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Using MiFi in the USA

A

amammad

macrumors regular
Original poster
Oct 5, 2005
202
0
I'm looking at buying one of the Three Mobile MiFi units in the UK and then unlocking it so I can use it on holiday in the USA (New York).

When I get to the US, can I buy a sim that will be okay to use in the MiFi? Can I just walk into a Verizon store and ask for one?

Anyone able to advise what kind of sim/plan I should be looking to buy and where to buy it?

Thanks.

(PS I have searched but couldn't see anything pertinent)
 
Vereizon doesn't use sims nor run gsm.

I'd venture you were looking for something in the pre-paid AT&T arena, or tmobile for edge. Can't help with the details, but that might give you better wewbsites to look at.
 
Verizon and Sprint are CDMA carriers so GSM equipment will not work on their networks.

That leaves T-Mobile and AT&T (our GSM carriers, and T-Mobile has some data frequency oddities that may only leave AT&T). Neither seems to have a MiFi offering at the moment, but they both offer prepaid cell services that may work for you. You'll have to talk to their customer service departments to know for sure though.

Good luck
 
I've also been looking into this and was wondering if you could use the new Ipad AT&T sims with an adaptor (although i saw on there site it looks like it might come in a big sim and you pop it out)?

Could anyone who has a 3g Ipad confirm if you have to register the sim in the Ipad first to get it to work? I'm guessing you do!
 
snapper07 said:
I've also been looking into this and was wondering if you could use the new Ipad AT&T sims with an adaptor (although i saw on there site it looks like it might come in a big sim and you pop it out)?
Click to expand...

I've been looking for a definitive answer to this too. I want wifi access on my iPhone when I'm next in the US as the O2 roaming data prices are scary. I clocked up a bill of over £150 in a few days last year.

Bit reluctant to buy a MiFi if I'm going to have to waste half my holiday trying to find a suitable sim to stick in it.
 
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 3_1_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/528.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/4.0 Mobile/7E18 Safari/528.16)

I think you are out of luck because ATT doesn't offer pay as you go data plans. You might be able to buy a PAYG phone and use the SIM from it.
 
I'm using a MiFi in the states right now. I got an unlocked MiFi from Amazon, and here in the states a sim card from At&t. It costs $20 California tax included, and had 100MB data.

It's not a lot, but it's good for mails or some web browsing outside of my hotel.
 
MiFi 2372 works great with the iPad sim - no adapter needed - comes unlocked - can be found on eBay for around $300 - I own one and have tested it and it works flawlessly.
 
nomad01 said:
I've been looking for a definitive answer to this too. I want wifi access on my iPhone when I'm next in the US as the O2 roaming data prices are scary. I clocked up a bill of over £150 in a few days last year.

Bit reluctant to buy a MiFi if I'm going to have to waste half my holiday trying to find a suitable sim to stick in it.
Click to expand...

If you are on O2 go through the free unlocking procedure on the website. took 3 days for the code to come through. Obtain another sim card in the uk and sync itunes and the phone is then unlocked. a friends vodafone sim worked for me

When you get to the US. get a t-mobile prepaid plan with 2Gb data(account now showing unlimited data) sim cost $69.99 lasts for 30 days, you will then need a sim cutter, £7 on ebay get one before you go. if you need more data its $1.5 per day, after this you can either top up $10 a month to keep the account open or do nothing and the number will stop working after three months. This plan gives you free unlimited calls to US and unlimited txts. I paid an Extra $10 which allows free UK landline calls and cheap 29c per min to mobiles

I did this in california for my recent trip the t-mobile 3G works fine on the iphone 4 in 90% on the US at this time
 
d20nmr said:
When you get to the US. get a t-mobile prepaid plan with 2Gb data(account now showing unlimited data) sim cost $69.99 lasts for 30 days, you will then
Click to expand...

So it's quite easy to get a T-Mobile pre-pay sim in the US? I can just walk into a T-Mobile store and purchase over the counter?

I'm in NYC in August for a couple of weeks and would rather take this option than pay the price of 3's roaming charges.
 
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