Internet on the Go uses Sprint’s 3G network, so personal hotspot speeds will likely top out around 1.5 Mbps in a Sprint coverage area. That’s far slower than HSPA+ and LTE mobile broadband services, which are often 10x faster. But the benefit here isn’t meant to be speed. Instead, the service should appeal to people that occasionally need to access the web on a Wi-Fi tablet or laptop. The target audience likely wouldn’t get a hotspot due to contracts as their 3G needs are far and few between.

As a result, the data pricing won’t be cheaper than what you’d find for a contract plan or even other pre-paid deals. The cost is $10 for 100 MB, $25 for 500 MB or $45 for 1 GB; far more on a per-gigabyte basis than what others charge. The key difference — and potential selling point — is that the data is good forever, provided you fire up that MiFi and use it at least once per year. I look at it this way: It’s cheap insurance as a 3G backup plan, even if the MiFi itself costs $119.88.

This isn’t the first time TruConnect dabbled with unique mobile broadband products. In September, 2010, the company offered a MiFi specifically for Wi-Fi iPad owners that carried a small monthly fee — even if the device wasn’t used — and a metered 3G service. While its products aren’t for everyone, there’s opportunity for TruConnect’s niche style services that offer device owners more flexibility for mobile broadband.

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It’s fast, but speeds can vary

Clearly, the biggest difference between the two is support for Verizon’s LTE network. The 4620L on LTE should offer speeds around 10x faster than my old 3G MiFi. My testing didn’t quite show that speed boost, but its difficult to get exact numbers for mobile broadband testing due to so many variables: Location, coverage, people connecting to the same cell tower, what they’re actually doing, and more.

The best speeds I saw from the Jetpack 4620L topped out around 10 Mbps, but again, I suspect network congestion may have played a part during my testing. The device managed uploads near 5 Mbps and low latency; more than good enough for a little online gaming. Up to 10 devices can connect to the hotspot over Wi-Fi. I did experience one connection drop on 4G that required the device to be restarted, but otherwise it was trouble-free. Aside from the one hiccup, I worked for hours on the MiFi connection and it was no different from working at my home office on a 25 Mbps FiOS connection.

Size is just right

The device itself is roughly twice as thick as older MiFi’s — about the size of a deck of playing cards — with the standard 1500 mAh battery. A double capacity power-pack and larger cover effectively doubles the device run time, which in my tests averaged about  3.5 hours when on a 4G LTE connection. Nearly all day with the extended battery ought to be possible, as should a full day with both batteries. The device charges quite quickly with the included micro USB power brick and can be charged from a mobile device.

No software and an OLED screen

Aside from the basic wireless hotspot functionality, Two features standout to me. First is the complete lack of any companion software to install. I remember using VZ Access Manager with older devices and there’s simply no need for this kind of application. The Novatel Wireless 4620L just powers up and works, as it should.

Second is the small display on the top of the unit. This is handy because the device has a dedicated phone number and can receive messages; you can scroll through and view them on the display. Plus you can see how many devices are connected, signal strength, and battery life without hitting an app or a web page. Novatel says the device can be used as a GPS over Wi-Fi, but I didn’t test the feature as all of my devices have GPS radios already.

Verizon sells the Jetpack for $49.99 with contract, $269.99 without. Is it a good deal? For those who don’t want to or can’t use their phone as an LTE hotspot, I’d say yes. The MiFi works well and has some great features. Because it can fall back to 3G, you can even use it as a hotspot in an area that lacks LTE coverage. For heavy users, I’d recommend the higher-capacity battery, but for occasional use, the included battery should work fine for most.

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Yesterday, when Apple announced the new iPad, it also touted that the new iPad will be able to offer “mobile hot spot” like features, allowing you to share your super-fast wireless broadband connection with five devices. This prompted folks at Fool.com to ask: did Novatel and Sierra Wireless get Garmin’d?

Garmin, if you remember was a maker of GPS devices, that predictably was relegated to marginal existence by iPhone and then a range of smartphones. In other words, Garmin, the device became an app. So from that perspective, Fool.com is right in asking the question. The stock market agreed as well and the shares of two companies declined.

