According to Aaron Maben, when we’re talking about the different wireless technologies that are being used for wide area networks, right now the current standard is LTE Advance Pro or Gigabit-Class LTE, still commonly referred to as 4G or 4th generation LTE. This is going to continue to be a backbone for the implementation of 5G networks — the 5th generation of connectivity. However, if the 5G network is not available, LTE will continue to be used as a fallback. So, if you’re connected to a 5G network and you move outside of the range of that 5G network, especially if it’s utilizing millimeter wave, then you’re going to be falling back to LTE, which is what is going to give you the mobile connectivity that you need for the near future.
When we’re talking about MiFi, that is referring to a consumer-grade device that a carrier would provide to an end-user typically included with their cellular data plan. This is just a simplified WiFi hotspot that’s leveraging the cellular connection and usually can’t support advanced configurations and is only designed to support maybe up to 5 users. Cradlepoint devices are designed with enterprise functionality in mind and supports routing and VPN Tunnels and can handle more connected users.
