MiFi for $40

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I've been in anguish over whether to jailbreak my iPhone for about a year. It drives me crazy that there is no legal way to piggyback the internet service from my phone to my laptop.

Or at least no economical way. And AT&T doesn't seem to have a way to use it's service. I hate that Apple and AT&T are in bed together. I'm just waiting till their contract runs out in 2011.

I just read a really interesting article by David Pogue over at the NYT. It seems that Virgin is now in the MiFi came. (As best I can tell MiFi is just that-personal WiFi-it's a way you can have wireless internet access via a 3G signal without receiving the signal from a wireless router.)

There are a couple of things which make Virgin's offering exciting. First-there's no 5 gigabyte download maximum. Virgin's plan is for unlimited download. That in itself buys a lot of peace of mind. Second, NO CONTRACT. That's right. They actually think their service is so good and so fairly priced that you won't jump ship. So, if for some reason you do choose to cancel there's no penalty.

The 3G service is not as fast as a cable modem but Pogue suggests that it is about as fast as DSL. That ain't bad. It sounds a lot like Clear. But when I checked on Clear it sounded like their coverage was really spotty. Virgin is using Sprint's network which seems to do a pretty good job of blanketing the country.

The Virgin service can replace my home cable internet service. So rather than buying TWO internet services, one for home and one for the road, I would buy just one. I already pay $30/month for internet from Time Warner. Add $10 and I could have it almost anywhere. Granted it would be a bit slower. But, on the road it's a whole lot faster than the non-existent service I have now.

Read the full post here. And check back with me in a couple of months. I'll let you how it's shaping up.
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