Tag: wifi

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Virgin Mobile MiFi 2200 Review

There are several MiFi devices out there these days but none as cheap as the one by Virgin Mobile.  A MiFi allows you to get on a cellular network via your devices WiFi.  Your laptop or iPad has WiFi but probably not built-in cellular network support.  This bridges that gap.  You can also use up to 5 devices thru the MiFi at one time so its more useful than a built-in connection like the high-end iPad.  This MiFi 2200 can be had from walmart.com for just $139.99 with no contract.  In comparison, the Verizon MiFi is $269.99.  The Verizon data plan is $60/month with a 5GB data cap while Virgin Mobile offers unlimited data for just $40/month.

Activation

The first thing you have to do is activate the MiFi.  This is actually different from paying for service.  Activation involves creating an account, getting some special IDs from Virgin Mobile, and entering them into the MiFi.  This is a simple guided process that you do by connecting to the MiFi via wireless and going to virginmobile.mifi in any browser.  One odd thing is that the MiFi will not connect to 3G (EVDO) until it is activated.  This means you have to go through the activation website via the older 1xRTT Sprint network which is only slightly faster than dial-up.  While annoying, you should only have to activate your MiFi once.  Once activated, you will then see it connect to 3G.

You can provide your billing info without actually starting your data plan.  You’ve got an option to have your plan auto-renew which is nice if you plan to use it always.  If you plan to use it only on occasional trips, there is also the option to only pay manually so when you sign up for a month of service, it will simply end at the end of the month.

Data Plans

In addition to the $40/month plan that most will probably get, there is also a $10/month plan with 100MB cap.  That’s a great cheaper option if you just need to use the MiFi for a short period.  There’s one other secret extra special plan only available to people who buy their MiFi from walmart.  For $20/month, you get a 1GB cap.  That’s a nice additional plan option since that would likely cover most people for a week long trip.  This is plenty reason enough to purchase your Virgin Mobile MiFi from walmart.

Performance

Virgin Mobile is owned by Sprint so it uses Sprint’s cellular network.  When you are connected to Sprint 3G, you can expect typical downloads speeds of 300Kbps to 1000Kbps.  While testing, I typically had 2-4 bars of 3G and averaged about 450Kbps.  This is no where near as fast as most DSL or cable speeds but for the price and mobility, I think its terrific performance.  If you are not in a 3G area, the MiFi will fall back to the older 1xRTT network where the best speed you’ll likely see is 100Kbps and more typical is probably half that.  I recommend you check out sprint’s 3G coverage map before purchasing to be sure 3G is available in the areas you plan to use it.  The 1x speeds are fine if you’re desperate for any connection but it will be painful to use.  As long as you’ve got 3G, you’ll be happy with the performance, especially at just $40/month.  If my home internet ever went out, I’d be happy to use this as an alternate internet connection.  And since you can start your data plan through the device, you can do just that whenever you have to.

Battery Life

You can expect to get about 4 hours of continuous use from the MiFi.  It can be setup to automatically power down after X minutes of no usage.  This can be handy to save battery life but it is also easy to simply press the power button until the light goes out to save battery.

If you are looking for a little more battery life like me, I recommend an external usb battery like the Satechi Battery Extender Pack.  The built-in MiFi has a 1150 mAh battery.  This Satechi has a 4800 mAh battery.  That means it has enough extra juice to fully charge the MiFi over 4 times.  It can also be used to charge almost anything else powered by USB such as iPhones, iPads or most other cell phones.

Admin Options

This MiFi offers terrific admin controls.  You can change the wireless SSID, the wireless password or admin password.  You can even setup port filtering, port forwarding, and mac filters.  Once you’ve setup your config, you can even back it up to a computer in case you ever have to reset your MiFi and restore your setup.

Conclusion

The Virgin Mobile MiFi doesn’t offer the fastest speeds.  It doesn’t offer terrific battery life.  But it is an amazing price with terrific data plan options.  If you’re a price conscious shopper that wants connectivity for any of their many WiFi gadgets, this is the device for you.  I think road warriors or occasional travelers would be happy with this device.

