more than once. Then the connection drops from the iPad but my iPhone tells me it's still connected. Now every time I turn the wifi off and on on both devices, the iPad sees the hotspot, but won't connect, but the iPhone says it's connected. It's really quite frustrating.

Same problem here. I already had the AT&T tethering plan, and had used the USB tethering previously without problem. Installed iOS 4.3 (no probs), flipped on the personal hotspot, and tried to connect my Dell laptop. It connects for a few seconds, blue "hotspot tethering" bar shows on phone, laptop gets an IP address, then drops out on both ends. I can repeat the process as many times as I want, but it won't stay connected. Rebooted the phone, still no soap. Hope someone has a cure for this.

I read a couple of suggestions on a Verizon iPhone hotspot thread.

1. Phone is too close to laptop (within a foot or so). So I moved it 10 feet away. No love.

2. Phone name (which is also the SSID) has spaces or apostrophes in it. So I changed the phone name to a short string with no spaces or punctuation. Still no love.

I then tried it with my wife's newer Dell, running Vista. Ta-da! After a minor bit of futsing around, it connected and stayed connected. But still could not connect (or stay connected) with my older Dell. So now I am thinking hardware or drivers.

Wifi adapter is internal on this old lappy, rather than an external USB stick. I went to the dell site and downloaded the latest Intel drivers for the WiFi hardware and installed. Still no soap. It tries to connect, hangs on authentication, and eventually gives up and cycles.

So now I think it is a compatibility issue with old hardware/software that doesn't properly support the WPA2 security, even though it says it is supposed to. Anyone come up with anything else?

Well, for what it's worth, I jailbroke my iPhone 4 when it was running iOS 4.1 and installed MiWi (the only way you could tether via wi-fi prior to 4.3). It worked FLAWLESSLY. For the 3+ months I was using MiWi to tether, it never dropped. I primarily use it to stream internet radio in my car using my iPhone 4 and an iPod touch. (as an aside, Apple should consider allowing MiWi on the app store, since it's a fantastic product!!)

I upgraded to iOS 4.3 a couple of days ago and changed my plan with AT&T to include the tethering option. I am now 100% a victim of the same thing you guys are all complaining about. I can connect to my iPhone 4 from the iPod Touch and it will stream for 6-8 minutes, and then the connection is dropped and, unless I restart the Personal Hotspot on the iPhone 4, it won't connect again. You'd think that the Apple solution for wi-fi tethering would be better than one intended for jailbroken iPhones...think again!

I'm experiencing the identical issues when I connect with my laptop, or my older iPhone 3GS. In all instances, it will connect for a few minutes, and then drop the connection.

So this only leads me to conclude that this is ENTIRELY a software issue and not a hardware one. Since I was able to use the same hardware flawlessly before, and now it fails 95%+ of the time.

I'm sure you'll be hearing TONS of these complains and Apple will be forced to come out with some sort of hotfix for this. I'm convinced (because of my own experience) that this is a software issue.

Well, after resetting the network settings on both my iPad and my iPhone, all connections seem to be strong as an ox. Try resetting network settings on both devices.

I was jailbroken before iOS4.3 and MyWi worked great until the last few updates, then it got super flaky and would only work 1/4 of the time. It was enough of an annoyance that I decided to pay for tethering and upgrade to 4.3, losing my jailbreak.

After a couple 0day hiccups, all seems to be well. Been using my iPad and MacBook both on the hotspot for the last 4 hours and still haven't seen the connection drop.

Hi, I have no problem with my laptop running Vista, but on my laptop running XP pro connection did cut in and out, UNTILL I tethered the Iphone via USB. I think this allowed the Laptop to register the IP of the Iphone. When I removed the USB tether, and tried to connect wirelessly to the Iphone hotspot, it worked, and did so even after reboot. Could work...

The story continues - Dell Latitude D510 with Windows XP SP3, I updated the Intel 2200BG wifi drivers. Nope. I changed wifi power management on the driver from default (minimum) to maximum. Nope. I reset network settings on the iPhone. Nope. I tethered through USB. Hardwire tethering worked before, and still works, but when I disconnect the USB and try to connect via wifi, NOPE.

But I am glad to hear that some people are having success. Keep those ideas coming, and I will keep trying different stuff. The software on the laptop can see the iphone wifi hotspot, but it fails after 10 - 15 seconds of trying to establish a connection. I really believe it has something to do with the WPA2 security. I think. Maybe.

Same here!

I have the AT&T Tethering plan. My iMac sees my iPhone's wi-fi hotspot network, connects but can't connect to internet.

Doesn't connect to internet via Bluetooth (yes, my machines are paired) nor does it connect to internet via USB.

When i connect to PC via iphone 4 hotspot, it'll last only max 10mins after that the signal will drop and connection become idle. i cannot connect to internet at all after that. if i connect using USB cable, it lasts much longer but the signal will drop when the phone goes to sleep. Can anyone help...please.

Resetting my network settings seems to have stopped by iPad from forgetting that the personal hotspot it there, but when the iPad sleeps it disconnects, which *****, but when I wake it now it does reconnect, which is ok and not nearly as annoying as having to shut everything down and turning it on again to reconnect.

Will try renaming both devices to remove apostrophes and spaces to see if that fixes this.

Apple needs to fix this in a software update is my guess.

Just to update this, I found that if I use bluetooth to connect I didn't get any push noticiations but the connection was solid. So what I eneded up doing (until something is fixed or another workaround is found) I am connected to the hotspot via BT and wifi... BT keeps my connection and wifi allows for my push notifications. Totally lame solution but its woroking for me right now.

So yah, it's still cutting in and our even after renaming the iPhone and resetting network settings. If I leave the iPad on sleep for more than a minute the iPhone stops broadcasting the wifi connection.

Again, the needs to be fixed in a software update

I agree. Instead of using BT and wifi, I resorted to making a 5 min blank mp3. it wont cut off while the ipod is in use.

Also, the ipad has zero isues on my home wifi. It can sleep all day and still get push notifications.

I had exactly the same problem, would connect over USB, Bluetooth and Personal hotspot and anywhere between 1 minute and 30 minutes, the internet connection would stop sending data and would have to reboot to get it working again. I tried calling up apple support and now one had heard of this issue. After reading through the this forum, someone suggested doing a full restore.

I have been using the internet tethering for a few days now without a problem. I would recommend you try this.

I to have been having difficulty with my personal hotspot cutting out every ten minutes or so. I have the iphone 4 with ios 4.3. I had no difficulty tethering my 1 year old macbook pro. It never cut out on me. But since I upgraded my ios, I noticed that it started cutting out. I rely on tethering since I am always on the road and I find this a hassle. Is this just a software thing or is this a way for the carriers to annoy the crap out of us and steer us away from tethering?