Review by chris92 Location: Rock Island, Rock Island, IL, USA Cost: $45 per month Install: about 1 days Decent Speeds Latency, Poor Speeds when you have less than perfect signal It's been a good run....Solid Speeds, Very useful for when you are traveling

Pre Sales Information: Install process: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Services: Value for money:

I originally ordered Clear to use it as a backup/additional internet for my stay at College (Augustana College). Since the internet wasn't great, and I had an interest in WiMax, and decided to buy the PXU1900 modem off of eBay. As soon as I got it, I was surprised at the signal I had. Now, I am in an area where Clear does not sell service - there is only one tower that covers the area (This is in Davenport IA). This Clear tower is a "Protection Site" that only serves the purpose of maintaining the spectrum license. Off of this tower, I was getting about 9.5MBit Down, and 1.5MBit up. I decided to sign up for the Unlimited Plan at $45 a month.

Setup was a little difficult. Since I didn't live in an area that was "serviceable" by Clear, I had to make up an address in Chicago as my "Service Address". My Home address and Billing address were my local address. Once I was able to get the account, all I had to do was give them the MAC address of my modem that I bought off of eBay, and I was in business.

The signal that I got at Augustana College was about 75%. This is pretty good, considering it's a good 5 miles away from the tower. On average, I was getting about 6Mbit down, and 0.4Mbit up. Pings were about 120ms, and the traffic was routed through Denver, CO. Latency at times would spike up, but only when someone else is using the connection. Gaming was doable, but only if that was the only thing you were doing. When the signal drops to below 25%, speeds are non-existent. Especially upload speeds, for example, I was getting about 3Mbit down, but only 0.10Mbit up, so web browsing was pretty awful at times. Overall the service was not too bad considering the area.

After about a year of usage, I moved to a different part of the campus, where I didn't get a signal at all. So I decided I wanted to cancel the service. Tech support is outsourced, and extremely foreign. When I called, I was prompted to keep the service, but at a lower rate - only $20 a month for the same unlimited service. I went with that option, since I wasn't going to be using it as much.

Since then, I have been using it here and there, when traveling to Chicago, and other places where Clearwire service is available. It has been pretty solid, and a good choice for those who are able to get service.

After having Clear for over 2 years now, I've decided to pull the plug after an e-mail I just got. When I first signed up, I was paying $40/month for unlimited 4G, which was pretty good as a backup at college, using about 50GB a month. A year later, I found that I wasn't going to be using it very much (because I couldn't get a signal), and tried to cancel the service. They offered me to stay with them for $20/month, so I was paying for it for using it once or twice a month. A couple months ago I started using it more frequently, but not as a necessity. Today I received an e-mail stating that my rate would go up to $45/month, so I have decided to pull the plug.

UPDATE:

I'm too wishy washy and still have the service. Since the technology department at College don't know the difference between ethernet and internet, their internet still sucks. (they upgraded to 800MBit for the entire college, still have 80% packet loss, and peak usage is still around 250MBit -- this should be an alarm that their equipment sucks).

The colder months with no leaves on the trees help improve the service:



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