Hello,
     I'm looking at buying the Softbank Mobile Wifi, Model 007z.  I have done a ton of research on the web and can't really find any reviews on this. 

     The Softbank website claims that it can achieve 42 Mbps.  I find that hard to believe.  Of course with me getting poor service from Americable I think that anything could be better.

     Anyone use one of these?  Are you satisfied with the service?  What are you typically seeing for download speeds?

     Thanks for the info.

      If you are interested here is the website that I pulled the info from
http://mb.softbank.jp/en/products/d.../007z.html

Hard to believe; agreed. I expect the 42 Mbps is in ideal laboratory conditions with a perfect, full-band 3G signal. You'd be lucky to get 10% of that speed in real life.

I have the older model: C01HW. You can read my review at http://www.japanbases.com/forums/aft/6326.aspx I've never measured the throughput; I bought it not for speed but for portability. I love being able to go into any cafe and whip out my little internet dinglebob and get online. It rarely gets 4 bars of signal strength, even when my SB phone does. I have done video streaming & video chat on it; with decent signal strength, it works.

See if SB will let you borrow one for a few days to try it in your usual hang-outs. They were doing that in Iwakuni with the C01HW. There was a waiting list, but you could check it out for 2 days to try before you buy.

I had a loaner unit from AU and opted to instead get an HTC Evo smart phone for just about the same price as my phone needed replacing - the Evo can also wirelessly be used as a route for up to 6 devices and it was faster throughput!

42 Mbps is network speed, not download speed. They're quite disingenuous when they try to pass it off as D/L speeds. That said, I have it and it works fairly good. Typical download speeds for me are about 1.5-2.5 Mbps. Upload is horrible, right around 500kbps.

When I went to get mine they told me to take a loaner home for a few days, because they don't want you to buy it, then get home and it doesn't work.