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How to Set Up Verizon Personal Hotspot on the New iPad 3rd Gen

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If you now have a New iPad with Verizon 4G LTE, then you will want to set up the Personal Hotspot feature. This turns your iPad into a mobile hotspot so that you can share your cellular data connection with up to 5 other people much like you can with a MiFi.

The Personal Hotspot features normally adds to your monthly fee from the wireless carrier, but with the new iPad you get it for free. Let’s hope it remains that way and let’s hope AT&T adds it soon.

(Read: New iPad Review)

Below I will show you how to turn on your Cellular Data for the first time, if you want to use the month-to-month plan that you can set up right on your iPad. Then I will show you how to turn on the iPad Personal Hotspot feature and secure it.

Cellular Data in Settings

To set things up, you must first go into the Settings App and choose Cellular Data from the list along the left. In that screen choose View Account. This will let you enter your Name, email address, a new password twice to confirm it, and then your credit card data below. Choose the package you want on the next screen.

You can choose between the following:

  • 1GB/month for $20
  • 2GB/month for $30
  • 5GB/month for $50
  • 10GB/month for $80

See Which iPad 4G LTE Plan Is The Best For Me? for advice on picking a plan. I recommend the 2GB for most users. Heavy users can go with 5GB, but few will ever need the 10GB plan unless you stream a lot of video, download a bunch of content or use your iPad all day every day, and don’t connect to WiFi.

After you pick your plan, you will see a screen like the one below only asking for your email and password. You can change your plan or add more data to the present month, if you’re going over your limit. You will also see your data plan status at the top of  the screen (2nd picture below).

Personalhotspot

How to Set a Personal Hotspot on the Verizon iPad 4G LTE

In the video below, I show you how to share your iPad’s Internet connection with the free personal hotspot feature on the new iPad.

Setting things up on Verizon’s end may take a while for this to work. I had to restart my iPad and wait a long time before the Personal Hotspot link in Settings ever showed up. You will see it in the list of Settings pages along the left side of the main Settings app.

Vzwipaddata

Pick your data plan. I recommend 2GB for most and 5GB for heavy users.

Make sure you turn on your iPad Wi-Fi, next to the top of the Settings App list, or this won’t work. Now choose Personal Hotspot and turn it ON using the ON/OFF button. Under Wi-Fi Password you can either leave it as the default or change it. I recommend changing it to something you will remember but no one else can guess. Use both letters and numbers. For greater security add some symbols.

Notice that my screenshot below shows I chose “donkeykong213//”. That’s probably a good password with the numbers and forward slashes, but without them its a terrible password because I used actual words.

Personal Hotspot in Settings

Pick a strong password to protect your Personal Hotspot using letters, numbers and symbols

It will do some thinking after you hit the Done button on the top right corner. Your Personal Hotspot is now on.

To connect with your Wi-Fi device, go into your Wi-Fi settings and choose your iPad, identified by your iPad’s name. As you can see from the screenshot of my iPhone’s Wi-Fi page my iPad uses the name Kevin’s New iPad.

iPhone Wi-Fi Settings

When you turn the Personal Hotspot feature on in Settings and someone connects to your iPad, then three things will happen. First, your status bar at the top turns blue and shows that someone connected. Second, your iPad disconnects itself from Wi-Fi so that other devices may use the Wi-Fi instead. Third, your battery will likely drain a little faster, so only turn it on when you need it. This is also safer since people can’t access and try to crack your password.

ipad status bar turns blue when someone connects to the personal hotspot

Notice the blue status bar at the top when I connected my iPhone to the iPad via the Personal Hotspot

Have any questions about setting up or using the personal hotspot on your new iPad? Let us know in the comments/

28 Comments

28 Comments

  1. Snzkickin

    03/16/2012 at 8:05 pm

    My sim card has been active for about 9 hours and no personal hotspot option. Even powerd it off a cople times too. 4G works fine too…

  2. Rick

    03/16/2012 at 8:52 pm

    Try clicking on General then Network.  When I did the option magically appeared in the main list as well as under the Network listing.  Happened to another user who posted on a forum I frequent.

    • Swcopeland

      03/17/2012 at 4:28 am

      Thanks Rick. That was it

    • Hugh

      03/17/2012 at 2:04 pm

      Thanks, Rick.  I had the same problem and that fixed it.

      • Baro

        03/21/2012 at 7:56 pm

        Thanks Rick. I did the same thing also and it worked

    • Francisco

      06/11/2012 at 9:20 am

      I was waiting for about a week for it to show up, read this article like 4 to Ed trying to figure it out and this was it.
      Thanks a bunch

  3. LoveMyNewiPad3

    03/16/2012 at 11:10 pm

    Thank you Kevin for the article and Rick for the comment that fixed it for me. Going to General->Network did the trick. Thanks a bunch

  4. Randy Walters

    03/17/2012 at 7:37 am

    Rick, that did the trick. Thanks!

  5. JoeCNM

    03/17/2012 at 10:18 am

    Going to General -> Network does do the trick but I can’t figure out how to get it to use my LTE connection.  In order to get my iPad to be recognized by my computer I have to turn on the Wireless setting which connects my iPad to my local Wireless network.  I feel like I’m stuck in a loop… Turning off Wireless will make the iPad use the LTE connection but now it can’t be seen by my computer.  Has anyone figured this out?  Thanks in advance.

