Force your MiFi 4510L Mobile Hotspot into 3G (EVDO) or 4G (LTE) mode (WWAN Settings)

The other day, I wrote about how my Verizon MiFi 4510L Mobile Hotspot was stuck on 3G (EVDO) and was not switching to 4G (LTE). If you're experiencing similar issues, make sure to read this.

For those of you wanting to manually switch your Wi-Fi Mobile Hotspot from 3G to 4G (or vice versa), here's a simple tutorial that outlines the steps that will help you do that.

• Connect to your MiFi
• Log in to your MiFi by typing this URL into your browser: http://192.168.1.1/
• Click on "Setup Wizard"
• The default password is "admin" (unless you've changed it)
• When it asks you to set up a new password, click "cancel"
• Now you'll see that you have several new menu options at the top red horizontal navigation bar: Home, Wi-Fi, LAN, WWAN, Security, Advanced

Now, you'll want to click on WWAN -> and then go to the "WWAN Settings" at the bottom of the page.

• Under the WWAN Preferred Mode, select "LTE only" if you want to force it back to 4G (LTE). Or, select "EVDO only" if you want to force it to stay in 3G (EVDO) mode. 
• Then, click "apply" and the device will reboot.

I haven't done enough experiments to confirm that you'll experience battery life improvements by using the device as a 3G mobile hotspot instead of a 4G mobile hotspot, but you could do those experiments yourself.

If you're using your 4G smartphone as a mobile hotspot to tether your laptop to the internet, you'll definitely experience improved battery life by staying on 3G.