Kyocera KR1 Mobile Router

In Brief

We love our Wi-Fi travel routers, and don't leave home without one, but the fact is that unless you have access to a wired broadband connection, they're just so much dead weight. By contrast, the Kyocera KR1 Mobile Router, like the Junxion Box before it, allows you to cut that final cord by letting you use a broadband cellular account as your Internet connection. But unlike the Junxion Box, which only accepts PC Cards, the KR1 also works with USB cellular handsets, making it much more flexible. The card or handset must use EV-DO technology, but can be from any provider (such as Sprint or Verizon Wireless).

Setting up your own Wi-Fi hotspot with the KR1 is easy, although not cheap. Whichever way you choose to get connected, card or handset, you'll need to pay a $60 to $80 per month fee for unlimited data, depending on whether you also have a voice plan with your data carrier. And the KR1 itself costs $250 after a $50 mail-in rebate. That's five times the price of a regular 802.11g router, but half the price of the Junxion Box. However, it's worth its weight in gold when you are working on-site at a big company event and need a temporary and reasonably speedy Internet connection.

Assuming you can justify the cost, the KR1 is simply the best such router available. Made and supported by D-Link for Kyocera Wireless, the router is based on a standard D-Link model, with the added expertise of Kyocera in the cellular area. Earlier products in this area were either prohibitively expensive for consumers, or compromised in Wi-Fi features. The KR1 has all the Wi-Fi features users have come to expect, with a reasonable price tag. We can see it being used by family vacationers as well as mobile workgroups, and the optional auto power adapter even lets you install it in a moving vehicle. You'll need to be in an EV-DO coverage area for best results, but the router also supports slower (and more ubiquitous) 1xRTT connections in a pinch.

In Depth

From the front the KR1 looks much like any stylish Wi-Fi router, with a full set of indicator lights, including one for the EV-DO network.

It's the rear of the box that betrays its function. There's a PC Card slot and a USB port in addition to the usual four Ethernet ports. The Wi-Fi antenna is detachable, so you could potentially add a higher power antenna for longer range.

We had no problem popping in our Kyocera KPC650 EV-DO PC Card from Verizon Wireless and getting connected using the browser-based setup Wizard. Once connected, we turned on WEP 128-bit encryption, and played with some of the other features. One critical setting is 2G connection support (1xRTT). This is off by default. If you intend to use the router in a moving vehicle, you will definitely want to turn it on so that you can maintain coverage as you pass in and out of EV-DO areas. Even in EV-DO regions, signals will sometimes be too weak to get a high-speed connection, and your card or phone will default to 1xRTT. Obviously, a 100Kbps 1xRTT signal is much slower than EV-DO at 400-700Kbps, but it's still better than no connection at all. Just don't try to share it among more than two users.

Performance-wise, we got everything from 267Kbps to 1020Kbps on the CNET Bandwidth Meter for downloads, with most tests in the 400-to-500Kbps range. This was with a full-bar EV-DO signal. A 400-500Mbps download rate is fast enough to share between three computers, as long as they aren't all doing simultaneous bandwidth-intensive tasks like viewing streaming video. The difference in speed between EV-DO and DSL or cable is noticeable -- most DSL and cable connections these days offer about 1.5Mbps -- but EV-DO surfing will be perfectly satisfactory for most people. The bigger problem is upload speed, which is around 100Kbps, a fraction of the download speed. If you need to upload lots of big photos or video files from the field, you'll probably want to look for the nearest fixed Wi-Fi hotspot or wired connection.

The other issue we had with the router was occasional EV-DO dropouts. We'd still be connected via Wi-Fi, but the Internet connection was lost, resulting in error messages when trying to access the Web or email. Users of EV-DO PC Cards in their laptops will be familiar with this problem, which seems to be inherent in cellular data networks. Every once in a while, you simply need to reconnect, or wait until the signal drifts back. In a couple instances we also had to reboot the router to reestablish the connection. This slight unreliability of service is to be expected from cellular connections, but is a far cry from the 24/7 trouble-free operation of most Wi-Fi routers with DSL or cable connections. In fairness, cell phone connections are not designed to keep going 24 hours a day, especially broadband ones.

The dropouts wouldn't bother us as much if the router software status screen gave a clue as to what is going on. But it only tells you basic connection information, and nothing about signal strength.

The bottom line is we aren't going to give up our home DSL connection in favor of EV-DO; broadband cellular still isn't up to DSL or cable performance. But for setting up a mobile hotspot on the road for business or pleasure, the KR1 can't be beat. It works with both PC Cards and handsets from any EV-DO carrier, and has a full-featured Wi-Fi side, unlike the Junxion Box. We're actually looking forward to a summer road trip where the whole family can stay connected in the car, campsite, or hotel.