Hacker News Reader

Comment by rantfoil | Hacker News Reader

For a hacker I cannot imagine a more amazing gift to oneself than the gift of ever-present Internet access via Sprint/Verizon/Whatever via USB dongle or expresscard.

It's ~$50/month -- but I would definitely give up lattes and buy black coffee for it.

View on HN

Or, any Android phone running 2.2 on a carrier other than AT&T. Instant wifi hotspot.

One of the best things about my Nexus One, which comes with free tethering and can act as a WiFi access point.

Verizon also has a MiFi card.

Which in my experience is horribly broken.

Yes, google "Mifi disconnect" and you'll find endless stories of Mifi problems with the wifi mode (it works perfectly in dongle mode), across carriers: Verizon, Spring, Virgin Mobile.

Bottom line (sad to say, since I own two): the Mifi doesn't work in wifi mode reliably. It drops offline every few minutes, breaking your ssh connections and any downloads in progress. It does reconnect within 5-10 seconds, so it sorta looks like it's working to your average undemanding browser user.

Every Peets manager in South Bay hates you now.

I personally recommend CLEAR, which works great and has 4G coverage in places that the website doesn't even say!

I had CLEAR back when they were called Clearwire. Many corporate name changes are designed to escape a poor reputation, and I have no doubt this is one of them. If you have CLEAR and you move to a part of town with poor reception, you drop packets. And, thanks to how TCP works, dropping packets == sabotaging your connection speed forever. And canceling my service with them was pure stress because they operate on a contract/termination fee structure.

Maybe they've improved since then, and maybe it's worthwhile if you just want a mobile solution and can pay for a home internet connection on top of it, but I remain skeptical.

CLEAR is great except you cannot stream Netflix

I have Clear and stream Netflix.

Argh. I guess I need to edit the post to say if you are in a good coverage area (I'm not) - you can stream Netflix with no latency issues.

Ya, it's no FIOS but With 4 bars on my modem's signal indicator Netflix usually works well. It's a little dodgy when it rains. Try moving your modem around your house and setting it at different angles. I initially had it in a position where it got three bars I moved it across the room and set it at a slightly different angle, now I get 4 bars and it's nearly twice as fast.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com