Hang up your dongles because a new kind of mobile broadband is on the way: the MiFi or mobile Wi-Fi device creates its own wireless hotspot that can connect up to three wirelessly enabled devices.
The E5830 MiFi device from 3 Ireland works like a regular mobile-broadband dongle in that it gives you internet connectivity on the go, but the standalone device doesn’t requite any setup and it’s basically like having a modem and wireless router all rolled into one.
You simply switch on the MiFi device, get onto the 3 network and switch on the Wi-Fi option. Then switch to Wi-Fi on your laptop, handset or other devices and it will pick up with MiFi signal.
You can have up to five devices connected at once and if you buy on Post Pay you’ll get 15GBs of usage for €19.99 per month while the MiFi wireless router costs €79.
On Pre Pay, the router costs €149 and you can buy a day’s usage (500MBs), week’s usage (2GBs) or a month’s (10GBs) usage.
3 Ireland’s recent milestone of 175,000 mobile broadband customers now positions the company as the No 1 in the mobile broadband marketwhile putting it at No 2 to Eircom in the overall broadband market. Added to this 3 Ireland claims it has experienced greater broadband customer growth then Eircom on a month on month basis through most of 2009
By Marie Boran
Photo: The E5830 MiFi device.
