** UPDATE 24 November 2009**
There are now a few options available if you are looking for a portable wifi router using a wireless signal, and a battery to allow access on the road.
If you live in the states there is the excellent mifi device that uses the Verizon network, however for the rest of us that doesn’t seem to be available elsewhere.
Thankfully the king of wireless access sticks, Huawei has now come up with it’s own device, the snappily named E583X. This is a great little device allowing up to 3 users (laptop, iPhone and iPod!) and has a built in battery that is said to last 5 hours. I have to say that it looks cool too.
In Australia you can get one of these from Virgin Mobile for as little as $19 per month (post paid only it seems) for 1GB, $29 for 2GB and $34 for 5GB. Quite a bargain! Note though that Virgin uses the Optus network which is already a bit clogged with iPhone users.
What this will allow you to do is: –
- Use your iPhone/iPod Touch and Skype as a cheap way to make calls without an iPhone (hopefully the service will be up to this).
- Play wifi games on your iPhone, iPod Touch
- …and access the internet while out and about without having one of those dongle plugged in all the time.
** OLD POST **
A good while ago I posted about wanting a wireless router that would retransmit an internet connection from a USB dongle. That way I could use my iPod Touch on the go. At the time there was really only a company in the US making these and they didn’t have good data for Australia (although I believe it would have worked).
Well 3 have just launched the device I have been waiting for I think. Their page details the router which even looks quite slick.
My only concern was that they don’t mention whether it is powered or not, and I can’t find any tech specs. I finally phoned up their support and you have to plug it in! Nightmare, it’s a portable router that isn’t portable!