desreb Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 I just thought I'd share what's turned out to be a bit of a lifesaver. We moved over to Oz last Sunday, and spent the first 9 days in a friends' flat, where they had home broadband with WiFi. That was a huge help, as we spent a lot of time on the property websites looking for rentals - in fact, 8-10am every morning was spent going through domain.com.au and realestate.com.au, plus other sites, pulling out new properties, phoning agents, making notes and scheduling on an online Google spreadsheet, and then hitting the road. The first thing we did was get an Aussie prepay SIM - an Optus pack from a newsagent for $30, which is still going strong on the original credit despite a lot of iPhone internet/local call use. I then got another one, and put it in an unlocked MiFi that I bought on eBay before I left. One such auction here, although this isn't the seller I used, and I have no affiliation with them. The MiFi is the thing that's been the lifesaver... you pop a local SIM in, and it connects to the 3G network, and broadcasts it out to your Laptops/iPhones as a private WiFi hotspot. I have it sat on the sideboard in our new house, and it's giving us decent broadband speeds to both laptops and both iphones, for the cost of one prepay SIM subscription. It worked just as well out and about - such as in a cafe while we were reviewing our days' viewings. It should hopefully serve us until we get home broadband ordered. So - if you're preparing to move, it's definitely worth getting one of these and setting up the WiFi part before you come out; make sure it's unlocked to any network, of course. Sure, you can use internet cafes, wired USB dongles, share Wifi from your jailbroken iphone, from your handset via bluetooth, etc. etc... but with this thing, you turn it on, press a button, and it works: End Of. I have enough on my plate without having to be IT support as well! D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Pom Queen Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 Thank you for sharing, sounds a great piece of equipment. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
freebo Posted February 24, 2011 Share Posted February 24, 2011 You can buy them here too - I used a virgin mobile one on the commute to work for a few months like this one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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