Amazingly Cool Device Gives You Wi-Fi Anywhere

In a word, wow.

It’s a little wisp of a thing, like a triple-thick credit card. It has one power button, one status light and a swappable battery that looks like the one in a cellphone. When you turn on your MiFi and wait 30 seconds, it provides a personal, portable, powerful, password-protected wireless hot spot.

The MiFi gets its Internet signal the same way those cellular modems do — in this case, from Verizon’s excellent 3G (high-speed) cellular data network. If you just want to do e-mail and the Web, you pay $40 a month for the service (250 megabytes of data transfer, 10 cents a megabyte above that). If you watch videos and shuttle a lot of big files, opt for the $60 plan (5 gigabytes). And if you don’t travel incessantly, the best deal may be the one-day pass: $15 for 24 hours, only when you need it. In that case, the MiFi itself costs $270.

I’m going to give this a try. If I can get good speeds on Verizon EV-DO at my house in Colfax, I seriously might switch my home Internet access to this (I already pay $85 a month for a very slow connection). Then, when we travel, just take the Mi-Fi along.

» Read the Entire Pogue Review

http://www.sierrageeks.com Douglas Keachie

I have run through the whole gamut over the last two years.

dialup 4 -6

tethered Verizon cell 15 – 40
PC Card Verizon 30 – 120 sometimes faster Sierra 595 card

these two above both subject to absolutely random blackouts, between 5 and 15% of the week, and I’m 3.8 miles line of sight from the tower, and the 4 bars always show. I can SEE the bloody tower, tech support forever blaming my machine, finally sent new card, no changes there. Drive into town and it works fine.

5 gig limit, I never ran it above 2, and still blackouts. Seem to run faster when in town, even at 2 bars.

ATT DSL just installed in Honeymoon first month.
Almost always 100 plus, typically 150 -200, antiviral downloads at 200 – 300. Uploads of images at 50, almost all the time. Fastest Verizon could do was 20.

All speeds measured by Netmeter, totally separate software, which none of the companies want you to know about. Multiply the numbers times 8 to get bit speeds instead of byte speeds.

Good luck!

http://www.aaronklein.com Aaron Klein

Don’t doubt it. I would LOVE to have AT&T DSL or something equivalent. We have no DSL and no cable Internet in Colfax. So I’m stuck with our very friendly and nice hometown guy who bought a T1 and strung a wire up to a wi-fi tower on the hill overlooking town. He works hard and tries his best, but I’m paying $85/month for 512KB each way, and I don’t even come close to that kind of speed. Also have lots of blackouts.

So as long as the MiFi has a moneyback guarantee, I figure I can’t go wrong giving it a try.

Thanks for the referral about Netmeter. I’ve used http://www.speedtest.net too, which is Flash-based and has seemed pretty accurate.

Aaron

http://www.georgerebane.com George Rebane

Good post Aaron, looking forward to your report of experiences with MiFi. I wonder how long until the MiFi circuitry is incorporated into the next gen of mobile devices and cell phones.

http://www.aaronklein.com Aaron Klein

George, that and putting reliable 4G network speeds on the back end of this technology will really sort of end the lack of connectivity almost anywhere. Great point.

http://viettelonline.com ADSL Viettel

Thanks man, just what I was looking for. Worked like a charm Thanks so much…
Guest

Thanks man, just what I was looking for. Worked like a charm Thanks so muchu2026

Amazingly Cool Device Gives You Wi-Fi Anywhere

Markets change. Do your investments still fit you?

Subscribe to the Blog via Email