Constantly losing data connection

Question

I have seen this many times all over the place but still can't find the answer.  We have 2 thunderbolts in our family and both phones do the same thing.  Says I have 4G but as soon as I open an app or try to use data it loses the data connection.  I have to retry several times before it will connect.  It gets to the point of rebooting the phone which doesn't even work all of the time.  This has happened so much that it almost makes this brick unusable.
PLEASE I'm begging anyone for an answer.  I have tried updates and phone settings....  I know I'm not the only one with this problem.

Answer 1

First, let me just say that I love the HTC Thunderbolt.  It does have a few quirks, I'll admit, but so do Microsoft products, yet, millions of people buy them with a general understanding that there can be glitches here or there.  For some reason, the general population just deals with them - probably because they don't have much choice.
Ok, so for the issue at hand, here's what I've seen happen on my device.
4G LTE can be intermittent - at my house and at my office.
There are 'dead spots' in my house, but overall very strong coverage in my house as well.  There's an area in my house where I know not to bother using 4G.  I switch to wifi if I need to use data.
Facebook is one of the apps which has the most issues for me.  The 4G LTE indicator blinks off, Facebook app searches for data, and a 'Signal Lost' message pops up.
Last week, I went to use 4G for video stream using my HTC Incredible 4G (which is only about 6 weeks old) at lunch time in my office.  Guess what - with an entirely different phone, 4G blinked off!  I was using Netflix at that time in an area where it's known that we have a very strong 4G LTE signal.
So I mention this because the intermittency isn't an easy issue to solve because there are so many factors that can cause sporadic behavior.  It could be the network, your location, your phone's electronic circuit board or the battery cover which contains the antenna for the phone, or the app you're using or even a combination of each.
As for big blue...  I have a corporate iPhone which has 4G.  It's not nearly as fast as the VZ phones, including my personal iPhone on Verizon's network.  The data and the phone with big blue seem very reliable, but the speed is so stinkin' slow, there's absolutely no way whatsoever, I'd personally consider moving to big blue.  But even this issue could be area dependent, phone dependent and location dependent.  Perhaps if I went out of town and used another cell tower in a big city, I might see faster data.
So what's a person to do?  My recommendation is to not bad mouth a company for not being able to fix every reported problem in the universe.  Attempting to fix every reported problem would take such an enormous amount of resources, none of us would be able to afford any plan because the costs associated with this sort of troubleshooting are extremely high.  There comes a point where it simply doesn't make sense to invest time and money into problem.
But, living in America means you can start a petition and if you get enough people to sign it, you're very likely to get attention.  There are petitions out there for things users want cell phone manufacturers and network providers to consider.  You could consider starting one and seeing if the problems are affecting a large enough user community to have Verizon prioritize a fix.  It's free and one of our constitutional rights and it does no harm to Verizon's future business by turning potential customers away who may have had a perfectly good experience using Verizon's product offerings and their network.  Just because one person had a bad experience, doesn't mean the guy or gal sitting next to him or her will be guaranteed to have the same issues.
Two people who participate in forums online were sitting side by side in the same building location with the exact same phone model.  One person couldn't get a 4G LTE signal and the other had one.  The same happens between the two Thunderbolt phone models in my household but I'm not planning to leave VZ any time in the near future.  I've tried all providers and for me, the best choice is clearly Verizon.
With that said, I feel strongly that customers who pay for service, should be able to receive the service - no doubt.  Best of luck to you!  I hope you're able to find a suitable choice, here or elsewhere.