WiFi rental?

[tmm99]

If you go to Japan, you can rent a WiFi mobile phone for a very reasonable price (with usually a very high speed WiFi). I am not interested in the phone part, but I am going to Buffalo, NY for a few days, and I would like my own WiFi (hotspot or whatever) but I cannot seem to find anything like that.

Anybody know? Renting WiFi not so common in the US? (Japan doesn't believe in free WiFi so you need something on your own..) I'd rather have my own private NW instead of some free thing that I don't really trust...

 

[pb4uski]

Not common in the US that I know of.

One thought would be to buy a cheap pay-as-you-go phone and use that as a hotspot but I don't think that will work as I know my pay-as-you-go provider does not support either hotspot or tethering and I suspect other pay-as-you-go providers are probably the same.

 

[rbmrtn]

There are some prepaid mobile hotspots ( never looked into details ). Verizon looks to have one you pay for by week or month.

Prepaid Jetpack | Verizon Wireless

 

[tmm99]

There are some prepaid mobile hotspots ( never looked into details ). Verizon looks to have one you pay for by week or month.

Prepaid Jetpack | Verizon Wireless

Thank you very much. I think I will try this...

 

[bUU]

That's the one I use. Excellent service (better than my AT&T Wireless smart phone). We typically use it from the passenger seat on the one or two 2000-2500 mile car trips we take every year - monitoring security cameras, posting photos to social media sites, text-chatting with work colleagues who need last minute assistance, all from the road. We haven't tried Skype video from a moving vehicle yet. Even though the one-way video of the security cameras work, I suspect the duplex video and higher quality video Skype offers would probably be too much for the moving-vehicle scenario.

We've been getting the $90 10 GB monthly service, but rarely used more than 4 GB. Due to our recent move, one of those car trips was only 900 miles, and so we got the $15 256 MB weekly service. For various reasons (that don't matter), the shorter trip accounted for lesser usage than would be considered proportional. Yet, we almost used up the entire 256 MB. However, I still endorse that service, because if you use it up early, we're told that we could just accept an online offer through the Jetpack to get another 256 MB (and presumably a new week starting at that time), so $30 total instead of the $60 (3 GB) or $90 (10 GB) for the monthly offers. (We would, of course, go back to the monthly service if we happened to have two non-contiguous events for which we needed service within a 30 day period.)

Do note that we own our own (prepaid) Jetpack. I don't know if they rent them. I think you have to buy the device (we paid $100) and then just turn on the service for the weeks or months you want to use it.

 

[tmm99]

That's the one I use. Excellent service (better than my AT&T Wireless smart phone). We typically use it from the passenger seat on the one or two 2000-2500 mile car trips we take every year - monitoring security cameras, posting photos to social media sites, text-chatting with work colleagues who need last minute assistance, all from the road. We haven't tried Skype video from a moving vehicle yet. Even though the one-way video of the security cameras work, I suspect the duplex video and higher quality video Skype offers would probably be too much for the moving-vehicle scenario.

We've been getting the $90 10 GB monthly service, but rarely used more than 4 GB. Due to our recent move, one of those car trips was only 900 miles, and so we got the $15 256 MB weekly service. For various reasons (that don't matter), the shorter trip accounted for lesser usage than would be considered proportional. Yet, we almost used up the entire 256 MB. However, I still endorse that service, because if you use it up early, we're told that we could just accept an online offer through the Jetpack to get another 256 MB (and presumably a new week starting at that time), so $30 total instead of the $60 (3 GB) or $90 (10 GB) for the monthly offers. (We would, of course, go back to the monthly service if we happened to have two non-contiguous events for which we needed service within a 30 day period.)

Do note that we own our own (prepaid) Jetpack. I don't know if they rent them. I think you have to buy the device (we paid $100) and then just turn on the service for the weeks or months you want to use it.

Thank you very much for sharing your experience. I read somewhere with some services, it clocks usage without you doing anything, but it sounds like your experience is a very positive one. I talked to them yesterday and I think I am going to get it. The device costs $49.99 and you pay one time activation charge of $35 and then you add on the usage amount you want when you travel. I think this will work for me (most likely use the weekly and see how that goes.)