Whether you live somewhere without 4G coverage, you live in a bad coverage zone, or you just want to conserve some battery life, it’s extremely simple to disable 4G / LTE on the new 3rd generation iPad and switch to 3G instead, which uses less battery life.
Note: We’ve not done formal testing yet to figure out how much battery life you might save, but there’s no question that 4G LTE technology uses a lot more battery overall, and it’s useful to know that you can disable it.
How to Disable 4G on the iPad
Head to Settings –> Cellular Data and switch Enable LTE from On to Off. As soon as you’ve done so, you’ll see the LTE in the upper bar change to 3G instead.
Of course, if you are sitting around your house with Wi-Fi enabled, there’s no reason for any G at all, so you can flip the Cellular Data off as well.
Note that flipping off the Cellular Data while at home should theoretically make sure that you are using less data from your plan.