For the last couple of years I used the venerable Novatel MiFi 2200 wireless hotspot from Verizon and my jailbroken AT&T iPhone running MiWi.
My employer provides me with mobile broadband capabilities so I can perform many of my job functions while I travel. I typically travel regionally (aka in the car) about 1-2 days per week. I am going back into research mode when I have some time to see if I cannot solve the problem…again. The device was quite stable for some months after this original blog posting, but is now a major PITA to use. Unfortunately this is enough to drop my VPN connection and is a major source of frustration for my colleagues and I. I have been experiencing issues again with my wireless connection connection to the MiFi 4510L just dropping for 10-15 seconds and coming back. Since these are not my machines I have not spent any time to diagnose this issue. I know of at least two other peers that have Windows machines and their machines momentarily freeze up frequently and repeatedly when connected to this device, but the problem would immediately go away when re-connecting to some local wireless access point. I do have co-workers that have this same modem and they do have quite a bit more trouble than I do.
In my previous update I had quite a few weeks of instability in more than a few geographic areas. I do, however, wish that this modem and Verizon’s 4G network were more stable. I am back to using the 4G modem again with no issues (besides not automatically switching to 4G when in a 4G coverage area). If you download the latest Verizon Wireless update guide (link below) it contains a link to the latest software. With the exception of the version number the information below is still valid, including the VZW knuckleheads *still* not getting the permissions correct for OS X. I will report back with my experience with this new version of the firmware. There is a new update to the firmware for the MiFi 4510L.