WiFail in Japan

My plan to blog daily from Japan has been short sheeted by a sporadic connection via my XComm Global MiFi hotspot.  In years past, the mobile MiFi hotspot has provided a great internet connection but not this year.  My first day in Japan, I connected with no issues and had my laptop, iPhone, iPad Mini and iPad all logged onto the MiFi unit and working flawlessly.

The MiFi unit worked fine through New Year’s Eve and the morning of New Year’s Day.  Then it started to act up.  Sporadic connections, mind-numbingly slow connections and at times, no connection to the internet.  Normally, I wouldn’t be as put out as I am this year because you see, my doctoral program through Creighton started on January 1.  Why any class would start on January 1 is beside me but it did and I was stranded without an (inter)net.

I won’t bore you with the details, but it has been an exercise in patience and mental cursing to get through the past few days.

I attempted to get other local MiFi units to use during my stay and there were two companies that usually provide the service to travelers. However, because it was New Year, one company didn’t even open until the 4^th of January and the other company had no available units until the 6^th of January.  I did order one from both just in case...

While my program chair was very understanding, I couldn't lose 6 days of coursework due to the sheer amount of work required! 

Luckily, my brother who lives a quick 3 minute walk from Mama’s house has an ADSL line so I could go there and work while I worked to resolved my MiFi/WiFi issues.

I did managed to get my homework done with A LOT of help from home base (Thank You Ed!) and stay afloat in my classes.

Finally today at 8:00 PM JST - the 5th of January 2013 in Japan - Global Advanced Communications (http://www.globaladvancedcomm.com/iphonerent.html) 

I popped it out of the package and found it was charged up and ready to go - within seconds I was connected at a blazing 72mbps!  Woo-Hoo!!!

So now I just pray that it continues to be as fast and as reliable for the next week.

Thank You Yamamoto KuroNeko Delivery Service!