IOS 6.1 has lousy LTE. Why?

Have you checked with Verizon? There is the possibility of a tower outage.

Admittedly mine is an AT&T model, but I am not seeing this behavior.

Where'd the tower go? Out for lunch? 😁

Yes, but tell it to stay away from the coffee. Water + electronics do not mix 😉.

You wouldn't know that by the number of people who keep putting their iPhones in water. Maybe these problems should be called "user outages." 👿

😁

Just picked "tower outages" because it was catchy - like "power outages." 😉

Clay142 wrote:

Has anyone else noticed that the LTE indicator in the upper left of the iPad screen says 3G a lot more often than LTE after upgrading to IOS 6.1?

No, I haven't noticed this on either my iPhone or my iPad.

I took a risk and got Sprint, despite a rather lame LTE map. One week after getting it, they went live with LTE in my area of Los Angeles (and it has broadened widely since), even though it's not official.

I'm happy with my uncapped LTE that runs just a touch slower than my Time Warner Cable. And it's faster today than it was a few weeks ago, as more towers go online in my part of the city. Let's hope for no earthquakes.

Clay142 wrote:

I don't think there is a tower outage. I go to several places miles away in Los Angeles County and still it seems like my iPad prefers 3G over LTE. LTE might show up for a few seconds, then back to snail speed. Like it prefers Tai Chi instead of Taekwondo. Maybe I'm being throttled?

As your local expert on LA County, I can tell you that Verizon has variable coverage especially along the mountains.

Same problem up here!

I am in Canada using Rogers as ISP, specifically in the Toronto area which has around 4.5 million population - and LTE is now non-existent on my iPad Mini. The only thing that I can correlate with is the 6.1 upgrade that I applied around the same time I noticed getting no service at all when I was about town, often just using Map, eMail or trying to fire up a webpage.

I've already tried a new nano SIM from Apple. It worked for a short while immediately after my ISP registered the new SIM. Then I (foolishly) put the iPad down and resumed my other activities. After about 2-3 hours later, I tried the iPad from the exact same location and LTE vaporized and 3G was barely working and then it too quit and I got no connection at all.

I reset all settings and now my iPad seems to get useable 3G service but it is VERY CONFUSED ABOUT LTE. At times it will detect LTE signals and resume LTE service with 2 bars. But when I try a connection it almost immediately fails. Other times, it tries the LTE connection and takes an extremely long time trying to disply a webpage on Safari (progress bar to approx 60%) but displays nothing. It is not switching to 3G - it's just sitting there with no data and LTE with 2 bars, the network activity indicator spinning.

I'm working with Apple US tech support on this problem and my contact seems to indirectly acknowledge there may be an 6.1 issue but so far we haven't begun discussing this yet. I won't be able to speak to him again till Monday.

Thought I'd update my earlier posting. I tried locking my SIM as Clay142 suggested. Did not fix my problem but the iPad did seem to switch more readily to 3G when LTE got hung up.

I've upgraded to iOS 6.1.2 and for whatever reason I believe my problem is now fixed, sort of. The iPad works and LTE works when I take the iPad away from home. LTE does not work at the location where ROGERS, my ISP originally provisioned the device for the new nano SIM I tried as a remedy. LTE worked well right after the provision - I was on the phone with the ROGERS tech. But LTE stopped working about 4 hours later when I picked up the iPad again.

I think there are 2 things going on - Apple fixed something with iOS 6.1.2 because my iPad Mini is now working again when I take it away from home. It is still not working at home because ROGERS has very poor LTE coverage where my house is. The only reason I can think of why it worked during provisioning of the new nano SIM is that the ROGERS tech turned up the LTE coverage during the provisioning, then turned it back down afterwards. I have had this happen with 3G service at another town some years ago where ROGERS had very poor signal at that location - the ROGERS tech actually told me they would turn up the signal for me and they did. The signal did improve.

I drove around the neighbourhood and using the iPad I was able to locate the boundaries where the signal drops right off, from 4 bars to 2 bars. I cannot get a connection when LTE drops to 2 bars.

Finally, I am quite miffed at Apple Tech Support. Even though my iPad Mini was clearly under warranty and they acknowledged the problem, tech support simply stopped returning my calls and answering my emails even though the tech guy said he would get back to me. This happened immediately after I asked them to provide some means of obtaining a numeric readout for the cellular signal instead of the rather unreliable 1-2-3-4-5 bars indicator on the upper left corner. iPhone users can call a number and switch the bar display to a nurmeric display but since the iPad cannot dial, this feature doesn't work on the iPad.

When I discussed this need for a cellular signal strength indicator the tech guy seemed to indicate it requires the iPad to be jail-broken which is ridiculous from a functional standpoint because signal strength is already being indicated, albeit in bars. The tech guy seemed to "turn off" when I suggested that Apple look into providing such a feature.

After that, both tech guys I was working with simply disappeared. Very bizarre and unprofessional of Apple. I complained to Apple when I received a request to rate the tech support response I received. Hope they get their heads sorted out.