Their question made me think about the future of mobile hotspots. Clearly, a nice market to begin with, the need for hotspots keeps decreasing as more devices such as the iPads and iPhones come packed with WiFi and mobile broadband connectivity. We are also seeing people replace laptops with the tablets on their short trips and thus decreasing the need for mobile hotspots. And the ability to share connections via the iPad/iPhone/Android phone is going to kill the demand from casual hotspot owners. I am one of the casual owners — once I got the Verizon iPhone, I stopped using my dedicated mobile hotspot device

However, there is one problem with the Pad or phones-as-a-hotspot — battery life. The sharing kills the battery faster than Highlight app notifications. And I think this is the big edge for the dedicated hot-spot makers. They could come up with innovative designs and at the same time work on increasing the battery life of their device. I am thinking they should be taking a cue from the modem makers of the old. Remember when ISDN/DSL because a threat to their business, some modem makers started offering higher speeds by using bonding technologies. I wonder if Novatel and Sierra Wireless can provide a faster, and longer lasting wireless hotspot experience.

But how much more can its sales grow now that Internet sharing functionality has become a common staple in smartphones and even other connected devices? The MiFi may become a relic, albeit an important one that helped bridge a time when cellular connections weren’t as ubiqutious and connectivity wasn’t taken for granted.

Regardless, the milestone of 3 million sales is a sizable accomplishment from the mobile broadband equipment maker. And I’m not surprised, because I remember being impressed by my first look at the thin, credit-card sized device at the early 2009 CTIA trade show. It only took a few minutes to convince me that Novatel Wireless was on to something with the MiFi’s simplicity and utility: Press a button and the MiFi instantly creates a personal Wi-Fi hotspot that shares a 3G or 4G data connection.

My MiFi

I bought my own MiFi last year and have used it during travel and as a backup connection at home for when either the power or home broadband connection goes out. With the ability to connect to five Wi-Fi devices — some models can support eight devices — the MiFi has made many long car rides far less boring. Our kids connect iPads, small tablets and laptops to the mobile web for hours at a time while on the road.

Will consumers continue to follow suit and keep buying the MiFi devices, however? Although we used our MiFi quite a bit when we first bought it, our usage has dwindled considerably; some months we don’t use it at all and I’m now considering the idea of canceling our $35 month-to-month deal. Our desire to be connected while mobile hasn’t diminished — if anything, it has increased — so what changed?

Software for the win

In May of last year, my Android handset gained the same functionality as the MiFi, and my Samsung Galaxy Tab has it too. Using software in these devices, I can share a 3G connection with several Wi-Fi devices, eliminating the need to carry a MiFi at all. Because my plan allows for it, there’s no charge for this ability, although the plan is old and newer plans typically add $20 or more per month to enable this feature.

I’ve kept the MiFi since then for two reasons, and I suspect they’re the same reasons that some people will opt for a dedicated mobile hotspot instead of using their phone. For one, the hotspot feature can quickly drain a smartphone’s battery. I carry a spare battery at all times for my Android phone, but I’m likely in the minority. Using up a phone battery for MiFi-like features ends up leaving you with no Mi-Fi and no smartphone, i.e.: a useless brick. My other reason is because the MiFi is on a different network than my smartphone, which gives me some redundancy if one of the two is down.

So while there’s good reason for some to buy and use a MiFi, however, I recall some other reasons that sounded good at the time, but really haven’t come to pass. A number of times since the product’s introduction, Novatel Wireless has touted the ability of the MiFi to run unique software solutions. One example is having the device pull all of your email just before getting on a plane and then reading that mail offline after a data transfer from MiFi to laptop, for example. Ideas such as that sound good and could help add more value to the MiFi, but for now, the device is primarily known for a simple way to get online with tablets and laptops as needed.

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Just owning TruConnect’s MiFi incurs a $4.99 monthly charge, even if the MiFi goes unused. However, that’s a small price to pay knowing that you’d have a readily available mobile broadband connection for a combination of up to five notebooks or tablets. The device might even make for a good backup connection if you think of the $5 monthly charge as cheap insurance against a home or other mobile broadband outage.

