Rover 4G WIFI Hotspot
Here are exterior and interior pictures of the new Rover Puck 4G mobile WiFi hotspot from Clear Wireless. The Rover Puck can connect up to 8 WiFi laptops or smartphones to the internet. How fast is it? Well the Clear Wireless Rover 4G service is based on the WiMax protocol and can do up to 1 Mbps upload and 3 – 6 Mbps (million bits per second) download. If you don’t know what a Mbps is, then just think of the Rover being about as fast as a pretty good home broadband connection – yes, this means you can watch video.
How well does it work in real life? Well 4G is very new – it rolled out this Summer and even in major markets, coverage is still being improved and expanded. I tried out a Puck in Las Vegas and when I was able to get a 3 or 4 (max) bar signal things were great. However, when moving at highway speeds things weren’t as consistent. I am told that when moving at “high speed” the connection quality can fall to 1/10 of stationary levels.
In my empirical testing, I’d be watching a video (somebody else was driving!) and then after certain turns or bumps the video would stop. I also tried the Puck while walking around and it performed about about the same as when stationary. When walking around tall buildings I did find a few “dead” spots just a few feet wide in some of these urban valleys.
Clearwire is offering the first 2 days of service for free so if you get it I’d suggest you test out your most likely spots and routes right away. I really like that there is no service contract with Rover – you buy the Puck ($149) or the USB single connection Stick ($99) and then pay $5/day, $20/week or $50/month for the service.
There are just 2 buttons on the Puck, an on/off switch and a signal strength button. There’s a USB mini connection to power and recharge. Battery life is about 3-4 hours depending on intensity of usage. My Puck ran pretty warm when it was plugged into USB power and not in an air conditioned space. It came complete with a USB power/recharge cable, AC to USB adapter, 12 volt cigarette lighter to USB adapter and a nice “rover” sticker. There is no external antenna connection. More information about the Rover service, coverage area and devices at Rover.com
