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From: smurf on 17 Feb 2010 07:27
Well, i was just finishing an eighteen month contract with Three for �7.50 a
month, with 3gb of download allowance, using a usb zte mf622 dongle.

Problem was, dongle was incompatible with snow leopard, so was kind of
limiting. I liked the idea of having mobile internet access but not to happy
with the crappy usb options.

Heard about mi-fi (huawei e5830) from three, sounded just the job. Phoned
three up, give them the bluff about leaving them, and they mention a new
service they provide with a device called mifi. Anyway, after a bit of
haggling, I get a 5gb allowance, free mifi device on an eighteen month
contract for �9.50 a month.

I felt fairly pleased with myself...

Anyway, you can read about the mifi on google, plenty of sites talk about
it. But, and the big but, while the idea is great, the implementation is
really quite sucky. The device has some significant (ie. huge) design flaws.

First of all the device does what it says, it creates a personal wifi
hotspot and it works great., here are the drawbacks:

i) It will not charge while switched on. Yes, believe it or not, you cannot
charge the device up from the usb cable included or with the charger if the
device is switched on, reasoning being that the amps provided from the usb
are just enough to run it, not to charge while switched on, this is made
worse, if the usb cable has the data pins, it wont charge, on or off, unless
the device you are connected to has the three software installed, and the
included charger is only 650mA which again is not enough juice for it to
charge and run at the same time.
Solutions exist for this problem, it has been reported elsewhere that a
meatier psu (with mini usb connector) is able to charge and run with no
problem, and to charge from a usb charger (like say an ipod charger) it is
necessary to use a usb cable that doesnt carry data, an example would be a
usb y cable, like you might get with a portable 2.5inch hard drive, that has
two usb heads, one just for power, using that acts as a power only usb
cable.
ii) To turn the device on is quite a torturous series of acts. the device
has three inline buttons to the side of the machine, one for turning it on,
one for establishing a data connection with your provider and one for
wireless. The procedure for turning on is this, you hold the power button
for two seconds, it takes about twenty seconds for the device to switch on
and initialise, when the data connection light flashes to show a connection
can be made, you then hold the data button for two seconds, and when that is
connected you hold the wireless button for two seconds to initiate
connection.
iii) the wireless connection drops after ten minutes of inactivity and needs
to have the button pressed to start back up.
iv) It is not possible to access the devices settings by anything other then
a windows pc, via the three software, there is no web server (ie
192.168.1.1) option for those with other devices, ironically, three are
marketing the device as a companion to the Ipod Touch.

These drawbacks are really annoying, and cannot be changed in the software
provided by three, they really cripple a fantastic product. But thanks to
the great avenger of lizards, David Icke, via his forum, some user has put
up links to a more generic firmware for the device that gets around all of
the faults (except the charging issue). The firmware update doesnt change
any of the three settings for access, and was relatively painless. Much to
my pleasure i can do the following:

a) access the device through a webserver: 192.168.1.1
b) select the device to autimatically connect to the three network at switch
on (or even set it to automatically initiate when data is requested by a
connected device)
c) for wireless to automatically be enabled at switch on
d) for wirless to *not* disconnect after ten minutes...

If you have a mifi device and you are still fighting the three software,
then i suggest doing the update: follow the instructions of the last poster:

http://www.davidicke.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1058534564


From: Theo Markettos on 17 Feb 2010 09:41
In uk.telecom.mobile smurf <smurf(a)smurf.com> wrote:
> These drawbacks are really annoying, and cannot be changed in the software
> provided by three, they really cripple a fantastic product. But thanks to
> the great avenger of lizards, David Icke, via his forum, some user has put
> up links to a more generic firmware for the device that gets around all of
> the faults (except the charging issue). The firmware update doesnt change
> any of the three settings for access, and was relatively painless. Much to
> my pleasure i can do the following:

Nice. I made my own Mi-Fi (old PC, 3G dongle, wifi card, OpenWRT) which
sounds like it was the right decision compared to Three's version. But
having the replacement firmware (borrowed from a Hong Kong mobile network,
cunning) looks like it gives the Mi-Fi what you'd expect from a conventional
router.

Theo
From: BORG on 17 Feb 2010 14:19

I've had a 'Turn Phone into a Wi-Fi hub' option on my HTC Touch pro for
over a year.
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