Review by tezgno 
Posted: 3.6 years ago
member for 3.6 years, 8 visits, last login: 37 days ago
 Abilene,Taylor,TX
 $36 per month (9 month contract)
 about 1 days
 "Shorter contract since I'm a student"
 "High latency, shaped service"
 "For the casual user... this is fine. For everyone else... stay away!"
| Pre Sales Information:
Install process:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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I switched from COX HSI to Clearwire due to several problems that I had with COX (everything from slow speeds to unreliable connections over 4 years of service with them). I chose Clearwire because we get a student discount at the school I attend and have a shorter contract. However, even with the discount and shorter contract, it isn't worth it. Since I have had Clearwire, I have had nothing but problem after problem.
Problem 1: Vonage DOES NOT WORK... well! When I had COX, I used Vonage. After switching to Clearwire, I had to drop Vonage and use my cell phone as my primary phone. Since I know how to modify my ATA, I did so that I could get a connection to Vonage. It was then that I realized how much latency existed on the Clearwire line. While I had a connection, there was so much distortion on the line that it was unusable.
Problem 2: Number of bars = Quality of service! When I first signed up, I was getting about 4-5 bars consistently. Now, after 3 months of service, I only get 1-2 bars. Since I pay for the faster service, I still get decent download speeds with the fewer bars. However, the upload speed drops down to nearly nothing. No upload = slower website requests = slower service.
Problem 3: Shaped service! A lot of people have mentioned that Clearwire does packet shaping. Well, I'm here to tell you that they do. HTTP traffic has a higher priority so that traffic is usually fast. It is HTTP traffic, however, that usually sells people into purchasing the service. All other traffic is severely shaped. My most common traffic, FTP, SSH, and IMAP crawl on Clearwire. Comparitively, I can download a file off the internet about 6-7x faster than I can from the same server over another protocol.
Problem 4: Port blocking galore! Clearwire blocks so many ports, they should give away their service. While I have been able to bypass a lot of their blocking and shaping for things such as BitTorrent, it is almost unreal how much they block. If you can think of a port, chances are that Clearwire blocks it.
Problem 5: Overselling! I don't know about everywhere, but here in Abilene, it seems as though they have oversold their network capacity... especially to students. It seems as though with each passing day, my service degrades more and more with no end in site.
Problem 6: Reselling! I have noticed that my IP (and others here in Abilene) are all owned by SBC. In fact, before Clearwire came to Abilene, a friend of mine who uses SBC had a similar IP to what I now have on clearwire. I'm willing to bet that Clearwire doing nothing more than selling SBC DSL over the air at a higher price.
I cannot wait until I move from here in the next month. I'm leaving Clearwire behind and am getting a "real" ISP.
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