Hardware: Wi-Point 3G – Cellular to Wi-Fi hotspot

by Steve Ragan - Mar 28 2008, 11:00

Digi International, who brought you the DigiBoard, has released something that will blow your mind if you travel with a group to the most remote areas or attend far too many expos or trade shows. They call it Wi-Point 3G. Get this, it takes cellular PC cards, and uses them to power remote Wi-Fi networking.

Gearing up to go to RSA, I have been getting all sorts of notices on any number of products. Skimming press releases and emails, I came across this bit of hardware sitting in my Business Wire folder. The teaser information caught my eye. “...Wi-Point 3G, a PC card based 3G cellular router with integrated Wi-Fi access point. It acts as a cellular-to-Wi-Fi hotspot and provides secure, high-speed Internet access to remote workgroups and devices.”

Therefore, after wondering what exactly that means, I clicked on the release and read up on it. The Wi-Point 3G supports more than forty cellular PC data cards around the world, including PCMCIA and PCI Express cards, such as Sprint, Verizon and AT&T, something that most business types and remote workers live by. It takes these PC cards and uses them to power a three-in-one router. Plug in the PC card and in seconds your left with an 802.11b/g wireless access point, or hardwired 10/100 Ethernet connection.

SpaceDev, a developer of space technology systems, uses the Wi-Point 3G to allow its engineers to send data back to company headquarters from remote rocket testing sites. Jon Martin, director of IT for SpaceDev gave a glowing review, “We test rockets at least two miles from civilization, so we usually have no wired connectivity…” Jon said that the Wi-Point 3G allowed his crew to set up an on an ‘on the fly’ hotspot “…so our engineers could send data back to headquarters…We tried both Sprint and Verizon cards and found that both worked instantly.”

The catch, as you would expect, is that you need coverage for the PC card before this works. If you can’t get a normal connection with the card alone, the Wi-Point 3G turns into an attractive paperweight, however, coverage for most PC cards is decent.

Security is another aspect of this device. For those traveling with sensitive data, (encrypted of course), you can use it to setup a mini-network for a company promotions booth. (Say for example at RSA, avoiding the public Wi-Fi access.) Wi-Point 3G features IPsec VPN, WPA2 encryption and a full featured firewall. It also includes GPS support (depending on the PC card), failover to dial-up modem and auto-detection of the cellular data card for seamless field upgrade ability.

“The Digi Wi-Point 3G allows remote sites and devices to wirelessly connect to the Internet or securely integrate into a corporate network - even if that remote device happens to be driving down the highway,” said Larry Kraft, senior vice president of global sales and marketing, Digi International.

Really, if you imagine some creative uses, this little device can fit into all sorts of corporate plans. Disaster recovery, temporary networks during an outage, secondary Wi-Fi, and more. Personal usage, for me anyway, sees this as a method to keep caravans connected to the web as they drive to DefCon.

Wi-Point 3G sells for about $500, not too steep for a toy to play with, especially since the toy has several geeky and technical uses.

TechHerald has not tested this, and I have not read reviews on the hardware itself. Do some homework before adding this to your line items for Q4.

Start your research here:
http://www.digi.com/products/wireless/cellular/digiwipoint3gspecs.jsp

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