    • JoeCNM

      03/17/2012 at 10:51 am

      I just turned off my local wireless network and eventually I got my computer to use the LTE connection.  It seems to take a while to make the connection but it does work.

  6. Jackie Starke

    03/17/2012 at 1:25 pm

    I am connected via Verizon LTE, but my Set up Personal Network is greyed out — it won’t let me access it

  7. Jackie Starke

    03/17/2012 at 1:36 pm

    So I finally got it, set it up & changed my password, but I can’t get my mobile device to connect.  I’m sitting right in front of my iPad, the Personal Hotspot is on but it says NOT IN RANGE on my phone (it shows up among the list of available networks).  I have an active Verizon LTE connection with 4 bars, so I don’t know why it’s saying I’m out of range.  Is there something else I need to do?

    • Kjhtpa

      03/22/2012 at 2:33 pm

      What kind of range have people been getting?

  8. JT

    03/18/2012 at 7:42 am

    Is there a way to see what devices are connected to your iPad, like a drop down from the status bar or something?

  9. Ganda

    03/18/2012 at 10:00 am

    I can’t Find the personal hotspot on/off button to set up the personal hotspot on my new iPad. I have tried resetting the network setting but still it did not come out.
    My cellular provider supports personal hotspot on iPhone 4 and 4S. Is there any Cellular Service Provider Profile Configuration that I can use to enable personal hotspot on my new iPad?

  10. Marco

    03/23/2012 at 8:23 am

    I had to call Verizon and once they setup my account PIN the Personal Hotspot option got enabled it appears..

  11. Jerry

    03/26/2012 at 9:43 am

    Is there a way to change the name of my personal hot spot? It is using my name for the iPad, but I am at work and would rather not advertise that I have a connection. Even not broadcasting the name would be fine too. Thanks.

  12. Pixartia.com

    03/27/2012 at 11:53 am

    Dear all,to resolve this problem you should complete following steps:1. Download operators list from here 2. Look for most modern profile of your operator (looks like https://appldnld.appl…xxxx.ipcc)3. Download this profile (ipcc file)4. Close iTunes if it’s opened and running5. Open Terminal6. Put and execute following command: defaults write com.apple.itunes carrier-testing -bool true7. Close Terminal8. Connect your new iPad via cable9. Run iTunes10. Press and hold option key while clicking “Check for Update”11. In dialog window point to the downloaded ipcc file (downloaded on step 3)12. Wait until synchronization will be completed.13. Disconnect iPad14. Reboot iPad15. On the iPad open Settings > General > Network >16. Switch on the Personal Hotspot setting17. Personal Hotspot should appear in Settings and should function normally.18. Enjoy your life!Good luck!!!
    __________________My works at : Pixartia/

    • Pixartia.com

      03/27/2012 at 11:59 am

      Link in step 2. https://iphonediags.apple.com/version.xml

    • KYH

      03/29/2012 at 3:00 pm

      I got the Personal Hotspot to work with VerizonLTE  and my IPAD3 being the Access Point to my MacBook Air.  However, every time I go away and come back and try to use again (say a day later), it takes a long time (several minutes) before the name “…IPAD..” shows in my list of WiFi connections available on my MacBook Air.  Does anyone know how to fix this so I can see the IPAD Access Point faster and don’t have to wait 3-4 minutes?

  13. Jacobwtyler

    03/29/2012 at 4:32 pm

    The Bluetooth feature won’t work

  14. Transactionmike

    04/25/2012 at 11:27 pm

    Will this work for the att version or no?

  15. Cat

    05/22/2012 at 7:44 pm

    Honestly, I still cannot figure out why you need a hotspot when you have cellular or Wi-Fi…?? What is the upside? Doesn’t it use cellular if you are not near a Wi-Fi system anyway? And if you alan use Wi-Fi, why tether, or go to a hotspot? Just use the Wi-Fi…..what am I missing?

    • Brad

      07/01/2012 at 5:54 am

      Have a family or group of people you’re traveling with?

      Think of the savings you would have with a HOTSPOT instead of having 5 different devices subscribed to a yearly contract. It works in my family to have one device to be the HOTSPOT and everyone else use it as a portable router. I can turn on the iPad HOTSPOT for one month/allotment of data, and not have to use it again until the next vacation, since it’s not under a cellular contract.

      I just access it/pay for it when I need to and otherwise have it turned off, since I’m around my wifi connections a majority of the time.

      Just some perspective from my experience.

  16. Tushar

    06/15/2012 at 11:42 pm

    Is this personal hot spot available only on Verizon ? Or it can be connected through Vodafone or bsnl or idea or any other from India ?

  17. Robin

    07/25/2012 at 1:58 pm

    why can’t I access “View Account” on my Ipad3 to sign up for Verison? After about 1 second it changes to Session Expired before I get a chance to request service.

  18. Niyaas

    08/11/2012 at 3:35 am

    Hai I canot see the Enable LTE

  19. Jo

    09/20/2012 at 10:36 am

    I did all of that connecting my laptop to my ipad3. Doesn’t work. Can’t get an IP address. So much for hotspotting on an iPad with these instructions.

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