My Mifi 2 was wonky yesterday morning, but let me connect to the internet and do some work. The connection was GREAT thanks to my new Yagi antenna! Then the Mifi powered down and refused to power back up. It had done that before and yanking the battery solved matters, but not this time. I went over to C&C’s to use their phone so I could call Bell.
The tech rep immediately listed everything that my Mifi has been doing since I got it — randomly powering down, going dormant despite having a signal, freezing, etc. She said I was lucky that the permanent freeze happened so soon after getting the Mifi 2 as they could replace it free at this point. This is a known issue that Novatel can’t be bothered to fix. What a piece of junk! If I wasn’t stuck with Novatel products for mobile internet with Bell (who has the best mobile bandwidth package) I would have thanked Bell and gone with another device.
Bell has been GREAT. The tech said I could just go to the store to exchange the device, but that’s not an option since I’d have to drive 400KM EACH WAY to a store that carries the Mifi 2! The tech asked me for my phone number and said that she would call me within the hour with a better solution. About 20 minutes later, she rang back to say that the best she could do is have it spent Priority overnight to Assiniboia, the system refusing to send to the hamlet since we don’t have civic addresses.
I’m not holding my breath that the new Mifi will be here today, but I’ll check the post office this afternoon. I’m at the Assiniboia library right now hoping to get some work done. I lost half a day yesterday and hope to make up some of that this morning.
I’m really starting to feel cursed.
It’s so frustrating to try to work online with systems that are not reliable. I wish someone would come up with one GOOD system!
I might have hated my limited data plan, but my Sierra stick from Telus never gave me an ounce of grief. Can’t use a stick with my booster, though.
I just described in a comment in your previous post as to why RSSI is an indicator of signal strenth, but not necessarily of signal quality. Your observation was correct.
A Yagi being a directional antenna may help the signal quality in addition to signal power (quantity), as it cuts down on indirect and interfering signals. But if you do not have a nice clear line-of-sight to the tower, and can only talk to it via a knife-edge diffraction, then it is always going to be tough.