I've run some pretty serious testing today of capabilities of the Thunderbolt. I've been very impressed with the function, but in both cases caused problems for the phone and likely the tower its connected to.
In the first test I ran a hotspot with an Apple TV and a Macbook connected to it. I was very impressed that the TB works fine as a router. I was able to stream HD content from the Macbook to the Apple TV with no issues. Netflix also worked fine on the Apple TV using the Thunderbolts hotspot.
That test successfully passed. I turned off the hotspot and put the phone down. A while later, I missed a call. The Thunderbolt had apparently shut itself off or crashed and didn't restart. After powering up it was ok.
In the second test, I was on a phone call using bluetooth and surfing the web over 3G all at the same time. Very impressive, everything held together. At some point I noticed that the phone had lost data connection although I was still on my call.
After the call, I have been completely unable to regain network connectivity. I've tried switching mobile network off/on, airplane mode on/off. I've rebooted the phone. After a second try powering off the phone, then back on, I've been able to get 1x, but no 3G.
My theory is that I may well have crashed the tower transmitter. This may not be so unlikely given the instability Verizon has had that caused them to shut down 3G for the Thunderbolt for 24 hours. I hope they fix it. I'm going to be relying on the Thunderbolt as my only network connection for the next 3 weeks. It will be essential for my business travel.
In the first test I ran a hotspot with an Apple TV and a Macbook connected to it. I was very impressed that the TB works fine as a router. I was able to stream HD content from the Macbook to the Apple TV with no issues. Netflix also worked fine on the Apple TV using the Thunderbolts hotspot.
That test successfully passed. I turned off the hotspot and put the phone down. A while later, I missed a call. The Thunderbolt had apparently shut itself off or crashed and didn't restart. After powering up it was ok.
In the second test, I was on a phone call using bluetooth and surfing the web over 3G all at the same time. Very impressive, everything held together. At some point I noticed that the phone had lost data connection although I was still on my call.
After the call, I have been completely unable to regain network connectivity. I've tried switching mobile network off/on, airplane mode on/off. I've rebooted the phone. After a second try powering off the phone, then back on, I've been able to get 1x, but no 3G.
My theory is that I may well have crashed the tower transmitter. This may not be so unlikely given the instability Verizon has had that caused them to shut down 3G for the Thunderbolt for 24 hours. I hope they fix it. I'm going to be relying on the Thunderbolt as my only network connection for the next 3 weeks. It will be essential for my business travel.