System vs Hotspot Outages

[Red Droid]

Does anyone else experience System vs Hotspot outages?

Here's another twist to the data problem. 4G has pretty much been down in the Chattanooga, TN area since yesterday evening (maybe earlier...just checked about 19:00 and it was down). It's back up, but flaky at 07:00.

3G generally works, running a speed test or two on the phone it shows 2.2mb down and about 600k up. Granted, I'm sitting in a known sweet spot for VZW coverage at the moment. Tethering my netbook to the phone isn't working too well. Its up and down and pretty slow when it starts to load a web page...all while the phone is screaming along with high 3G data transfer.

I'm not rooted, no aftermarket tether app, etc., just a VZW hotspot paid for every month.

This is the same issue I had during the last 4G outage with the 3G hotspot not performing. I called Verizon to politely let them know I was having data issues and would they look into it. The CSR that answered the phone was nice, and went back to look at my bill for last month after I explained this has been an off and on problem since the 4G system was brought online in my area. I heard her keyboard clicking in the background and she kinda caught her breath for a moment and said, "Sir, it doesn't appear that you're having an issue with data. You used 15.5GB last month! I've never seen anyone use that much data in a month." ...probably would've been more if the system would stay online and my phone could stay connected. Her only suggestion was to pull the battery, pull the 4G card, let it sit for 30 seconds and bring it back online. Yep, did all that several times before I called.

There's more to this problem than just the phone's loosing data connection. There are still times I loose Hotspot, but the phone data is fine. Happens on my Thunderbolt, the other Thunderbolt and a Bionic that are on my plan. FWIW, I don't think we've lost voice a single time...that's good because these are phones first and data devices 2nd...well, one T-bolt is pretty much just a data device. The article on 4G sim card provisioning explained alot, but doesn't really explain why phone data and Hotspot data are so different. I'm not convinced Verizon can tell what is used by the phone and used by another device via Hotspot.

I could blame one device for having a problem and want it replaced. Sorry folks, this is happening to all three (although the Bionic seems to be the most solid of the 3 at the moment, but not by much). I'm not going to jump ship and run screaming to ATT, Sprint or TMobile, I'll tough it out with VZW. I guess I'm really just asking for VZW to admit there is a problem and maybe enlist a few high data users to try and pinpoint when it happens or at least listen to some observations from the user's end instead of "Its HTC, Motorola, Samsung, Google, etc's problem...or wonder why I'm using so much data." They offered UNLIMITED data, I'm playing by Verizon's rules, if they didn't want people to use unlimited, they shouldn't have offered it!!!

Based on another thread, I'm waiting for the "Sunspots" excuse. Nope, my Verizon phones are down (data only) but my co-workers ATT and Sprint phones are up and running. Oh yeah, and I'm sitting at a radio console on a Motorola P-25 trunked radio system with no problems, FoxNews and the Weather Channel are running on two big screen monitors with no glitches...not gonna buy the sunspot event for yesterday/last night.

Apple may be behind the data speed curve, but they're looking pretty smart to me for not bringing a 4G phone to the market with these issues.

(Please read the above realizing I'm writing based on a time frame of Midnight to 04:00 on 29-Dec-2011.)

Thoughts?