Portable wifis? Mifi on three network?

[pasqo83]

I was just looking on the three website about those portable Mifis. Basically wifi in your pocket. Sounds good for when you go on holiday and you have to pay for the wifi service and you can have this instead.

Anyone got any good reviews about these? Can you use the three wifi service outside the UK or are these UK bound only? Is there any other companies that offer something similar to this?

Sent using Tapatalk HD

 

[9to5cynic]

I think most of the major US carriers offer these devices. From my understanding they are a battery, cell radio and wifi card. Signal comes in from the cell radio and is broadcasted as a wifi connection.

Pretty cool imo.

 

[Speed Daemon]

I think most of the major US carriers offer these devices. From my understanding they are a battery, cell radio and wifi card. Signal comes in from the cell radio and is broadcasted as a wifi connection.

Pretty cool imo.

I got a Verizon one when I found myself living in a Wi-Fi and Sprint (my phone's carrier) dead zone for a week. Monthly fees are comparable to what I had paid for a Sprint EV-DO (3G) data dongle, but the LTE (4G) data rates give my home cable modem service a run for its money at ~25Mbps down and ~1Mbps up (compared to 30/4 at home).

Since these devices use radios and frequency bands that are specific to the carrier and marketplace, I wouldn't expect mine to work outside of the US and possibly Canada. I don't know if the EU has coordinated data frequency allotments better than the US has. If they have, it may be possible to travel across at least western Europe with the same device you bought in the UK. But since I'm only guessing, I'll defer to the several UK residents that frequent this forum.

 

[general eclect]

I imagine that once you leave your own country, if it does work, it'll be on international roaming which tends to get a mite expensive to run...

 

[Speed Daemon]

I imagine that once you leave your own country, if it does work, it'll be on international roaming which tends to get a mite expensive to run...

Yes, it does seem to be much more about the cost than the possibility.

I'm new to the SIM card thing, since SIM cards have been a GSM thing and I've preferred the advantages (both on paper and in practice) of DSSS a.k.a. CDMA technology that isn't compatible with GSM. I'm guessing that my non-GSM carrier using a SIM card for a 4G data product may be a sign of things to come...hopefully better interoperability.

I've read that "pay as you play" is more common in Europe and Asia, and that it's possible to buy a prepaid SIM card for a set amount of traffic. If that is indeed the case, and a Mi-Fi device purchased in the UK will work in every destination country, then it should be fairly easy to buy prepaid SIM cards from each local carrier to last the whole trip without having to incur roaming charges.

Easier said than done, I'll bet.