MiFi- The end of mobile broadband dongles
The cool guys from NovaTel Wireless had promised me one of these for a few months for testing and after much nudging and prodding it arrived on Friday.
Andy has been writing about it for a few weeks now but I think its the first one on these shores.
So what is MiFi?
A mobile broadband dongle? yes
A hotspot in a box? yes
The end of broadband dongles? 100%
This was one of the simplest devices I have ever set up, I charged it, removed my Vodafone sim from the broadband dongle and inserted it in the device, logged in to change the settings for the Vodafone APN, restarted it and voila, a portable mobile router.
Speeds are as fast as any USB dongle I have tested and most importantly using the MiFi software I can now create a hotspot on the move for friends to access.
Imagine how useful this will be on trains, Buses, long car journeys, hotel lobbies where your friends don’t have to pay to connect to broadband.
I think this has the power to change the mobile broadband game especially due to the simplicity of the device, on-board software is a breeze, its tiny (half the size of a cigarette pack) and most important is the ability to create a mobile hotspot.
On tests yesterday I got 3.5 hours minimum and nearly four maximum from a single charge, qik videos work good when streamed over it and calls over MiFi were steady and clear.
Its not available from any mainstream partners in Ireland or the UK yet but I can see it being here definitely in the next couple of months.
If you see a maxroam hotspot at your next event, log on, the password will be maxroam 
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Very nice – been waiting for something to change this Vodafone dongle i currently have which i have had loads of problems with.
Me want one! Any idea on the price?
I wonder if an IGO car charger can top up the Mifi’s power.
pat, we use vodafone dongle throughout the country and get 3G in half the spots we look for it. So I’d love a device that improves that hit rate, but I presume the mifi is still signal dependent. Sounds like it’ll make a positve addition to our field offices where we want to share internet access on the fly.
@Bernie
its USB 2, charge it from anything, PC, cigarette lighter, etc
Bad news for those of us searching for ways to DISconnect….and yet I’m wanting one too.
Very interesting device.
Read a ReadWriteWeb article saying price was expected to be about $300.
I presume they’ll be sold with Vodafone/O2/Three contracts like the dongles?
Ultimately I think we won’t need external devices for this kind of thing. I can set up an adhoc wireless network from OS X here, and I think there are laptops that ship with SIM card or whatever built in so they can pick up 3G (if not I’m sure it’s quite possible). Basically our laptops should and I imagine will be able to provide the functionality of the MiFi before too long.
Until then though, MiFi beats a dongle any day!
Eventually all netbooks will ship with a sim slot. Until then it is a good idea!
That is so fricken sweet, i want one. Desperately.
It is a great idea, but the problem is, I already have a device that can do this and more… My iPhone! Granted it needs to be jailbroken to tether over wi-fi, but it is possible.
so what your really saying Daniel is that you dont?
I do, my iPhone is jailbroken
I know the majority of people wouldn’t have that functionality, but still, it is technically possible
The advantage of the mifi is that it offers connection to up to 5 different devices at once; a definite advantage over tethering one device to a phone or having to have a 3G card in every device.
It’s a very generous offer to let others connect Pat, Interesting take on sharing, when one has a personal bandwidth cap, from my friend James at jkontherun http://jkontherun.com/2009/07/10/sharing-the-mifi-connection-am-i-more-likely-to-do-it-or-not/
I use Joikuspot on my N95 ( http://short.ie/joiku
) which seems to do the same thing. I’m not sure how many laptops can connect however.
At first glance I’d prefer Joikuspot – no additional boxes or chargers to carry – and it runs on my phone contract – so no additional monthly fees. I’ve found it very useful in buildings with bad 3G signals – I can leave the phone in the window and sit anywhere I want.
I like the idea. having a seperate battery means you can run this without risking killing your phone.
I used WMWiFi for a while (http://global.wmwifirouter.com/consumer/) but it was a bit flakey and drained the battery pretty quickly… tethering a single device to my phone is a better bet for more things (but no good for sharing…)
Well in fairness to the iPhone you can connect over BlueTooth, a fairly common connection method for mobiles and laptops. I shared my iPhone 3G connection with some friends on a train much as you would with this MiFi. Cool device though, good deal better than a dongle.
It seems like it’s going to kill the Mobile Broadband Dashboard Advertising business model before it manages to get off to a start!
http://www.mobile-ent.biz/news/33756/3-sells-ads-on-mobile-broadband-dashboard
We have just ordered ours from http://www.expansys.com/d.aspx?i=183117
So now for sale in the UK