| Virgin MiFi After seeing Pogue's column yesterday I bought a Virgin Mobile MiFi.Why? No contract and the $40 unlimited bandwidth using Sprint's 3G network. I have an iPhone and iPad, both grandfathered in under the $30 per month unlimited AT&T plan. If this thing works out I can dump my iPad plan (albeit permanently giving up my option for the AT&T unlimited plan) and go to the cheaper $15/month plan for the iPhone. Although this only saves me a couple of bucks a month, it gives me the option of using my laptop or any other device with the MiFi.
So far the story is not too encouraging. It was very difficult to get the MiFi set up. And once it was set up it kept disconnecting and requiring me to go back to the set up wizard to re enable the device on my account. The set up wizard told me to call Virgin tech support, but that just resulted in a bunch of hang-ups from "Alex", Virgin Mobile's automated response agent (perhaps an inbred relative of Sprint's Clair?) and then finally getting put on hold for over 30 minutes before I hung up (Alex said they were "very busy" today).
This morning I tried again and was able to get the device successfully connected (and it seems to be staying connected). I ran a bunch of speed tests (Speedtest.net) using my iPad's 3G connection vs the connection via the MiFi. Using 10 runs each I was getting just under 1Mbps downloads and 0.3Mbps uploads on the iPad 3G and 200Kbps downloads and 90Kbps uploads with the MiFi. (Some of the iPad 3G speeds were as high as 1.5 Mbps downloads).
So there is a significant lack of performance in the Virgin MiFi (I think the technical term is "stinks on ice". And its connection reliability is yet to be seen based on my initial set up experience.
That being said, I'm going to keep with it for a while for a couple of reasons. Virgin may just be having some start up problems with this service. They are probably getting hammered once the word of this product got out. The other thing is that 3G service is really just a lifeline for me, not my primary means of connection. So while I'd love to see the Virgin speeds match what I'm getting from AT&T, it may not really matter in the long run. I'm still pretty pissed that AT&T changed their service plans right after I got the iPad 3G and that I'd have to jailbreak my iPhone to make it a no charge extra hotspot.
So don't write the MiFi off yet. It may still suffice for those who just need to check email without having to find a hotspot while on the road. Perhaps their speeds will increase some, although I would imagine demand will cause exactly the reverse. |
 DeeCPremium
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the world
kudos:1 | I did the same. I bought one because of the "no contract" and for use as a backup to my cable.
Yes, it was a pain to setup ...but I was able to do it myself. The wizard is no fun, but the main problem I was having was that when the Mifi went to reset after entering all the info, my laptop would automatically connect back to my wireless cable service. I had to disable that temporarily untilt he Mifi successfully reset and was running. After those hiccups, I could jump back and forth to either service without a problem.
The speed, right now, sucks! I had better speed with my Sprint phone nearly 2 yrs ago. They have to fix that, and I"m hoping they will.
I will be keeping it...since again, like you, it is not my primary internet connection, but merely a backup.
Let's hope they improve the speeds  |
