two weeks with the MiFi

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: Craig Partridge <craig () aland bbn com>
Date: June 5, 2009 8:03:05 AM EDT
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>, Will Leland <wel () bbn com>, newmedia () aol com 
, steve () stevencrowley com, brent () nordist net, staylor () bbn com, Vince  
Cipriano <vciprian () bbn com>
Cc: Craig Partridge <craig () bbn com>
Subject: two weeks with the MiFi


Several folks asked me for my experience with the Verizon MiFi.  I  
have had it for a bit over two weeks now and been able to use it in a  
range of environments including three airports (Detroit, Washington  
National, and Boston),  and a variety of locations in the Michigan,  
Washington DC and Boston areas.

For those who haven't seen the advance reviews, the MIFI is a credit- 
card sized wireless hub connected to the Internet through Verizon's  
EVDO service.  The simplest way to think of it is a wireless hub that  
works just about anywhere a cell phone would work.  It supports up to  
5 concurrent WiFi clients.  It costs $100 (after rebate and if you  
sign up for a two-year plan) and offers three plans: a low usage  
domestic plan, a higher (5GB/mo) usage domestic plan and an  
international plan (not mentioned in the reviews I saw but quoted to  
me at the store).  Verizon quotes these as $40/$60/$120 respectively  
but after taxes and fees are added in, for me, the $60 plan became a  
$70 plan.

My experience so far has been generally positive, with a few  
glitches.    If you have 5 bars for EVDO connectivity, you usually  
experience excellent WiFi service, comparable to or better than your  
typical hotspot, and the battery life appears to be close to the  
advertised 4 hours (the longest  continuous use time for me was about  
2 hours and I had not reached 1/2 battery strength).   Things were  
less happy if EVDO connectivity was less good
(in Verizon's defense, it took effort to find such locations).   I  
managed to spend several hours in a location where I had zero/one bars  
yet had carrier -- nicely enough WiFi still worked but,  
unsurprisingly, it was highly bursty and the loss rate was high (6%  
measured).  A surprise was that the MiFi became noticeably hot to the  
touch and depleted its battery in about 90 minutes.  My summary --  
wonderful when connectivity is good (which it usually is) and workable  
but a challenge when connectivity is bad.  Note none of my tests  
involved more than one WiFi client at a time.

Three other observations.  You can plug the MiFi into your laptop's  
USB port and it will work as a modem and draw power from the laptop (I  
didn't check to see if others can still see the MiFi as a WiFi hub in  
this mode).  So battery life is not the critical feature you might  
imagine.  On a Mac, the accompanying software package (which, so far  
as I can tell, you only need to get cumulative usage statistics so you  
know when you are getting close to your monthly data limit) only  
worked with the MiFi plugged into the USB (which may be a  
configuration error on my part) and tends to hang.  Simpler to simply  
use the (unadvertised) web interface (http://192.168.1.1/).   Last,  
while the overall MiFi packaging is sturdy (nice in a small device  
likely to get bounced around), the USB connector is one of those USB A- 
>mini B connectors used in cameras and does not feel robust (it  
requires considerable force to plug the mini-B connector into the MIFI  
and my guess is it may not survive two years of frequent plugging/ 
unplugging -- I'm going to look for a better cable (in the hopes that  
reduces strain) and failing that, buy the monthly insurance).

Overall I'm pleased.  Obviously this is just my personal experience  
and your mileage may vary.

Craig




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