Dear Brian
Remind me which version of Sprint MIFI you have, the costs, and how you like it. I’m thinking of making a switch Labor Day weekend
Thanks,
Bandwidth Hungry in Hutchinson
Dear Bandwidth Hungry in Hutchinson:
The device is called a Sprint Overdrive by Sierra Wireless. I highly recommend the device – good stuff. Major discussion points on it are below, and I think it’s a home run for small audit teams.
It’s basically a 4G Mi-Fi, and I like it a lot. Biggest downside is that you are capped at 5GB of 3G transfer for $60/mo, although you get UNLIMITED 4G. When I was in Chicago, I downloaded about 4GB of data when working in the hotel over 4G.
From a hardware perspective, the biggest downside I can see is that if you let the battery run completely out, you can have a hard time getting it up and going again – I think the USB power from your PC isn’t enough amps to charge while the device is running. Battery life on the device is about 2 hrs, so you will want to keep it plugged in when you’re using it. The other nice thing is that you can turn the device on battery power and use your PC on battery power for a few hours. If you need to charge the device when running on battery, it will draw power from your PC’s battery using a micro-USB cable.
The security on the device supports up to 5 people using WPA, WPA2, WEP, or an open wireless access point. You can also do basic file sharing off of a micro-SD card which you can purchase separately (I think it only supports cards up to either 4GB or 8GB. This would make the device a dream for audit teams who need to share files. Although the files are not encrypted (so you might not want to put client SSN’s, etc. on it), it would be a great device for storing non-sensitive data.
When configuring the device, you will want to change the default password immediately, and will also want to turn off the default option for it to show the SSID and WPA/WPA2 key on the LCD when the device is powered up.
The device is $349 retail, and $99 after 2yr contract, rebates, etc. Good stuff.
If you would like to discuss further, please let me know.
Best regards, Brian
