3.5. Use a Mobile Broadband Hot Spot

So you didn’t buy the Wi-Fi + 3G iPad and now you’re regretting it. So what do you do—slap the Wi-Fi iPad up on eBay and use the proceeds for your Wi-Fi + 3G iPad Upgrade Fund? Lurch from hot spot to hot spot all over town? Sit on the couch and complain?

If trading up to a 3G model isn’t in your future, you have another option: a mobile broadband hot spot device. This portable hot spot pulls down a cellular-data network signal from a carrier—probably Verizon or Sprint here in the U.S.—and divvies it up into a mini Wi-Fi network so that four to five wireless devices (laptops, Portable PlayStations, iPads, etc.) can get onto the Internet. Novatel’s MiFi and the Overdrive from Sierra Wireless are two models.