As far as the data charges, TruConnect provides 1 MB of data for $0.039 cents. If you’re the type of person that routinely uses 1 GB or more of data, then you might be better off with a traditional MiFi plan from the larger carriers or tiered MiFi pre-paid plan from another MVNO such as Virgin Mobile.

But for a new tablet owner or someone who occasionally uses a laptop outside of Wi-Fi hotspot areas, this MiFi be more cost-effective. For example, using 250 MB of data in a month would cost just under $15: the $5 monthly charge plus $9.75 for the data. The company will automatically top up your account balance if it dips under $2, ensuring the service isn’t cut off when needed.

TruConnect’s MiFi is, like many others on the market, produced by Novatel Wireless. So based on my prior testing of using similar MiFis, the device should last for at least four hours on a charge and be as simple to use as pushing the power button and connecting to the Wi-Fi network created by the MiFi.

Those interested in a 3G USB stick with the same data plan price terms can buy one from TruConnect for $70; that device is also made by Novatel Wireless. Either device can be returned to TruConnect for a refund within 90 days, no questions asked, according to the company’s online storefont.

Is this deal going to attract those who have been using mobile broadband on a regular basis for some time? Not likely, although I may consider the TruConnect MiFi and retire my month-to-month Verizon MiFi which is costing me $35 a month as a rarely used backup connection. As tablet sales continue to rise, however, there could be a reasonable number of Wi-Fi tablet owners who decide to take their iPad out for a walk and do a little mobile surfing or email on the go.

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For the past week, I’ve been using one of the new MiFi’s. Novatel Wireless sent me a loaner MiFi 4510L, which Verizon currently sells online for $99 with a two-year data contract. This morning I used the device as my only data connection for my laptop and a tablet. It can share the 4G connection with up to five devices. My laptop was used all morning on the MiFi’s hotspot, while I used the tablet sporadically. Both devices enjoyed super speeds from the 4510L; I felt like I was working at home where I have a fast FiOS connection.

Verizon advertises that the MiFi 4510L should provide downloads 5–12 Mbps and upload speeds of 2–5 Mbps. In repeated tests, the device exceded those claims and performance didn’t vary much. My speedtests routinely showed network latency around 45 milliseconds, downloads at 16 Mbps and uploads just over 5 Mbps, all of which are comparable or better to what I experienced in December.

To give you a real-world example of the speeds, I downloaded the latest Christina Perri album from my Amazon Cloud Storage account in just under two minutes. Every activity I threw at the network and the MiFi — video chats, YouTube HQ viewing, streaming music, browsing and more — offered a comparable experience to my speedy home network.

The device itself is slightly thicker than the old 3G MiFi I still have for Verizon’s network, but it doesn’t have a noticeably bigger footprint, as you can easily throw the new MiFi in a pocket. The 1500 mAh battery lasted for just over 3.5 hours on the 4G network and can be charged with the included plug or from a computer’s USB port. One upgrade I really like over the prior version is a handy display to show signal strength, battery life and the number of connected devices: A small dot appears for each computer, tablet or mobile device using the MiFi’s wireless connection.

While the MiFi 4510L uses Verizon’s 4G network, it also supports the operator’s 3G or EV-DO data networks; helpful since LTE is only available in 46 markets now. The carrier plans to cover 145 markets before the end of 2011. Since the MiFi 4510L supports both 3G and 4G mobile broadband, it’s future-proof and is prepared to show you 4G speeds if you’re not yet in an LTE coverage area. Using the device at my home office provided standard 3G speeds, just like my old MiFi does.

Should you buy this MiFi? There’s two schools of thought here for people that need mobile broadband. One one hand, some are occasionally using the wireless hotspot functionality that’s becoming prominent on new smartphones. The potential downside here is that using the phone as a hotspot can leave you with a brick. Once the battery runs down you lose both your mobile broadband and your smartphone features. The other camp would rather have a dedicated data device which can offer more monthly bandwidth for the dollar. For those folks, especially in an LTE coverage area, the MiFi 4510L is a great choice.

