I sound like a broken record when it comes to the 3 MiFi units. I’m use mine every day, especially when I’m driving (or, being driven, I should say) up and down the M4. The signal is just brilliant.
Obviously the Deltenna WIBE is the daddy but in terms of ultimate portability, the MiFi combined with 3’s proper 3G (or ‘H’) service is very valuable.
Case in point: Today at the London Book Show exhibition, I needed internet access. I connected to the show’s WiFi and found it rather sluggish. This is understandable given the system was being pummelled by the thousands of people on site. So I flipped on the MiFi and — boom — 15 seconds later I was getting speeds similar to my home BeUnlimited connection.
Krystal, one of our key operations people here at Mobile Industry Review, is heading this way in a few hours. She’s normally based in Canada but she’s popping over this week. She uses Fido.
:: eye roll ::
Fido is .. well, I was going to pick on Fido but, really, it seems like every Canadian operator is out of their mind. They seem to be stuck in the dark ages. I think I’m right in saying that Krystal would pay somewhere around $15-$17 per megabyte for data roaming. Ridiculous.
My solution? Get her a MiFi. Last night I spent 20 seconds on Amazon. I typed in ‘3UK MiFi’ and clicked on the one-click button next to the MiFi+3GB bundle option. Boom. (£68). It arrived today.
I thought I might have to do a bit of jiggery pokery getting it set up. I forgot that 3 have made this whole process ultra simple. I put in the SIM card, turned on the MiFi, logged on to the hotspot and .. well, there was nothing to do. 3GB allowance was sitting ready to be used. Smooth.
The one issue? I’d have liked to have ordered directly from 3. But I knew… well, I suspected, the whole thing would be a trillion times faster on Amazon. I think I’m right in saying it was. I didn’t want to have to do the click-click-my-name-is-Ewan, here-is-my-address and sod about with credit card details. It was a point’n’click purchase.
This is perhaps something 3 might like to give some thought to. For any of the donkey stuff — that is, physical products that don’t need contracts or independent verification, let me buy it from Amazon with one click.
Don’t make me faff.
To be fair I haven’t actually experienced the 3 online ordering process. I’m confident the actual delivery would be super-fast. But I was concerned the online experience would be a little bit pedestrian.
I don’t, for example, have an account at 3.
I’ve got three different contracts with them, but I don’t login with a single identity. They don’t have my credit card details stored. I doubt I’d be able to just ‘click-n-order’ something like a MiFi and have them bill me via direct debit.
I think that might be feasible if I phoned-up. But at midnight last night, I’m sure they’d be closed.
Anyway.
Enough of that. The MiFi experience on 3? Love, love love it.