HTC Thunderbolt: Frequent disconnects from Verizon 4G while using Mobile Hotspot
By Troy Saxton-Getty
I bought the HTC Thunderbolt 24 hours ago. I decided to swap out my MyFi 2200 which was dropping signal here and there and this phone could simply replace it with a 4G Hotspot mode which also steps down to 3G when needed. Since this was my primary reason to buy it, I was quick to find out about the frequent disconnects from 4G and Mobile Hotspot mode.
Ok, the HTC Thunderbolt is fantastic, long have I lived with EVO envy…. Finally, I have something better, so I thought…
HTC Thunderbolt
At first, I thought it was possibly my location; the downtown financial district of San Francisco is a tough place for the competition to serve up even quality 3G. Let’s look at the issues; large building attenuation, lack of towers in the right places, horde’s of mobile voice and data users and so on, it is challenging for all 4 big US carriers . With that thought in mind, I went across town to multiple different areas with full signal and noticed I had the same problem.
I tried setting the Thunderbolt to forced 4G LTE only mode with the super secret diagnostic and options *#*#4636#*#* menu (Don’t tell anyone 
), while it did stay connected a bit longer, it still recycled, dropped and reconnected, after 30-60 seconds and sometimes minutes between issues however, regularly enough to make the data mode almost useless for a hotspot.
So many different apps and tools struggle to recover from whacky connectivity that it actually increased my frustration to all new levels, almost as frustrating as AT&T dropped voice calls, but not quite.
This is clearly an issue with the new HTC Thunderbolt, in my humble opinion it’s during a step down at a reduction or loss of 4G signal, however the error recovery process fails and the phone goes stupid, sometimes requiring a total reboot. Locked in 4G LTE only mode, it drops and sometimes recovers and eventually it requires a reboot as well, just slightly better than multi-mode.
I wondered why the phone had a new shutdown option called “Restart”, which says “closes all apps and restarts the phone” on the descriptor.
Just like the good ole days of Microsoft…. I am glad I dropped nearly a cool phat grand on this phone and accessories since I didn’t want to extend my contract, I am even happier that I swapped out my MyFi 2200 3G Hotspot, it was far more reliable than the Thunderbolt Hotspot and now I have a non-operational MyFI 2200.
After some careful research and digging around, it is clear that I am not the only one having this problem, in fact, MSNBC.com has a video report on it, outlining how the phone gets “confused” and doesn’t recover from it very well. use this stories title and search, you will find many others already just days after its public debut.
HTC, why are you beta testing on us with this? I have a friend in QA there, I should call him and find out if this was a known/logged bug and they let it ship since they slipped on the original date…
Speedtest.net from my Macbook Air
Did I forget to mention this thing flies…. 4G LTE is unreal, better than most home and business high-speed internet… too bad it’s not WORKING reliably.
How frustrating!
http://www.dropSKIP.com ->; real gadget drabble and mashing…
