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Verizon iPad 2s suffer 3G blindness

Searching? Roaming? Rebooting? Cursing

Updated Owners of Verizon's iPad 2 are complaining on Apple's support forum that their fondleslabs are having problems connecting to Verizon's CDMA 3G network.

Last Saturday, a user with the handle of nixxon2000 began a thread on Apple's iPad discussion board saying that he or she was unable to get a 3G connection. Since that initial posting, 83 other users (and counting) have chimed in, prompting nearly 13,500 page views.

The problem manifests itself in two ways: either by simply not connecting to the Verizon network, and instead displaying "Searching..." at the top of the display, or by displaying "Roaming..."

Poster nixxon2000 reports having spent two hours at an Apple retail-store Genius Bar trying to get to the root of the problem, only to discover that "They have no idea why its doing that."

Another poster, Dambuilder, reported that after navigating up Verizon's support ladder, he or she was told that "the constant roaming indication is a bug that they presently have no solution for."

Other users, including some at iPadForum, have reported successful reconnections after rebooting, while others have not found relief using that method.

Yet another poster, ethynol, solved the Roaming problem "after 2 calls to Verizon and hours on the phone." Apparently that annoyance is related to Verizon's Preferred Roaming List (PRL) database, and can be fixed by deleting all content and settings, then restoring and syncing.

These problems have surfaced (thanks, Cnet) just days after Verizon's execs were no doubt feeling smugly satisfied at the news that the research firm ChangeWave had released a survery that determined that AT&T's iPhone 4 dropped over two-and-a-half times as many calls as Verizon's iPhone 4.

The expansion of iOS devices – both iPhone 4s and iPad 2s – to the Verizon network was heralded by Apple-product fanciers as a welcome development, seeing as how AT&T has been roundly excoriated for its inability to support the data-hungry hordes of iOS users.

With the Verizon iPad 2 now displaying connection problems, however, that excitement may become a bit muted – even though at this point it has not been determined if the Searching problem is caused by Verizon's network or by Apple's iPad 2. No matter – in the consumer-electronics biz, perception is reality.

Although, as one commenter to a Business Insider story about these very problems put it: "Cmon, folks surely you can find a way to make this at&t's fault. Your just not trying hard enough." ®

Update

Friday afternoon, Apple acknowledged the Verizon iPad 2's 3G problems, telling All Things Digital: "We are aware that a small number of iPad 2 customers have experienced connectivity issues with the Verizon 3G network and we are investigating it.”

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