Anyone try out these hotspots? Any opinions? The cost is comparable or cheaper to buying directly from a phone provider. Are the hotspot devices decent? Customizable?
The non profit itself seems interesting and privacy focused. Their OS seems well maintained and it “just works”.
I recently got their hotspot and its been good. I got the MIFI X PRO 5G and have no complaints. I can’t speak to the privacy of it, but it uses a T-Mobile sim card. Do you have any questions in particular?
Very cool! Yeah can you have multiple SSID channels? Can you set the DNS? Does it perform as you’d expect?
You can have a primary network and guest network. As far as I can tell, you can’t have more than that.
You can set DNS manually.
Here is a link to a pretty comprehensive user guide that explains all the settings. Maybe I missed something about the SSIDs. https://static.inseego.com/us/download/mifixpro-userguide-tmobile.pdf
Thank you!
Hotspots work well. They are hotspots though, so you have trade offs. For instance, you probably don’t want to leave it on all day (because it won’t last all day, probably 8 hours). You can set it to turn off if there’s no connected devices for x minutes to save battery. When you turn it on you need to wait for it to actually turn on and connect, then have your phone connect. It takes a while, relatively speaking (not long but longer than turning on your phone).
The Mifi X Pro also has an Ethernet port which is convenient for hard wiring a laptop.
The service is solid. Overall there’s no issues. I’ve had issues in hotels, but it’s a T-Mobile network so I’d presume a standard sim card would equally have issues.
Privacy is an interesting take. I’ll go ahead and trust them to not share my data (which you can sign up anonymously if you wish). The number is still trackable though, and I’d suspect stands out more because it’s in a specific spectrum range. But the sim isn’t in your phone, so it’s not technically tracking your phone (and a side benefit is you can’t get sim jacked) and I use a VPN to connect to it as well. I don’t think the sim card tracks the same way because there’s no GPS in the hotspot, but of course it still calls out to cell towers. I don’t know if it does this when off like a phone does (I’ve always presumed it does).
Overall my experience has been a positive one. Choosing a phone service has been a harder issue for me. But that’s another story.
Yeah I assume they’re good on privacy, but having a WiFi network showing global position isn’t ideal. In case you’re not aware, all WiFi networks are globally traversed and public information. wigle.net for more info
Maybe have the network name something generic to your region and then a VoIP number and Signal/Briar/Session/whatever
Thanks for the info!
OP probably means this:
Internet Membership
Sign up for an Internet Membership and enjoy unlimited 4G or 5G mobile internet in all US states and territories.
Sounds very interesting! With such a service, I could finally throw away my phone number. That is, if this is a mobile hotspot like solution.
Its only US, though.Am I missing something or is the price higher after the 2nd year?
Yearly: $500 for first year, $400 thereafter
Quarterly: $150 every three months$600 for 3rd year?
Only if you pay quarterly. If you pay the whole year it’s 100 dollars less than the first year.
Excuse me, what kind of overpricing this is? ~$50 a month is insane for phone service, what kind of perks do they add on top to justify THAT? Cheaper to just buy a truckload of anon simcards and change them like gloves.
Just hotspot, unlimited data
That is one hell of a donation, because no way unlimited data costs $50 a month :/
No you can chose to have a quartly membership over a yearly commitment at the cost of paying more
Yeah, only US probably due to the “education” radio frequency stipulation for their nonprofit to get the service at all. Which is why I want it, to study
