This is a great example of a great gadget that is totally hamstrung but unnecessary carrier inflicted usage caps.
The Verizon MiFi is a beautiful little device (for a full review click the title or this article to be taken to the jkonTheRun article). It can’t be simpler. You push a button, it turns on and connects to Verizons very fast 3G network. It then offers a WiFi connection for up to five of your gadgets that have WiFi.
Up to 5 laptops, 5 wifi cameras, 5 internet tablets (iPods), or any combination there of. It’s battery operated so you can literally use it anywhere to get online with almost any internet device.
But here is the killer. They offer a $39.99 plan with a 250mb cap. No that’s not a typo, 250mb, man if you accidentally get a Windows update while you are connected to this you are done…. Oh wait you can also play $59.99 a month for a 5GB plan, which puts it on par with their data card plan, but still… Not a good deal in my opinion. Or you can just pay $15 a day for the occasional user, (no word on what the daily cap is, but I’d expect it to be close to or under the 250mb cap)
This thing could be really great, and Verizon if you really want to sell them, use this as an experiment and just see how many new accounts you get.
The Proposed Wolfman MiFi Data Access Plan.
Ditch the caps, and charge by the mb or in this case gb. Have the device cost $10 a month to have, and just charge $3.99 a GB, rounded up. Sure that means that for your normal 5GB user you will be charging less, but it will encourage people to use your network. Possibly even enough to ditch their other ISP’s and just use your broadband that is available everywhere. You’d still be getting a premium price for access to your premium wireless service, but people would flock to you for data usage.
Unless you don’t think your network could handle it… ;-)
Oh then once you do that, then maybe you could slip this tech into your cell phones as an additional $9.99 a month charge. Yeah that would be sweet.
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