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Review by bcdady 
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 32 visits, last login: 1.7 years ago
 Kenmore,King,WA
 $38 per month (24 month contract)
 about 5 days
 "Mobility, price, I'm not supporting the Comcast empire"
 "Occassional speed/connection problems"
 "A decent alternative to cable and DSL"
| Pre Sales information:
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Connection reliability:
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I was tired of Comcasts connection issues at my last home, so I decided I didn't want to use them again. I have also given DSL a fair spin and didn't want to go back. A friend strongly recommended Verizon's FIOS, but it's not offered here yet, so that pretty much left me with Clearwire.
I didn't want to get stuck in one of their contract plans (I eventually did anyway, but I didn't pay their $150 for the modem), so I bought the modem on eBay. This turned out to be more trouble than it was worth because I had to wait several days for upper level tech support to update their records so the modem could be attached to my new account. I selected the ClearPremium plan which gives me up to 1.5Mbps download and 256Kbps upload max speeds for $36.99 + tax (if you opt for the rental modem, they charge another $4.99/mo).
I've done some speed testing and had mixed results, but no solid culprit yet. Apparently bad weather can interfere with the Clearwire signal, and the modems also get stronger signals near windows. Even with what I've learned, I still have occasional connection quality issues, as evidenced by my corporate VPN connections being dropped without warning. But this is an improvement in service consistency and prices over my past Comcast plan, so I'm content.
Followup comments:  WAR10CK
join:2008-04-15
Duluth, MN
| Not alwas true i have clear Wire i do agree with the download and upload speed ant all that great but i am from Duluth MN we and a blizzard last week and my clear wire operated at 100%
through the entire storm but i guess it depends on where you live i live about 8 or 9 blocks from there Tower in the east
end of Duluth but i thought it would got out for sure bit i was shocked when it stayed connected thought the entire storm
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Review by Talderon
UPDATED: 1.9 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
Seattle,King,WA
$47 per month (24 month contract)
"Mobile and easy setup/use"
"Periodic DNS Issues"
"So far, so good for me"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
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I used to be a Comcast customer, but moved and decided to try ClearWire out and see how they did. Now, I am not an internet "power user" in the sense that I don't download tons of music/movies or anything of that nature.
I am, however, am an avid on-line gamer and need to have fast, reliable service to play my games!
First off, there is my DSL Reports speed test:
»/im/40706074/5150.png
Locations: Shoreline, WA (North of Seattle, WA)
ISP: ClearWire
Modem Signal: 4 to 5 of 5 bars
Router: VoIP Linksys WRTP54G (Vonage)
Home Systems:
Desktop 1: Windows Vista Ultimate - Wired to Router
Desktop 2: WindowsXP Home Premium - Wireless 802.11g
Laptop 1: Windows Vista Ultimate - Wireless 802.11g
Laptop 2: MacOSX - Wireless 802.11g
I bought my ClearWire from a Mall kiosk and was able to take the modem home that day after filling out all the account details. They ran a promotion where I got a discount for the first 4 months (paying $19.99 for 4 months then up to regular price of $44.99/mo + taxes) and get a $75 e-card to spend on-line.
The Customer Service Rep was nice and answered all my questions, but definitely not a tech savvy person, but that's alright. Once I got my modem home, I was able to get it set up and find a place where I was able to get 5 bars almost all the time (sometimes drops to 4 bars) and launch my browser. At first, it had me "activate" on their system through a web site, but after that, it was all ready to go.
Total Setup time from opening the box: ~10 minutes
Now, at first, I was a little disappointed with the speed. It seemed to be pretty spotty with websites and slow off and on, but it was late, so I went to bed. The next morning, I launched my FireFox and was instantly on the net and speeds were blazing.
I decided to play around and do my normal stuff on the net and was very happy with the overall performance of the service.
Site/Game Performance Reviews:
Youtube.com - No issues playing/streaming videos.
World Of Warcraft - We have 3 systems that play this game at the same time (we have a gaming family) and when 1 of us or all 3 of us are on the game at the same time, we have no issues and the game runs perfectly.
Final Fantasy XI - Same results as WoW, however, there is only one of us that play.
P2P - I don't P2P much, but WoW uses P2P services to distribute patches that can be in the 200-300MB range. I have not noticed ANY throttling issues with P2P in this capacity. I have used P2P to download CD/DVD Images (600mb to 4GB) using P2P and on all honesty, it is very hard to gauge how well it does unless you have a ton of seeders. So far, everything I have tried to download via P2P has been successful and quite fast.
iTunes - I buy tons of music on iTunes and downloads have always been very fast and responsive.
Various FPS games (First Person Shooters) - Overall low latency and fast ping responses. Once in a while, a hiccup, but hard to say if it is the game/server or ClearWire since it happens once in a while on Comcast also.
Now, the one and only issue that I run into periodically:
This issue is one that MAY be an issue with my system here, but I never had this issue when I was on Comcast, so I am still trying to determine where the issue actually lies.
Once in a while, I go to a page that I have always gone too (myspace.com, google.com, Microsoft.com and the like) and get an error that the server cannot be found and the page fails to render. When this happens, I can go to other sites, but for at least an hour, I can not get to the site that decides to fail on me at all. Of course, support was less than stellar in this regard so I quit bothering them with my issue, although, they credited me a month's service for my troubles.
After some research and wringing my brain for forgotten gems, I dropped to the command prompt and typed:
ipconfig /flushdns
Low and behold, sites render. Kind of an annoyance, but it fixes it and I have not had the time to look deeper since I am working so many hours. I'll dig deeper and see what I find.
All in all, I have to say that I have been very pleased with the service since it works and I have not had any issues with outages or overall speed. For what I do on the net, it has been great! I even take it over to a friends house (who only has dial-up) so we can play games on the net.
Is Clearwire perfect? No, but who is? Yeah, there are complaints about them on here and other sites, but tell me an ISP that has been in business that has absolutely 100% NO complaints EVER. Didn't think so. =D
I have suggested this service to several friends who have been looking for a cheaper alternative to Comcast/DSL and so far, no complaints from them at all!
~Talderon
(note: Edited for spelling and to add additional information)
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