Sprint MiFi in hand

Rounding out my series on wireless data card sharing, I’ll introduce you to Sprint’s MiFi data card.

Before I do, let me make a brief argument for this type of device. Anyone who travels for a living knows how handy a data card can be when your stuck in an airport with no wireless, or when you need to pull over and check your work E-mail for a certain Excel spreadsheet.

If you’re someone that travels with a group, or has co-workers who you meet with, or even if you simply hold meetings in out-of-the-way places – like a construction site, for example – sharing your cellular internet connection is a real convenience.

Sprint MiFi Security Setup Page

Imagine you sit down to meet with a co-worker or client and they are having trouble getting to the internet, or perhaps they can’t connect to the free wireless hotspot (you can’t always rely on the coffee shop’s connection). With Sprint’s MiFi device, you could simply offer to share your connection with your guest. They can ’see’ your data card as a standard Wi-Fi network and connect to it either without a password, or with a WPA pass phrase of your choosing (WPA2 and WEP are also optional).

The card does not plug into your laptop computer’s USB port. It can’t, actually. You can only connect to it via Wi-Fi. The card can be used while charging (a AC Adapter is included), or it can be used while being powered by it’s own internal battery: completely cord-free. Although the battery doesn’t last terribly long (maybe about an hour or two), it’s pretty spooky to power the device on, drop it in your briefcase or purse and be able to hop online.

Sprint MiFi Package Contents

I like that it doesn’t connect to the USB port. There’s nothing more unnerving than having a device jutting out from a fragile port on your notebook. Not only that, but you can’t set down the notebook in your car with one of these sticking out, or you’re asking to snap it off and possibly destroy your USB port and/or the data card itself.

Speed is pretty impressive. I got 1.2 Mbps in most good reception areas, even driving down the highway. The card keeps track of your downloaded data, but only per session. In other words, it resets after it disconnects, so it isn’t meant to keep tabs on your monthly usage. As we’ve stated before, Sprint limits usage to 5 Gigabytes per month. To make sure you’re not exceeding the limit, you’ll have to logon to Sprint’s website to check your total data usage. But at least the meter gives you somewhat of an idea how much data you’re pulling down per session.

My only real complaint is that there is no car charger provided. Come on! Where is the one place you will be using might be using your data card a lot? That’s right – your vehicle. I tried to charge the card with another USB mini-plug adapter, but apparently the amperage was too low. I needed more juice, so I had to use a DC/AC 150 Watt adapter and plug the AC adapter into it just to be able to charge in the car.

Port Fowarding Available

The router even supports dynamic DNS services, VPN pass-through and port forwarding. Although you are limited to 5 concurrent connections, I’m sure that limit is in place primarily to prevent people from trying to do too much and then complaining about download speeds. Of course, 5 users could gobble up a 1 Mbps connection quickly.

Overall I think the Sprint MiFi is headed in the right direction. And heck, with my iPhone’s terrible AT&T coverage, it’s sure nice to piggy-back off of Sprint’s 3G network when I’m getting a half a bar of signal.