Hello Goodbye

I have wanted to rid myself once and forever of the land-line telephone at the house. Let's be honest... no one ever calls me there - they either call the office or the cell phone. Looking at the monthly expense of the land-line and the DSL that I had "bundled" with it, it no longer made sense, especially when you consider that I had a broadband USB stick from Verizon for my travels and out-of-office meetings.

So I find that Verizon has an incredibly tiny broadband wifi hotspot that will handle up to 5 wifi'd netbooks, notebooks, cameras, etc and I can get it after rebates for $3 and the monthly access fee I'm already giving for the broadband.

I'm using it now - and I feel like using my best MLK Jr. voice as I say, "Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, I'm free at last" (or at least I will be once I contact the phone company and get them off my back).

Only drawback to the "MiFi 2200" is the instruction page (3.5 x 5") is less than instructive. If you follow the instructions to the letter you will a) load the proper software onto your computer, and b) not be able to connect to the web (even though you have wirelessly connected to the hotspot). After hours of dinking around (no the ACC does not call customer support) I found a blog where some kind guru of electronics explained his similar frustration with the device. Frankly, it made me feel pretty good to know that some tech-savvy acne-scarred post-pubescent couldn't get the thing to work either... anyway, the scoop is don't follow the instructions. Sure charge the battery, use the provided USB cable to connect it with the device where you want the software installed but then DON'T UNPLUG THE USB! Leave the damn thing plugged into the PC, go to the top of the "VZ Access Manager" and click the "tools" tab at the top of the screen followed by "Get Access" from the drop down menu. Badabing, badaboom... it was done.

Apparently no one at the manufacturer bothered to let a non-engineer try to install the software/hardware using the provided instructions. If they had they would have scratched their skinny little Asian butts and said, "Damn... that didn't work."

Oh well. Hello Verizon hotspot, goodbye phone company
ACC