Always On Wireless WiFlyer

In Brief

While many hotels have in-room broadband these days, the budget inns we seem to end up at often either don't have it, or charge exorbitant daily fees for a few minutes of connect time. We're forced to resort to our trusty old dialup connection, or venture out in search of the nearest hotspot. And even with broadband, we'd rather be wireless than tied to the hotel desk chair.

Now there's a travel router that solves both problems. The Always On Wireless WiFlyer is the first pocket router to incorporate a standard 56K modem as well as Wi-Fi, which lets you unwire and share a dialup connection, as well as a broadband line. At $149, it's not cheap, but well worth it for frequent travelers who use it to avoid hotspot fees and long-distance phone charges (when used with VoIP software). It can also be used in the home as means of sharing a dialup connection, especially when used with the optional Accelerator software ($49.95/year), which significantly speeds up the dialup experience.

The WiFlyer even stores access numbers for major providers like AOL and EarthLink, easing connection hassles. The main drawbacks are that it uses 802.11b only, which limits range, and does not support strong WPA encryption, only the less-secure WEP. Nonetheless, if you use both Wi-Fi and dialup connections when you travel, the WiFlyer can be a great companion.

In Depth

When first connecting the WiFlyer, we were a little skeptical of how easy it would be to get online, with both dialup and wireless connections to troubleshoot at once. But we were up and running in five minutes, with no software to install on our laptop (which can be Mac, PC or Linux), and without even reading the manual. Basically, you plug in the WiFlyer to a phone or broadband line, connect to it via Wi-Fi (SSID wiflyer), and then open your Web browser. You'll get the dialup setup screen below:

If you are using one of the specially supported ISPs, like AOL or EarthLink, you simply select it from the drop-down menu. Most standard dialup accounts fall into the default category, where you enter your username, password and access number, then click connect. As with most desktop modem software, you can save locations, accounts and access numbers for future use. If you are using the same connection as last time, you can also just press the quick-connect button on top of the WiFlyer and make the connection even before you have booted up your computer, speeding up the process of getting online.

So what if you want to use a broadband connection? Press the "Switch to Broadband" button at the left, which reloads firmware and restarts the router for broadband. This takes 30 seconds, which is somewhat annoying, but you shouldn't need to do it often. All major broadband connection types, including PPoE, are supported, as is MAC address cloning. Configuration is just like any standard router.

Wi-Fi is on by default, set to channel 6 with no encryption. You can change the channel, and turn on WEP encryption from the wireless and security screens shown below. We'd have preferred to see WPA encryption, but in a travel router that moves around a lot, WEP is probably adequate.

As a router, the WiFlyer is quite capable, with DMZ and virtual server support, port filtering and triggering (for things like online gaming), and a NAT firewall. The user manual is very good (although we didn't really need it), and the Web utility easy to navigate.

If you're looking for a travel router to unwire your hotel or conference room, and also do a fair amount of dialup, the WiFlyer is an excellent choice.