OK, I've had this problem too and I've got fibre.
The problem is that the iPad, or i thing, when in recovery mode is supposed to wait 15 mins then give up, in my case the solution was to get the software downloaded on the first attempt then to quickly put the iPad back into recovery mode before the software finished downloading. Often it won't recognise the iPad but fortunately it keeps the software. Now the tricky bit is to quickly say yes to everything it's asking and get it extracting the software as soon as possible. In my case on a fast machine I had to repeat the process from scratch 4 times until the software extraction was well I'm not sure, possibly less defragmented, or was mainly done so got completed quicker, anyway, it got there in the end and set about updating my iPad which had gone into meltdown because I tried a factory reset with an old OS installed. The bars on both the iPad and iTunes are progressing well, although they took about ten minutes to start. Fingers crosse. I'll hold on to say if it all worked!
And oh joy it has!!!
Hope you can have similar succes.
XBagpuss