Wi-Fi now, 3G later

The iPad went on sale April 3, and more than 300,000 of the Wi-Fi-only tablets, ranging in price from $499 to $699, were sold the first day. Another version, which will have both Wi-Fi and 3G cellular connectivity, costing between $629 and $829, are due to be available later this month.

The 3G-enabled iPads can be used on AT&T's network, without a contract for $29.99 a month for "unlimited use" and $14.99 a month for up to 250 megabytes. Sprint and Verizon Wireless also say the iPad will work with their mobile hot spot services, which require a monthly fee.

For those with Wi-Fi only iPads, another service, Boingo Wireless, sells a $7.95 a month subscription with unlimited Wi-Fi access worldwide. Users can also buy one-hour Wi-Fi "credits" for $1.99 using their iTunes account.

However, many iPad users are going with Wi-Fi only because they don't want to pay extra fees and want to be able to use the tablet from comfort of their home with their existing Wi-Fi setup.

Peter Jarich, Current Analysis' research director for telecom infrastructure and mobile networks, said one of his colleagues bought an iPad and had some Wi-Fi issues with the device.

"While he has no trouble connecting to Wi-Fi around his house, he has admitted that the signal on the iPad isn’t as good as with other Wi-Fi devices," Jarich said.

'Many tweaks and much interaction'
Allen Nogee, In-Stat Research wireless and infrastructure technology analyst, said with new devices such as the iPad, "there are many tweaks and much interaction that occurs between the hardware, firmware and software, and sometimes it all doesn’t come out right in the beginning.

"The good news is that if this isn’t a hardware problem, then Apple will likely be able to fix it in software and firmware." Firmware is software made specifically for hardware.

In its Knowledge Base articles about the iPad and Wi-Fi, Apple says, "Under certain conditions, iPad may not automatically rejoin a known Wi-Fi network after restart or waking from sleep."

The problem can happen with "some third-party Wi-Fi routers that are dual-band capable," meaning they can use two different wireless versions, for example, 802.11g and 802.11n.