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Using data from the Novatel Wireless investors site and press releases, I charted the reported revenues from MiFi sales since the company’s second fiscal quarter in 2009, which was the first quarter I could find with MiFi sales information. Data wasn’t provided for the last quarter in 2009, so I estimated it based on the company’s reported revenue mix of Mi-Fi devices versus other revenues. Even if my estimate that quarter is low, the MiFi sales revenue trend is flat to down at a time where connectivity needs are rising.

When I saw my first MiFi back in January 2009, I thought it was a completely innovative product: one small device with one data plan supplies the mobile broadband connection to five or more devices over Wi-Fi. I liked it so much that I bought one on Verizon’s network, and to this day, I still have it and pay $35 for 3 GB of monthly data. Now that the MiFi is entering a third year of availability at a time when mobile broadband subscribers are about to surpass wired broadband subscribers, you’d think there would be an increasing number of MiFi customers like myself. But there aren’t.

Part of any downward trend in sales could be attributable to lower device pricing, but even so, I’d expect the trend to at least be flat in that case: lower prices should make the device more attractive to carriers and customers and therefore revenues would likely still increase. I think that people still don’t know what a MiFi is, which could be hurting adoption. In any case, exact sales numbers in terms of units aren’t available, so let’s consider my chart to be a reasonable proxy.

On top of the lack of MiFi sales growth are the growing number of devices that can be used as a hotspot. In my particular case, both my phone and my tablet can share their 3G connection. In fact, I took my standlone MiFi to CES last week but never fired it up because I have the same functionality duplicated in two other devices that I already had with me. As more handsets include the ability to share a connection, even with an additional fee, a MiFi device seems less attractive.

There’s a few arguments against this line of thought, and of course, each individual’s mobile needs will vary; if a MiFi works for you, then you should keep using it. Using a phone or tablet as a mobile broadband hotspot certainly causes the battery level to drop faster. For this reason, I use one of my mobile mantras: Always buy and carry a spare battery for any mobile device if you can. Toting a second battery for my phone, for example occupies less space and weighs less than the MiFi.

However, devices based on CDMA network technology, such as all of Verizon’s current handset lineup, including the new iPhone, can’t be a hotspot and take calls at the same time. That’s another point in favor of the MiFi, but as Verizon moves smartphones to its LTE network this year, the problem could be mitigated in the future if voice traffic flows on CDMA while data stays on LTE. That may not happen until voice standards are implemented for LTE, however, so Verizon voice could rely on CS Fallback from LTE back to CDMA, which would still preclude simultaneous voice and data.

Novatel Wireless, which has bet big on the MiFi solution, is trying to add value to the device by adding the ability to run apps, but in the long run, I don’t think that will matter. I haven’t yet seen a MiFi app that adds more value to a similar existing feature on a smartphone, for example. For many consumers then, even some that have never even heard of a MiFi, using a smartphone as a mobile hotspot is the more likely future; the window of opportunity for the MiFi is slowly closing, because the function is being absorbed by the smartphone.

Based on the CES experience of not using my MiFi, I’m likely to close down the month-to-month account and simply rely on my phone and tablet to provide 3G data to other devices. But we all have different needs, so I’m curious if you’re in the same boat or you plan to get or keep using a MiFi device. Have it in our poll!

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From a hardware-maker’s standpoint, adding internal mobile broadband radios can be a product differentiator. If Dell opts not to include such connectivity, and Toshiba does, the latter has a value-add feature to advertise. Based on that, I don’t expect notebook or netbook makers, for example, to simply stop adding 3G or 4G radios to their devices. But from a consumer’s standpoint, such options are likely to find less favor over time because people simply don’t want to pay for multiple connections.

Long gone are the days of consumers and enterprise employees using just one device while mobile. We’re carrying a range of devices that want to be connected to the web: notebooks, iPads, smartphones, even cameras and portable media players. A single device such as a MiFi, or a smartphone that offers Wi-Fi / USB tethering, can act as the Internet on-ramp for any and all of our gadgets. And those MiFi devices aren’t limited to 3G any longer: Clearwire offers a 4G unit while Sprint’s Overdrive is a dual-mode mobile hot spot that works on both 3G and 4G networks.

