Well, I had to struggle through in Japanese and deal with reps who like to say “that’s not my department” or the like, but I seem to have resolved that WiMAX simply is not an option for us–yet.

I imagined that we would get the WiMAX account and have a WiFi router at home, while I took a portable pocket WiFi router with me to work, using it on the train and wherever else.

Alas, UQ is having none of that. It turns out that while they allow any number of devices to use a WiFi signal from any WiFi router, and they have an option that allows you to access the same WiMAX account from two different WiFi routers (extra charge for that), they do not allow two WiFi routers to access the same account at the same time.

Meaning that if Sachi is using the Internet at home and I start using it at work, Sachi gets kicked off–and then I get kicked off if she tries to re-establish a connection.

In short, they really just want one location using the connection at a time–a deal-killer for us.

Now, I suppose I can understand this–if they didn’t do that, there would be nothing stopping two friends living in different locations, say, from sharing one account and splitting the difference.

The problem is, WiMAX’s whole appeal is its portability–and not allowing home and away to access at the same time completely obliterates that advantage for anyone who lives with other people. For us to use it the way I’d hoped, I would have to get two accounts. However, that would have zero advantage over simply keeping our current fiber-optic connection and adding WiMAX to it, and we’re not going to pay for two concurrent Internet connections. Not when we’re already paying for mobile data plans to boot. I was ready to give up F/O speeds for portability, but paying double is simply not something I’m willing to do.

Ah well. Now we’ll just have to wait until they come around on that part of things. If they ever do. At this rate, however, 4G/LTE will probably roll around and obviate WiMAX’s advantage before they get their act together. Too bad.