Being a 3 mobile broadband user for some time, I love the convenience of plugging in a dongle and getting online with my MacBook Pro just about anywhere I go… But upgrading to Snow Leopard fast put the brakes on that, as you will likely have seen in my previous post.

I spent a long time hunting for solutions on Apple’s site, and various third party sites, and found nothing at all that I could find to work (and I tried them all)!

Completely frustrated by what seemed like hours of “tinkering” I picked up the phone and called three. Initially I was connected to the first line tech support, that I assume was in Delhi, and was eventually passed over to a supervisor as I refused to go through all the “first line” bog standard “stab in the dark” fixes (no disrespect to tech support helplines, I have been there, done that). I was told by the initial tech before being passed to the supervisor that the only solution left was to wait for a fix that they had no ETA for.

I had the ZTE MF627 USB Modem. This worked brilliantly under Leo, (despite the fact that the 3 connect software was not terribly pleasant to use) but refused full stop to work under Snow Leopard.

The options I was offered by three was to get one of their Huawei dongle modems, and the supervisor seemed quite confident that it “might” work.

To cut a long story short, I had been browsing the three site, and seen advertised the newly released “MiFi” modem, which is essentially a small wireless hotspot in your pocket. You turn it on, then connect to it with any wireless enabled device that you want in the same way you would connect to any other wireless network. Quick, painless, and completely platform independent. It also allows you to connect multiple devices simultaneously, unlike the dongle.

Now, while the device was actually quite expensive (£69.00 on contract, £99.00 on PAYG) I have to say it is probably the best 100 quid I have spent in a long time. It just works. No faffing about, turn it on, drop it in your pocket, then connect your laptop. Flawless ! If you find your internet connection is not strong enough where you are sitting, unlike the dongle you can take this and place it on a windowsill.

Before I purchased the MiFi, I did check more than once that I could buy the PAYG modem, and insert my current contract sim in it, and was assured that I could.

For those of you that have upgraded your MacBook to Snow Leopard, and need easy access to 3 Mobile Broadband, I would not hesitate to recommend this device to you if you have the cash to spare.

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