Of course, our connected world has another player besides the hardware makers and the consumer: The wireless providers provide the third point to this connected triangle, and therein lies the rub. Every device with an embedded cellular radio is a revenue opportunity for the carriers. Want to connect that notebook to the web? No problem, that will be $60 a month for the next two years. Oh, you have an iPad that you’d like to use at the local park? Carriers have you covered for $25 each month. Before mobile hotspot devices, consumers had no real choice in the matter: Connecting a device to the web while on the go either meant paying for multiple data plans or finding ways to share the connection through software means. I spent most of 2006 using my smartphone as an unsanctioned 3G modem, for example. Today I use the wireless hotspot feature in my Android handset, which turns my phone into a portable hotspot as a backup Internet connection, all for no extra charge.

Earlier this year, I noted that MiFi sales were down in 2009, likely because consumers didn’t know what the devices were or what they could do. I’m still asked by curious passer-bys about the MiFi I use on my travels. Nearly every time I explain what the device is, what it costs and how it can be used with multiple gadgets, the light bulb goes off. “Why wouldn’t I buy one?” is the most common response I hear. Even with data plans that are capped at 5 GB, it comes down to this: Do you want to use that 5GB with one device or spread it out over all of your gadgets that have Wi-Fi functionality?

Knowledgable consumers are starting to see the light: in the second quarter of this year, Novatel Wireless reported MiFi sales of $25 million, an 85 percent increase from the same quarter in 2009. Sure, there are still valid cases for integrated wireless radios in computers and other gadgets, but it’s a mobile hotspot world; embedded devices just live in it.

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I’ve seen firsthand just how solid brand awareness of Novatel Wireless’ device line is. I purchased a MiFi to carry everywhere I go and quite often people stop me to ask, “Is that a MiFi?” I try to explain that it’s a personal hotspot, but in the end, people seem to equate a MiFi with wireless Internet connectivity. They tell me they don’t care about the technical mumbo-jumbo — only that they can get online with their devices.

But while the brand does indeed equate to easy online access, I’m not sure that customers understand that a MiFi supports several devices simultaneously. Instead of a USB dongle that provides connectivity for one computer, the MiFi shares its data connection with up to five devices over Wi-Fi. For the same monthly fee as that USB dongle, the data pipe of a MiFi is leveraged across multiple machines, providing a better value. Novatel Wireless announces quarterly earnings on Thursday of this week, so perhaps we’ll get a glimpse if the company is battling consumer perceptions of the MiFi capabilities or not.

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Global sales of mobile broadband devices rose 55 percent in 2009 over the previous year, according to a recent Infonetics Research report, even despite the effects of the economic downturn. Even more surprising, however, was that sales of personal hotspots such as Novatel’s MiFi fell 28 percent.

As 3G technologies transition to faster speeds and fourth-generation wireless networks are launched, it makes sense that overall sales of mobile broadband devices would — but convenient personal hotspot sales should be on the rise, too. In fact I would have expected them to have been increasing at a faster rate than other 3G solutions like embedded modules inside laptops or USB dongles. These pocket-sized personal hotspots connect to the web just like their USB counterparts, but easily share that pipe with several other devices over a Wi-Fi connection — usually for the same monthly fee. With the ubiquity of Wi-Fi radios in computers, phones and even consumer electronics (think handheld games and digital cameras), a personal hotspot makes far more financial sense. And that shared connection adds value to existing devices that can leverage it.

User confusion about personal hotspots may be one reason for decreasing sales. Whenever I take the MiFi out at coffee shops or around other people, I’m invariably asked what it is and what it does. Although these small routers debuted just prior to the January 2009 Consumer Electronics Show, people simply don’t know about them – a point driven home by Novatel in an earnings call.

Is this lack of knowledge encouraged by carriers? With the same monthly fee as a single-use 3G solution, I have to wonder how actively carriers promoting the MiFi devices. Why sell one mobile broadband enabler that shares the connection when you can sell multiple solutions and multiply revenues?

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