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iPad w/tethering trounces 4510L

When they announced that the new iPad would have LTE and support tethering, I jumped with both feet. Boy, am I glad I did!

I had the notorious "dormancy" issue with my 4510L ever since 2.23 came out (it was worse before that), but even when it was working, I thought I was doing really well when getting 10+ mb/sec.

With my iPad, I find now that it's unusual to get less than 15 mbps, and the highest speed I've seen so far (mind you, it's only been 3 days) has been 28.8 mb/sec. And yes, that's with a speed test running on a tethered device.

It turns out that I'm probably going to use my iPad on its own more than I'm going to tether with it. That is counter to what I would have originally predicted, but even so, so far it's been more reliable, and a damn sight faster than the 4510L it's replaced.

Comments

John_Getzke

That sounds like a good review for the new iPad. Since you pay alot more for that device I'd hope they could afford to put in better radio parts too.

By tether I assume you mean a USB cable connection from the iPad to another device? I wasnt aware iPads came with USB ports other than for charging. What kind of speeds do you get on the tethered device if the iPad is performing above 15Mbps?

I'd be curious to know what kind of logging the iPad had for connection logs too. It would be interesting to know if Dormancy is a feature built into only Novatel products, only MiFi's or if its a new feature of all VZW's LTE devices.

nwsayer

You can tether to the iPad with either a USB cable, bluetooth or WiFi. I'm using WiFi. Only very occasionally do I see speed tests on tethered devices (via WiFi) dip under 10 mbps. Often (though not always) they're in the low 20s, and my personal best is 28.83 mbps.

nwsayer

There doesn't seem to be any connection logs available to the end user. I sort of assume that the iPad has lots of diagnostics that are available to Apple store geniuses, as is the case with the iPhone.

John_Getzke

Neat.

So the definition of tethering appears to have changed along with these new iPads. I'd assume that Bluetooth would have the lowest performance of the three choices, but I've never benchmarked a bluetooth internet connection before. Since WiFi has the typical wireless overhead, I'd assume USB is the fastest choice too. Not like its noticeable at speeds over 20Mbps anyways.

Too bad about the logging features. Perhaps we will stumble apon them if a problem ever comes up.

Keep us posted if your signal ever starts to degrade or give you problems. The iPad isnt necessarily a Broadband device or a netbook but I'm always happy to chime in on anything that I can.

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