Mifi 2200 mobile hotspot review

Mifi 2200 mobile hotspot review

I recently swapped my Hugesnet Satellite system for the Verizon Mifi 3g mobile hotspot. So far I have been very happy with it.

I was at fist concerned about signal strength as we sometimes drop cell calls at our house. My plan to was to find somewhere in the house that had a good signal and then use a router as a repeater. However, in actual use, it picks up everywhere in the house. I just sit it near what ever computer I am using or, if it is charging, just lay it in the floor in the hallway.

This past weekend, I took the device to my mother’s house so she could test it. She currently uses the Verizon USB modem. To get reception in her computer room, she has to plug the modem into a long USB extension cable and tape the modem to the window.

My Mifi needed charging so I sat in on her sewing table well away from where hers gets a signal while I booted up my lap top. I let it connect to the wireless signal and I planned to move it once it charged up a bit. However, to my surprise, it had plenty of signal right where it was. This was in the center of her basement where cell phones hardly work.

She was able to connect with her laptop and carry it upstairs while the Mifi sat in the basement plugged to the charger. Both of us were amazed at the signal strength not only of the wireless signal but also the cellular reception.

So far the only disappointment has been that the tethered mode of plugging the Mifi into my computer via the USB cable refuses to work. I had hoped to use tethered mode while in the car to avoid running down the battery in the Mifi. My computer uses XP so I suspect that there is some problem with the installer it my older version of windows. I gave up trying to use tethered mode as the wireless mode works so well. The battery life is several hours so it has not been a problem yet.

In order to connect my desktop computer to the Mifi signal, I used dd-wrt software to convert my old router to client mode. The router automatically recognizes the Mifi anytime it is turned on and logs in automatically. All, I do is turn on the Mifi hotspot and in a few seconds, I am on the internet with the desktop.

When using my laptop, I always have to hit the refresh button to see available wireless connections before it will see the Mifi. But once I click refresh, it connects automatically.

I have the 3GB per month plan and so far I am on target to use about that much. The satellite plan gave me 200MB per day so I am accustomed to working within bandwidth restrictions. I use Opera in Turbo mode to save bandwidth when possible. However the other users in my house just browse as they normally would.
[phpbay]mifi, 10[/phpbay]

2 Replies to “Mifi 2200 mobile hotspot review”

  1. Hi, Mike.
    When you discuss your tethering problems, are you using the VZAccess manager? I have been using this for about two years with complete success.

    I, too, use it while travelling. An alternative for travelling could be to plug it in a power adapter in the car, and continue to use WiFi.

    -charlie

  2. I never got the software to load. Neither of the computers I tried it on would recognize the device when attached to the USB port. I gave up and just use the wireless since it works fine that way.

Comments are closed.