Wireless Pocket Wifi

Tep Wireless Pocket Wifi

Having Internet access when you're abroad can be a huge help. Wi-Fi hotspots in much of Europe are rarer than they are in the U.S. and the U.K. Hotel Internet can be expensive, and it only works in your hotel. On a recent trip to Spain, I found myself checking Google Maps and the local transit Web site constantly. With a hotspot you might not even need a local SIM card or a world-compatible phone, as you can use Skype or another VOIP service over the hotspot.

Tep Wireless rents Huawei E585 hotspots on the Three network for much of Europe (although not Poland or Scandinavia), Australia, New Zealand, 10 Asian countries, Mexico, and South Africa. That's far short of the 175 countries XCom supports, but it includes many popular destinations.

You can order one in as little as three days before your trip, and your hotspot will be overnighted to you. (If you're coming from or going to the U.K., you can also pick it up at Heathrow Airport.) Use the hotspot when you're away, and send it back when you get home using an included, prepaid mailer. It's easy.

My Tep package came with a hotspot, USB cable, plug adapters for Europe and the U.K., and various manuals, all in a little zippered pouch. The hotspot was a little scratched from previous use but not damaged. It's easy to swap in a second battery by popping off the back cover.

The E585 has an OLED screen on the front which shows useful information such as signal strength, battery, and data consumption in the current session. I really prefer that to XCom's older Novatel MiFis, which force you to go to a Web portal to get that information. Still, though, if you want to know your overall data consumption, you need to ask Tep via email or online chat.

Usage was very simple. I turned on the hotspot, connected my laptop and mobile phone, and I was good to go. The hotspot supports up to 5 devices at once. 

I got decent speeds on this 7.2Mbps HSDPA modem of 2.5-3.5Mbps down. That's nothing to write home about, maybe, but certainly good enough to write home with. Upload speeds maxed out around 1Mbps, so content creation professionals may want to find a faster link to do things like upload videos. That's still good enough for Skype, though.

Interestingly, the modem thought I was in the Czech Republic the entire time, setting my Google locale to google.cz, for instance. That didn't affect ordinary Web browsing, but it throws a curve for sites like Netflix which require a specific geographic location.

Pricing and Service PlansTep has a very confusing pricing structure where the price per day declines as you add days. The company also offers shifting data plans starting at 250MB for the length of your trip, with various increases and add-ons. There's a useful calculator on Tep's Web site, but I've included some comparisons below. These prices include shipping.

I consider two of Tep's options mandatory: a second battery and "unlimited" data. The E585's battery lasts for three to four hours of continuous use, or seven hours or so of sporadic use. That's par for the course with hotspots, and it's not quite enough to get through a workday.

As for "unlimited" data, it isn't truly unlimited, but nobody wants to be left worrying about their data usage during a busy international trip, if they can afford it. No hotspot rental service offers truly unlimited data. But Tep's "unlimited" plan gives you 300MB per day rented in Europe, or 400MB per day rented in other countries, with a maximum of about 7GB/month. That's enough for anything except mad movie downloading.

With the extra battery, "unlimited" data, and U.S. delivery, Tep's prices are almost exactly the same as XCom's. If you ditch the second battery, subtract $5.95/day. Tep gives daily discounts as your rental period gets longer, though, so Tep's rates become sharply better on trips longer than 14 days.

ConclusionsWe're living in a connected world, and it's hard to go on an international trip without being connected. AT&T and Verizon now offer affordable plans for roaming smartphone data, both around $25 for 100MB. For AT&T and T-Mobile users, SIM cards like Maxroam also have decent rates for small-to-middling amounts of multi-country roaming data. If you plan to do multi-device heavy lifting and laptop surfing, though, you'll want a hotspot with a larger data allowance.

I highly recommend both Tep and XCom for wireless hotspot rentals. (Both are better than Cellular Abroad, which charges more for less service.) The OLED display on Tep's hotspot puts it a bit ahead of XCom in the countries where it's available, but of course XCom works in many more countries. If you're traveling for business and you can't afford to be disconnected, you need to grab one of these two services.

Review by Sascha Segan

Wi-Fi Finder (for iPad)

Sometimes, being on 3G or 4G is just not enough, and I find myself prowling, searching for an available wireless network. Maybe this café? How about that copy shop? It's so much easier to fire up JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder app and search for the nearest hotspot. Take a look at the map, find a network, and then head over that way. It's that easy.

If I was using a competing app, such as Boingo Wireless Wi-Finder, I would first need to be online in order to search for an available network. JiWire avoids this difficulty by letting users download a copy of the hotspot database, with more than 150,000 locations worldwide, to use in offline mode. That feature alone makes this an Editor's Choice among hotspot-seeking iPad utilities.
JiWire actually has two Wi-Fi Finder apps on the iTunes App Store. Wi-Fi Finder app helps you find both free and paid wireless networks anywhere in the world. The other app, Free Wi-Fi Finder  (listed as Free Wi-Fi), provides you with a list of only free hotspots. I downloaded Wi-Fi Finder for this review.


