Using Meteor Broadband to Go Hotspot for Wireless Internet access on iPhone, iPad and Laptop

If, like me, you bought the basic iPad model without 3G then you can  connect to the Internet via wifi at home or while staying in hotels but not while out on the road.  The iPad doesn’t have a USB port which  means you can’t use a mobile broadband stick if you need Internet access while you are out an about. You can, however, purchase a mobile Internet hotspot device (similar to mifi) which, once you have done the initial set up on a PC or laptop, will allow you to connect your iPad and other devices to the Internet via a wireless connection that you carry around with you. Here is how I did it.

I recently bought a pay-as-you-go Meteor Broadband to Go Hotspot. This device provides a wifi hotspot that allows up to five devices (eg laptop, iPhone, iPad) to connect wirelessly to the Internet.  I chose it because it does not require a USB connection which makes it suitable for use with the non-3g iPad model (although you do need to connect it to a laptop or computer via USB for the initial set up).

I chose Meteor because my iPhone is with O2 and I have 3G Internet access that is usually pretty good. However, in some parts of the country, the coverage falls off so I thought having the hotspot access on a different network would improve my chances of decent coverage when I am away from home. That is why I also opted for a Pay-as-You-Go option since I will only need to fall back on the hotspot occasionally.

In the Meteor broadband to go hotspot box were:

•  the Huawei E5 wireless terminal with
• a Sim card, Pin, PUK,
• a USB connection cable
• a quick start guide for the Huawei E5 (which in my opinion has a poor layout and is difficult to follow)

Getting started with installing the Huawei E5 wifi hotspot from Meteor

The iPad / iPhone doesn’t have a USB port so you will need to connect to your laptop or computer in order to install the device and set it up for use.  Once it has been set up, and you have purchased credit, you can then access a wifi network on the iPad/iPhone using the ‘Settings’ option to select the network just as you would to connect to any other wireless network in a hotel, coffee shop, etc.

The installation instructions in the box are not as good as they might be but, that said, I managed to set up the hotspot successfully on my Sony Vaio laptop running Windows Vista Home Premium. The process went something like this:

Meteor Broadband to Go Hotspot

• Turn on the hotspot using the on/off switch on the right hand side of the device.
• Connect the device to the USB port on your laptop or computer.
• A dialog box pops up and takes you through the install process.
• When the software has installed, go to Start – Control Panel  – Network and Internet – Network and Sharing Centre – Manage Wireless Networks . Add the new network. You will be prompted for a password which for the Meteor hotspot is the wifi key printed on a label on the back of the device.
• If you have got a network icon on your toolbar, the new network should not be visible there.  You can right click to connect or you can connect  to the new network  from the Network and Sharing Centre (Connect to a Network)
• Once you are connected, you need to go to the IP address which is listed in the Huawei E5 quickstart guide included in the Meteor Broadband to Go hotspot box.  It seems you can only navigate to this address when the hotspot is switched on and connected to your laptop/computer. A default password is provided in the booklet and you are advised to change this. This IP address is where you can change settings (the main thing seems to be to make sure that the status is ‘connected’ and it is also where you go to ‘top up’ your credit.

The hotspot gives you about four hours of wifi before you need to re-charge it. It charges via the USB cable that comes in the box and up to now I have charged it by connecting to the laptop. I haven’t yet tried connecting the cable to the iPhone charger, but I am hopeful it might work and would certainly be more convenient when travelling.Over the Christmas holiday period we had 3 iPhones, an iPad and an iPod Touch connected to the wifi network. The closer you were to the Huawei device, the better it worked. Coverage was not great in our particular part of the country so we had a 2G rather than a 3G connection but we did have Internet access. In areas with 3G the speed is much, much better. All in all, I think this is a useful device and definitely worth looking at if a the mobile broadband USB stick is not an option for you.