MiFi 2200

Home Office Home Again: Random Observations After 2 Weeks on the Road

After two weeks on the road, it's the simple observations that bring clarity to the home office adventure. Like…

- Sponsor or no, the Verizon Mifi 'personal hotspot' won the day — hands down. It was a true fan favorite and winner of the HOH'09 Product of Choice. Hey, anything that keeps the hoards from beating me up for my Internet connection is worthy of praise. Teleworkers and road warriors alike will find this tool extremely useful.

- Yes, family, we WILL survive two weeks without a TV. And we did. We talked, played more Yahtzee and Racko than we ever thought possible, and watched burning embers in the fire pit. And yes, we surfed the Web. A lot. Truth be told, we watched a few DVD movies on Zack's HP laptop. But that's NOT TV.Read more

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Keeping the Mobile Office and Home Officer Online and Un-Harassed From the Road

By Jeff Zbar
www.homeofficehighway.com

More on the MiFi...

It's every home office, telework and road warrior's lament. At least those with kids (and a wife in search of 'net-time): How to get online, without attracting attention from the little scoundrels, who'll then want the Internet-connected laptop for their own.

Of course, RV parks across America promise "Free Wifi." Good luck finding a network that works...

Here's one review of the MiFi personal hotspot. Specifically, Daniel Terdiman said of mobile hot spot, it "converts the carrier's EV-DO signal into a Wi-Fi connection that up to five people can share. I had already used the MiFi to provide a signal for the iPod Touch at the very beginning of the trip so that, while sitting on a boarding airplane, I could download a large file from iTunes...Now, I realized that by turning the MiFi on and sticking it in my back pocket, I could become, in essence, a walking hot spot, allowing me to get online on the iPod Touch, no matter where I was. That meant that I could use the Skype app to make a phone call, run several other apps for one reason or another, and look up good places to eat using the device's browser..."

My two cents: This device has made working remotely seamless and breezy.Read more

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Home Office Surfing in a Personal Hotspot

by Jeff Zbar on Wed, 2009-07-22 13:08

Surfing at night with Verizon MiFi and MSI U123 netbook

By Jeff Zbar;
www.homeofficehighway.com

Years ago, surfing in public meant first paying $15 an hour for a user ID and password hand-written on a scrap of paper so you could log on to some cyber cafe's network.

Now, it's as easy as hitting the MiFi, powering up the netbook — and in less than a minute, you're up.

This year's home office highway is shaping up as an exercise in simplified surfing. Last year, setting up a network meant powering up and wiring in a router the size of a cigar box. This year's "access point" is a business card-sized device that enables five Internet devices — netbooks, laptops, MP3 players, an iTouch — to log on simultaneously.Read more

Verizon to Offer Netbooks May 17th?

by jessica on Tue, 2009-05-12 11:48

Verizon Wireless is said to be jumping on the netbook bandwagon later this month, offering the HP Mini 1151NR netbook at a cost of $199 with a two-year contract (at $40-60 per month). The netbook is rumored to be available on May 17th.

This makes sense for Verizon…after all, AT&T already sells netbooks from Acer and Dell. However, the netbooks available at AT&T are priced lower (as low as $50) than the HP model Verizon will be offering. Maybe Verizon will decide to lower the initial price of the netbook… they end up making a killing on the monthly data charges anyway, right?

May 17th also happens to be the date that Verizon's MiFi portable hotspot router will be available. And guess what? We just happen to have a review unit. Stay tuned for a hands-on review.

Take Your Wi-Fi Hotspot On The Road

The World's Smallest Mobile Wi-Fi Hotspot Turns Wi-Fi-enabled Devices into Mobile Internet Tools

May 2009 - Verizon Wireless will introduce the highly-anticipated MiFi 2200 Intelligent Mobile Hotspot on May 17. Developed by Novatel Wireless, the MiFi 2200 lets customers create a personal Wi-Fi cloud capable of sharing the reliability and high-speed Internet connectivity of the Verizon Wireless 3G Mobile Broadband network with up to five Wi-Fi-enabled devices such as notebooks, netbooks, cameras, gaming devices or portable media/MP3 players.

The MiFi 2200 is small enough to fit in a pocket, measuring 3.5" x 2.3" x 0.4" and weighing 2.05 ounces. It combines a variety of features into its streamlined form factor, including integrated internal CDMA and Wi-Fi antennas, advanced security and authentication technologies. When one device is connected through Wi-Fi, the MiFi 2200's rechargeable battery provides up to four hours of active use and 40 hours of standby time on a single charge.

"The MiFi 2200 gives more than 86 million customers access to the nation’s largest and most reliable 3G network," said Mike Lanman, vice president and chief marketing officer for Verizon Wireless. "With projected growth rates of over 30 percent for Wi-Fi mobile phones, MiFi will be of great benefit to both business customers and consumers. It gives customers the flexibility to transform their Wi-Fi-enabled consumer electronics into Mobile Broadband devices and to choose how and when they need to be connected at a price point that will match most budgets."Read more