Hotspot Finder
The app has three views, the map, a list of hotspots, and details about the selected hotspot. When I launched the app, I saw the map on the full screen with little dots representing all available networks. Green dots on the map stood for open networks, red dots for networks with a password, and blue for paid networks.
Tapping on the right triangle opened up the list pane, which displayed all hotspot locations in a scrolling list. I could filter the list to see only free hotspots, paid hotspots, or both. I could also filter by location type, such as restaurant, airport, car rental, barber, salon, bus station, etc. When open, the list pane covered the right half of the map.
Tapping on a hotspot on the map opened up a bubble with the name of the location operating that network and an icon designating its location type. Tapping for more information opened up the hotspot detail page on the left side of the screen. The pane displayed the location's address and phone number along with the Bookmark and Get Directions buttons. I saw the same detail pane when I tapped on a hotspot from the list pane.
The side panels were distracting, as when they were both open, it obscured the entire map. Considering the detail pane didn't have a lot of information, I would have preferred the information be included in the bubble on the map.
The "Bookmark" button added the hotspot to my list of shortcuts, handy if there were certain networks I used on a regular basis. The "Get Directions" button required me to have GPS locations enabled. I couldn't enter a starting point and have the app calculate directions from there.

Searching for a Connection
The menu bar at the top of the app has six buttons: Near Me, Recent, Bookmark, Database, Key, and Information. Tapping on Near Me opened the map to my current location and displayed all nearby wireless networks. Recent opened up a list of the last few connections I'd used. Bookmark displayed a list of hotspots whose information I'd saved. Database allowed me downloading the hotspot directory for offline use. Key was just a static box displaying all location types. Information allowed me to add hotspots I knew about to the directory. There was also a search box to specify parameters, such as a specific address, business name, or just a zip code.
Wi-Fi Finder's best feature was the ability to download the hotspot directory to use offline. Users have to plan ahead and download it beforehand, while still on a network, but once it is saved locally, they can look at the map and search the database without having to be online. This is really useful when I need to get online and I have no idea where the nearest hotspot is. It makes me wonder why other competitor apps don't offer this capability.

Getting Online Just Got Easier
JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder app simplifies the task of finding a hotspot whenever you need one, wherever you are. It has an advantage over the Free Wi-Fi Finder because it has a bigger database. Sometimes, you don't want a free hotspot, and Wi-Fi Finder shows you all your options.
The Ji-Wire's offline access is fantastic, but the perfect app would be one that has offline access and a VPN service such as the one offered by Boingo Wireless. If you don't need Boingo's VPN (although everyone should be considering it), JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder is the way to go. JiWire's Wi-Fi Finder gives you the information you need right away, making it our Editor's Choice for hotspot-finding tools.


Review by Fahmida Y. Rashid

WifiBuilder

Testing Nuts About Nets' WifiBuilder  left an indelible impression: just about anyone can slap a wireless router or access point (AP) in a home or business and set up a WLAN, but it takes robust diagnostic tools like WifiBuilder to setup a wireless network optimized for performance and throughput. All wireless networking devices emit RF energy and measuring RF characteristics can help IT troubleshoot interference and performance issues. Using the vendor's proprietary technology, IMMI (Indirect Measurement of Microwave Interference), WifiBuilder can use the information it gathers to determine whether performance can be improved using a different channel, or to properly position antennas and 802.11 wireless devices to maximize range and throughput. WifiBuilder is an innovative solution and a great way to get a handle on interference issues in a wireless network.

WifiBuilder is comprised of hardware and software. The hardware is a Cisco Linksys WRT400N access point with a custom Linux image from Atheros with Nuts About Nets' diagnostics code. The software component is the Profiler24x Diagnostic Software, which you install on the Windows computer from which you want to test. Pricing for both the WifiBuilder AP plus Profiler24x Software is $429.90 USD (plus shipping and handling.) That may seem expensive, but, really, it's a bargain—particularly to wireless networking professionals who perform site surveys and deploy WLANs for clients. Nuts About Nets offers the customized WRT400N for $279 with the Profiler24x software making up the rest of the cost. This is pricier than other dual-band routers currently on the market like the Cisco Linksys E4200 Maximum Performance Wireless-N Router ($179, 4 stars) but this isn't your typical router because of the diagnostic capabilities.
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WifiBuilder AP : Angle
WifiBuilder AP : Front
WifiBuilder AP : Side
WifiBuilder AP : Ports


An easy setup process and excellent documentation (courtesy of the vendor's website), makes this a tool that even those who are not quite networking gurus, can deploy and use. Interpreting the results in the number of charts displaying interference and channel information can take a bit to master, but it's well worth learning, especially if you are professionally building wireless networks.

Setup
For those new to network configuration, Nuts About Nets has a handy PDF guide which walks you step-by-step through setup. The adapter on the computer directly connected to the AP is configured with a static IP address.

The next step is to install the Profiler24x Channel Analyzer – this is the diagnostic software that accompanies the AP. It's used to install, troubleshoot and monitor 802.11 wireless networks in the 2.4 GHz band.

Setup is an overall smooth process especially for those already familiar with Windows and wireless networking.

You can set WifiBuilder up in diagnostic or production mode. In Diagnostic mode, the AP runs as a standalone network device. This is really handy for consultants who move from site to site.

However there is one setup caveat; currently, you cannot run the product in both diagnostic and production mode at the same time. This is because while the AP is in diagnostic mode, it is switching from channel to channel measuring RF energy and available throughput. If clients were attached while it was simultaneously being used as an AP, those clients would lose connectivity. Nuts About Nets states that the capability to perform diagnostics without losing client connectivity will be in the next version.

I first tested WifiBuilder in the standalone diagnostic mode. For this mode, you need to have two network interfaces on a PC; one is connected to the machine's usual internet connection and the other to the AP. This setup is required because the adapter connected to the AP has to be on a different subnet than the adapter connected to the Internet. You can set this up on a machine that has two Ethernet adapters. My test machine didn't, so I had the wireless adapter connected to my WLAN with an active Internet connection on one subnet and the AP connected to my laptop's one Ethernet port.