iPad 3 Verizon LTE sim issues

This Verizon SIM card worked well for me with prepaid data on my iPad 3, so if you need a working SIM card, and are willing to pay a couple of bucks:

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006GCE5QQ/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I got the above SIM card after going to a Verizon store as instructed by Verizon, to get a SIM card to use with their pre-paid plan. This was after the one in my iPad 3 sat for more than 6 months without getting used and could not be used anymore. The Verizon store would only give me a SIM card if I put the iPad on my monthly Verizon plan, which I have no desire to do. I understand that any Verizon SIM card will work for pre-paid or on your monthly plan, only the Verizon store would not give me one just to use on pre-paid.

Note: I don't work for Amazon or Verizon, and have happily replaced my "soon to reach 6 months" expiration (again) Verizon SIM card with a TMobile SIM card on their 200MB of data per month free program. The TMobile SIM card with free data is working fine for me.

having a tmobile option sounds great.

I did have another idea.

For those that dont use the ipad that much would be to add it to your plan and then suspend the line for three months at a time .The cost would be $53.43 for three months service each year .You would use it one month on and three months off.

You know, I wanted to get it to work on Verizon because I really wanted the LTE speeds But after spending all this time on it, and my patience starting to run thin, I may just go and get the t-mobile card. (I already have t-mobile on my phones).

As for the $17+ a month as an add on line for Verizon, I don't have any other Verizon devices, and after this fiasco, I'm 100% certain I'll never do business with them ever again. This was the worst kind of advertising for them. This should have been a simple operation. Instead they spent hours on the phone with me so I could buy a $20 data plan and failed. That's not even smart business from their side.

I have multiple work devices. I usually turn on this iPad for personal trips and turn it off when finished. Obviously right now t-mobile makes far more sense. I'll just lose the LTE on this particular device until it's replaced.

Thanks everyone for the feedback.

@Stanman525 ... that would work if I could ever get Verizon to activate this new SIM card, but they don't seem to be able to do that. I think I'm done trying.

T-Mob here I come.

Christmas is a time of miracles!!!

I finally got a hold of someone at Verizon Pre-paid that knew what they heck they were talking about!! I am now up and running.

But a few points that came up that you all need to be aware of:

- The retail stores think and act as if they are a separate business from VZW Pre-Paid. They will make NO effort to help you with pre-paid because they view it as a competitor. Even if they KNOW how to fix you, they will not help. Pre-paid knows this, but they treat contract the same way. So you have two arms of the company knowingly trying to torpedo each other.

- The Twitter assist for Verzion is for post-pay only. They won't or can't help with pre-pay

- You do NOT need a new SIM card when yours is bricked. pre-pay tells me they can "re-activate it" for you for free.

- It is no longer 5 months to "brick" your SIM card. It's now *3* months (90 days) since last use. (Yes, they made it even MORE difficult)

My opinion still hasnt' changed that this will be my last Verizon device. But it was very nice to finally speak to someone that was knowledgeable and helpful. (and my device is now humming along at 23 MBps LTE again.)

Unless things have changed, when my SIM cards were "bricked" for:

1. More than 6 months since it was activated and used.

2. I removed my pre-paid account instead of just stopping service.

Neither time could Verizon re-activate the SIM card that I had. It was toast both times. There are times when they can re-activate it, but not always. I guess that's what we, the customer, get when they think that they have a monopoly. They just do whatever they want, not in the customers interest but they apparently feel that they don't have to care.

Anyways, as I said, I don't care at the moment, working fine with TMobile.

Just reporting what they said to me.

(and I'm not sure why I even believe them since they've lied to me at every turn since this started.)

Good move with t-mobile. That's who I'm going with after this.

Hey folks. If you have a VERIZON LTE IPAD it will work with ANY SIM be it AT&T, T-Mobile or any other GSM carrier. By FCC rule all VZW LTE devices (including iPhones & iPads) are fully unlocked whether you buy them from Apple or VZW despite what they tell you. The only catch is only the iPad 4, iPad AIR, iPad Mini and Retina Mini have all the proper bands to get the LTE frequencies from the other carriers. On the older VZW models you won't get LTE just 2G or 3G.

You don't have to sell your Verizon iPad to use another carrier. I've used both T-Mo and AT&T on my VZW Mini, Mini2 and Air and get full LTE coverage. I always buy the Verizon model because it's unlocked PLUS it has a higher resale value.

Neither T-Mo or AT&T will kill off your sim.

Also, any VZW sim will work on VZW prepaid. Don't let them send you one because it will not be provisioned properly for Prepaid. Buy any VZW sim off eBay and it will work just fine (if you insist on continuing to deal with the morons who work for VZW).

It is true that any carrier that uses the 700 band is required to not lock the device under FCC regulations.

I might sell so that I can use the LTE. Switching the iPad 3 to T-Mo or AT&T brings us back to HSPA+ speeds (which isn't terrible, about 8-10MBps), but once you have experienced 35-45MBps on LTE, you sort of get spoiled.

(Although Verizons speeds have been dropping the last few months and they are almost at the point of being at HSPA+ speeds.) My T-Mo Galaxy Note 3 (LTE) regularly gets 35-45 MBps. Quite nice indeed.

I totally agree with everyone who has had a great experience switching to T-Mobile.

I had the same on-going hassles with Verizon. Based on advice in this forum, I ordered a T-Mobile micro sim card off the website and popped it in. To activate it I called the basic prepaid customer support number and they set me up for the prepaid service (with the free 200MB and ability to buy more data as needed). They just needed to assign my device a mobile "phone number."

BTW, don't worry about unlocking issues. Verizon told me they "can't" unlock the iPad 3. But in reality they don't even need to. They were horrible to deal with down to the very last interaction.

Never again - I love T-Mobile!

Will that sim card work in a Verizon ipad4?

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006GCE5QQ/ref=wms_ohs_product?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It should, but you are still going to have to call the Verizon Pre-Pay desk and deal with those unpleasant folks. The problem is that the normal provisioning process for non iOS devices (aka Phones) is that VZW will send you a text message that you have to respond to (or get a code from). Two problems here: 1) You won't get the text message on your iPad, and 2) The normal process has you managing the iPad from their web-site and NOT the device.

If you call pre-paid *and* get someone with a clue, they can fix this all for you in typically about 30 to 60 minutes.

BUT: If you have to call them anyway, have them send you a SIM card and save yourself the ebay fee. (Unless they try to charge you a high price, then buy one on e-bay and call them back.)

As mentioned above, there is no way to make this easy. It's the last Verizon product I'll ever buy.

Thanks Ellis Z. I was not sure and wanted to make sure if I have to buy one off of ebay, I have read that if you use the prepaid plan as I only need the cellular plan when I travel and you cancel after the prepaid time (for example 30 days) that it burns the sim card and it is no longer usable.

I believe that if you don't use prepaid data for 6 months, then you'll need a new SIM card. Unless they've fixed this, which I really doubt, since it works so well for them *smile*.

When you hit "cancel" on the iPad it warns you that they will "disable" (burn) your account in 5 months. In reality, it's 3 months. This really doesn't work for me as I have other connection options, but would gladly use it for 2 or 4 months of the year. But I'm not dealing with these hoops anymore. T-Mobile is in my future.