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Cheap WiFi Antenna Boost

We recently setup a wireless antenna and bridge for a customer in Occoquan, Virginia that needed WiFi to be transmitted across a large building and through floors. While the setup worked, the signal was poor. This caused lows speeds and even occasional lost connections. Therefore we setup a cheap directional antenna to point the signal directly where it needed to go. This fixed the problem by increasing the signal strength by about 40%.

How To Build The Antenna

Go to freeantennas.com’s Ez-12 page to download the image at the bottom of the page. Then resize the image as needed, print it, use business-card strength paper, glue on the aluminum foil, and put it together. Patrick Norton explains this simple project on his old DL.tv show.

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Wireless Draft N Compatability Issues

There are many flavors of wireless networking. Most common are 802.11B, 802.11G, and now 802.11N (Draft). 802.11N is “draft” because the standard has not yet been formalized, despite the sale of draft-N devices for over a year. For most people, this won’t cause a problem. But hitches do come up.

Draft N Works, Usually

When I was recently setting up a D-Link draft-N router with a MacBook Pro, I noticed that the wireless connection would drop regularly or show a connection but be unable to receive/transmit. This was due to the incompatable N implementations. The solution is to go into the router settings and switch it to only using B/G. In most cases, I have found draft N devices to work without any issues.

Future of WiFi Standards

The 802.11N standard is expected to be finalized by the IEEE LAN/MAN Standards Committee (IEEE 802) in November 2009. Then all the current draft-N manufacturers promise a firmware upgrade that will make them interoperable. Of course by November 2009, we might be looking at buying new draft wireless standards, as described by PC Magazine:

802.11s, a mesh networking specification that’s been on the drawing board since September 2003. (It probably won’t be final until September 2010.) Laptops and other devices with 11s support will function as mesh points (or MPs) and form links with each other, allowing packets of data to skip from device to device across the network as needed. Mesh has been around for a while in many proprietary forms, and is important not only because it can extend a network’s range but also because it has self-configuring abilities: Mesh devices can move about without impacting overall performance. In such a network, data will hop around from mesh point to mesh point along the shortest path to where it needs to go. Actual 11s is already in use in at least one product: the One Laptop per Child project’s XO laptop uses it to communicate with XS school servers, in some tests over distances as great as 2km with 802.11s data hops from device to device.

802.11u, called “InterWorking with External Networks,” will provide a Wi-Fi device with methods of connecting securely to a network, based on the external network’s type. For example, if you have access to the cellular connection that provides Internet access to the Wi-Fi router on a bus, 11u will keep that connection secure. It will also allow a Wi-Fi device to discover more information about that external network, such as whether it’s free of charge or not. 11u could be published by March of 2010.

802.11z “Direct Link Setup” is the 802.11 Working Group’s take on improving ad hoc connections, at least for business users. It’s entirely unrelated to what the Wi-Fi Alliance is doing for device-to-device communication. 11n allows two laptops that would normally communicate on a secure network to form a P2P connection to talk to one another exclusively. This happens only after they’ve authenticated security credentials through an AP. It’s a super-secure ad hoc that requires the right security setup.

See a full list of 802.11 standards and approval timelines from IEEE.

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WiFi Search from an iPhone or iPod Touch

Keeping with the recent WiFi stumbling posts, I ran across this software for finding WiFi access points from an iPhone or iPod Touch:

WiFinder

It’s a simple and convenient way to analyze wireless networks. It shows you if there is wireless encryption, what kind of wireless encryption is used, the name, signal strength and network channel of the wireless networks. It can be set to automatically rescan and beep when a new network SSID (wireless network name) is found. If you see an open network, you can even connect to it from the WiFinder app. It’s a useful tool for network admins or “wardrivers” who want to see what networks are around.

Currently the WiFinder app is free in the App Store.