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Mobile Wi-Fi Hot Spot

bsharma writes to let us know about a little goodie that we will be able to buy starting May 17: a battery-powered, rechargeable, cellular, Wi-Fi hot spot that you can put in your pocket. "What if you had a personal Wi-Fi bubble, a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go? Incredibly, there is such a thing. It's the Novatel MiFi 2200, available from Verizon starting in mid-May ($100 with two-year contract, after rebate). 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. ... 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." The device has its Wi-Fi password printed on the bottom, so you can invite someone to join your network simply by showing it to them.

15 of 202 comments (clear)

  1. Better reception with this unit by rwwyatt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    One Advantage of the MiFi unit is that the performance is better than that of a standard datacard. Laptop Noise is an issue with usb sticks especially in low coverage areas.

    Disclaimer: I work for the Manufacturer.

  2. "simply by showing it to them" by Ant+P. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    And what do you do when you no longer want to let them have access?

    1. Re:"simply by showing it to them" by James+Skarzinskas · · Score: 5, Funny

      Kick them in the nethers and run away?

    2. Re:"simply by showing it to them" by davester666 · · Score: 5, Funny

      You smash their computer, of course. And you'll have get them in a headlock that cuts the blood flow from their head, to try to wipe their short-term memory (of the password and you smashing their computer).

      And you'll have to kill the witnesses, as this is all in public.

      --
      Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
    3. Re:"simply by showing it to them" by Hillview · · Score: 5, Informative

      Theoretically, you could "type 192.168.1.1 into your Web browser's address bar -- a trick well known to network gurus -- the MiFi's settings pages magically appear. Now you can do geeky, tweaky tasks like changing the password or the wireless network name, limiting access to specific computers, turning on port forwarding (don't ask)." Of course, you could also read the article.. Theoretically.

      --
      -Troll, Flamebait, and Offtopic are NOT equivalent to disagreement.
    4. Re:"simply by showing it to them" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      And what do you do when you no longer want to let them have access?

      Gee, I dunno Einstein, maybe stop showing them the password?

  3. Someone forgot about the Cradlepoint! by strredwolf · · Score: 5, Informative

    Someone forgot about the battery powered Cradelpoint systems. They're at http://www.cradlepoint.com/ and aren't tied to one system or another: You provide a USB dongle for it. It provides everything else. The PRS300 or the CTR350 has been around for years now.

    --

    --
    # Canmephians for a better Linux Kernel
    $Stalag99{"URL"}="http://stalag99.net";
  4. They've finally perfected male birth control. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Just what I've always wanted, a mobile wi-fi hotspot sitting in my pants pocket microwaving my genitals all day long.

    1. Re:They've finally perfected male birth control. by Darkness404 · · Score: 5, Funny

      I don't think this is a problem for most /.ers

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  5. Been there, done that. by haner · · Score: 5, Informative

    I don't see the big deal in this. For those of us who run Symbian based phones, Joikuspot has a free version which allows you to use your phone as a personal wifi hotspot with encryption. I use my E71 on ATT for an instant 3G hotspot wherever a 3G connection exists.

    1. Re:Been there, done that. by ouimetch · · Score: 5, Funny

      "it provides a personal, portable, powerful, password-protected wireless hot spot."

      Clearly anything that can be described with this level of alliteration is a big deal.

    2. Re:Been there, done that. by CaptainPatent · · Score: 5, Funny

      "Allegedly, anything able to be accounted for with this amount of alliteration is absolutely astounding"

      There, fixed that for you.

      --
      Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
  6. Re:Cash money! by CarpetShark · · Score: 5, Informative

    Yeah, I don't get how these highly-metered services even exist -- especially on "landline broadband". Even in mobile broadband, it's nowhere near justifiable, methinks. Anyone who pays $40 for half a CD per month of data transfer in 2009 is batshit insane. That probably wouldn't even cover the spam I get.

  7. Re:Singularity? by rwwyatt · · Score: 5, Informative

    I am not actually an RF engineer so my thoughts/explanation may be completely ludicrous(it would not be the first time). My expertise is basically layer 3 through 5 of the OSI model

    During the system test phase, a large number of measurements were performed to isolate the impact of Wifi Noise on 3G and 3G Noise on WiFi. It was found that there was actually minimal impact of Wifi on 3G and vice versa.

  8. WMWifiRouter, JoikuSpot, PDANet... etc? by SirJorgelOfBorgel · · Score: 5, Informative

    "What if you had a personal Wi-Fi bubble, a private hot spot, that followed you everywhere you go? Incredibly, there is such a thing."

    Yeah, it's called a phone!

    If you have a Windows Mobile phone with an internet plan, you could use WMWifiRouter(the most advanced of the pack), which has been available since 2007, and was the very first app to do this.

    If you have a Symbian phone, you could use JoikuSpot, which has been available since 2008.

    To continue, for iPhone you could use PDANet. For Android there are also several programs available as well!

    Why would you use something like this and get another data subscription when all you need is already in your pocket? Aside from the internet plan which you are likely to have already, all of these software are available for a small one-time fee - likely lower than one month of the data package itself.

    Funny thing, none of those apps ever made it out of the firehose when I posted them. What makes this (very expensive and limited) product so special?