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Mi Fi recommendation


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I need to rent a personal wifi for our trip out in August

Can anyone recommend a good system?

We will be staying about 45km north of Limoges.

This is one of the contenders http://hippocketwifi.com/en/

Would be interested hear from anyone who has used one.

Thanks
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Why would you rent one, when you can buy one for a few quid on Amazon?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00B7TGVP6/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I bought this a few years ago but there are loads to choose from, and I have various data sims that I put in, depending where I am (3 UK, 3 Ireland, Orange for France, Movistar for Spain etc). Works a treat.

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I don't use prepaid sims, they're all PAYG, and I bought each of them in its own country. But I guess if you're going to get through loads of data you would want to look at contracts. I use mine basically for work when I'm travelling in the motorhome, so mainly for email; and when I have large files to download or upload or if I need to work online on googledocs or something, I try to plan it so I can stop off at MacDo or use an internet café or book in at a campsite with wifi for a day or two. If I'm travelling for a month in France I would expect to get through maybe 30€ or 40€ worth of top up like that.
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  • 3 weeks later...
It's probably too late for the person who originally posted the query, but from my own experience it makes no sense at all to buy a dedicated MiFi device anymore, now that even the simplest Android phone will serve just as well (and in some cases actually better!) as a 'Mobile Hotspot', with no special technical expertise required other than the ability to tap an icon.

For the same price as my previous one-trick-pony MiFi Hotspot I bought an excellent Motorola Moto E 4G phone, slapped my SIM into it and turned on the Mobile Hotspot feature (either by enabling it in the settings, or for supreme ease, by downloading a Mobile WiFi widget button to achieve the same thing with just one On/Off tap on the Home screen).

Any half-decent current Android phone can now do the same for the same cash outlay, but with all the added features of a new smartphone thrown in 'gratuit', and with just as much ease of use. Time to retire that old one-trick-pony MiFi back to the stable!
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Fair comment, although I suspect you can connect more separate devices to a mifi. How many devices can you connect to your phone's hotspot?

But for me the big advantage is that I can connect my pc to the mifi for hours at a stretch while I work, and it doesn't interfere with using my phone as a phone. For the small cost of a mifi device, it's well worth it to me to be able to keep the two separate when I'm travelling. I have a dual sim phone with Leclerc and Vectone sims because they suit me best for voice and texts, however when I'm away in the motorhome I prefer to use Orange for data in France and 3 for data in the UK, because their data packages work out significantly cheaper than slapping all that data onto Leclerc or Vectone. I can see that a phone does the job if it suits you to use the same provider for everything but I'm surely not the only person who doesn't want to do that.
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You may have misunderstood what I was trying to explain. I don't use my day-to-day phone as a wifi hotspot -- I have bought an entirely separate, small one, about the same size as a MiFi in fact (a Motorola Moto E) dedicated solely as a wifi hotspot. Same price as a MiFi, but it can of course do so much more if and when you might need it!

So it is loaded with the separate SIM-card I use purely for data, as it would be in the MiFi. And yes, it can easily 'drive' six or seven connected wifi devices, exactly as a MiFi can. Same range, same price, same size, same convenience -- but you get so much more for your money.

The whole concept is a little like dedicated MP3 players which are slowly disappearing because most people now use their phones for listening to audio. Dedicated MiFi will continue for a while to be adopted by those attracted by their simplicity, but as technology 'convergence' advances, they will ultimately go the way of MP3 players and before them pocket organisers, PDAs, pagers, portable e-mailers, pocket game devices, mainstream digital cameras, handheld GPS devices.....
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Oh right, yes I didn't realise you were suggesting buying a separate phone to use as a mifi.

I agree it's an option but personally it is not my preferred option. The mifi I have is far smaller and far cheaper than the phone you mention (I just checked), and it does exactly what I want it to do, I don't need it to do anything else.

I guess it's a mindset thing. I know my phone can do all these things but I still prefer to have a separate GPS because I like to have a larger screen on a gps than I would want on a phone, I still have a separate digital camera because, well several reasons. The main practical problem I can see with using one device for everything is that if it breaks or you lose it, you've lost your phone/gps/camera/music all in one go, until you get it replaced.
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  • 3 weeks later...
Hi, thanks for the replies.

Back to work today after 2 great weeks in France.

My Webspot report.

I was very septic all regarding the claims on performance etc.

happy to say it worked brilliantly.

Will run upto 10 devices, with unlimited internet access

I hired the device for 2 weeks.

Package consisted of:

Delivery to the UK

French compatible mains plug charger

Hired in car charger ( needn't have bothered as its a standard USB plug in)

Return postage paid package via Hermes ( collection points all over the UK)

120€ all in

Kept wife and daughter happy, and I was able to source services, builders etc online during my stay

So, in conclusion, money well spent
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  • 9 months later...
I am reviving this thread with a slight twist. Currently I have an Orange setup with copper wires, Livebox and a wifi extender on the domestic power supply. My house is split by a 2m thick wall - hence the extender which works well.

Recently the land line has deteriorated (max before last total collapse 2,5 Mps). My Orange package is for Internet, VOIP phone and TV. The TV doesn't work and I don't want it (I have alternative for that) and there are plenty of mobiles in the house. Now our line is completely down and Orange have said the physical line will be back up by the end of June, but they didn't say which year...

I'm looking at some sort of hotspot MIFI to connect 3G/4G (one day) but with an ethernet port to connect to my existing extender to get the connection to the other house.

Please have you any suggestions? Thanks in anticipation.
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