Review by J Nalasco 
UPDATED: 167 days ago
member for 5.8 years, 42 visits, last login: 167 days ago
 Richmond,Richmond City,VA
 $42 per month (24 month contract)
 "Easy setup, decent customer service, widespread availability"
 "Inconsistent speeds, poor support for gaming, silly contract"
 "Only worthwhile if cable and DSL are unavailable"
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(ratings match consensus)
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Being a heavy internet user for over 10 years now, and having been raised in Vermont, I've had my fill of shoddy ISPs. From 28k dialup to one-way satellite, then two-way satellite, then 1xRTT, then EVDO Rev 0, then cable, then DSL, then T3, then WiMax, I've been around. Hell, with the exception of a few rarities like ISDN or advanced/newer connections like FiOS, I can't think of many connection types that I haven't used at some point. Nonetheless, while Clearwire wasn't the worst ISP that I've used, it was far from the best.
As a student at VCU in Richmond (living on campus, and, contrary to what I was told prior to moving in, unable to upgrade from the crappy shared T3 to cable or DSL), I was told to look into Clearwire as an alternative to broadband. With mixed expectations, I checked out a modem for an afternoon from a local retailer. I didn't have much time to spend with it, but initially, I was impressed with what I saw. As soon as I plugged the modem in, I was online and able to play around. Pings to google sometimes went as low as 38 (typically 40-60 with an occasional momentary spike into the hundreds), and download speeds were consistently around the advertised 1.5 mbps. Upload speeds were actually in the 400's at times, well above the 256 kbps that was listed as part of the package. Counter-Strike: Source was even playable at around 76 ms ping times with moderate server load. Impressed, I signed the contract, as it was the last day to get the $9.99/first three months promotion, and went home for the weekend.
When I came back on Monday to resume my tests, I was in for an unpleasant surprise. The service I had used just a few days earlier had been replaced with utter crap. Though my speeds to "ideal" servers remained the same, in practice, I was only getting around 800 kbps to most servers - sometimes as low as 480. Pings would try to level out at the 40ish mark I had seen before, but were totally inconsistent, particularly during peak hours when they'd spike up into the 300's. Uploads, curiously enough, remained stable. Unfortunately, since I really wanted something that would game roughly on par with DSL, the fact that I was unable to join ANY servers on CS:S or HL2 mods - as if I had been banned, or perhaps had some connection roadblock preventing me from playing at all - told me that this service was going to be worthless to me. I called customer service the same day and told them that I wasn't interested. The reps I spoke to were friendly enough, and one even offered to extend the trial from 7 to 14 days and bump me up to the 2.0 mbps plan to see if that would help. I politely declined, and the next day I got a prepaid shipping label from UPS. I shipped the modem yesterday and am hoping that this will be the end of the story.
While I can't say that I was terribly surprised by the outcome here, it was something of a disappointment, particularly since my only other option now is EVDO, which doesn't even give a month-to-month option (though Clearwire's month-to-month plans are pretty unfeasible for most consumers - they clearly prefer locking people in contracts), or to move out and face a possible penalty fee. It sucks. Clearwire is the type of service that would be great if nobody else used it, but unfortunately, in a busy metropolitan area, I imagine that it cannot be relied on for much beyond simple web browsing and the occasional streaming video. It is nowhere near parity with cable or DSL (except in monthly fees, that is), nor do I see it achieving that as more people start to use it. As a gamer/heavy internet user used to superior forms of broadband, there's nothing for me here. Maybe I'll have better luck with EVDO Rev A - but I doubt it.
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