I wrote that in my last post, and this is a little off topic.Regarding the MiFi device mentioned, it may very well prove useful anyway, for demo-ing a combination of Linux, wifi hotspots, and 3G connectivity among friends and business owners with whom I'm acquainted. (I'm retired from the work force)
We need more hotspots after all, and imho the internode hotspot system is possibly the best Australian one for minimal investment by businesses.
Since then, at 2001 yesterday (according to IRC logs) my main ADSL service went down due to a line fault. Australia's phone lines are all owned by just one telco. We are hamstrung here.
It's now almost 12 hours since the failure. I've been using 3G wireless connectivity to keep IRC bots and channel (chat room) logging going via a laptop with the 3G dongle mentioned previously.
If I had the MiFi I described - instead of the USB dongle - at least parts of my LAN could be operational to the outside world, allowing more than one computer access
UPDATED
I have the MiFi unit - a dash into Adelaide to pick up the unit from Internode.
A very simple job to transfer the SIM card, there is an instruction book.
I tested it out, and while a little iffy first up to recognise the unit on 4.3.1 vanilla, it did after 3 attempts. Also on 2.14X15 (nicely) as well as superbly on 4.2.1
This was on a Toshiba Satellite 1800, 896 Celeron processor, 256, and a D-Link PCMCIA AirPlus-G NIC.
Richard in Adelaide -
although my whois on 3G often says I'm in Sydney, 1000 miles away lol. Today it says Melbourne, 800 miles away:)