An Example of AT&T's Poor Customer Service (Kinda Long)

[jcherepy]

I thought I would explore using my iPad 3 as a hotspot. Over the course of a week I talked, chatted, and met face-to-face with five different reps and the first said I couldn't do that. The second said yes you can, just change to the appropriate data plan. The rep I talked to to change the plan said he could change it, but I could NOT use the iPad as a hotspot. A very nice young lady at the AT&T booth in the Mall of Georgia assured me I could do it. Yesterday, at the same booth, I asked a somewhat disgruntled young man what would I need to do once my new plan took effect and he told me I could not use the iPad as a hotspot. When I showed him on my iPad where I was changing to the plan with hotspot, he said, "They must have changed that while he was on vacation last week." Yeah, right!

For the record, I used my iPad as a hotspot this morning while in an area with no WiFi. Something three-fifths of the reps I talked said I couldn't do.

Bill
Grayson, GA USA

 

[twerppoet]

The iPad 2 could not do this, and still can't. When the iPad 3 first became available, you had to pay extra in your plan to use it as a hotspot, but you got more data too. Later AT&T introduced a shared data plan, similar to Verizon's. In this plan all devices capable of generating a hotspot can do so, sharing the same data limit across all devices. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that's how it all panned out.

I know this, and I don't use AT&T, so it is kind of sad that the reps in your area are so badly informed. Hopefully this isn't as prevalent as your experience suggests.

My Verizon reps may or may not have been more knowledgable. I pretty much went in and told them what I wanted after researching it myself. They did not blink though, which suggests I was at least speaking the right language. More the point I've never had one try and push an Android phone on me after I already asked for the iPhone. There have been some reports of this practice.

On a more positive note, I was looking for a lightning adaptor for my iPhone 5 and dropped by my nearest Verizon outlet on a whim. They not only had the adaptor, but after looking over my account decided I qualified for a discount. I'm now getting 15% off my data plan. It was worth the half hour it took, mostly them waiting for their over burdened computer system to do it's job.

It's so sad when tech companies can't get their own computer support right.

 

[The OB]

An enjoyable and informative thread!

 

[jdelrizzle]

Well I had a similar experience, and in the end I couldn't get a straight answer, how did you do it? Did you have to purchase the prepaid $50 5 gb monthly plan to enable wifi hot spot? Or did you have to get on some sort of data share plan? I've been trying to figure this out for a while please do let me know as I have both an ipad 3rd gen and an ipad mini with AT&T.