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Review by tdelporto9 
UPDATED: 153 days ago
member for 7 years, 4 visits, last login: 153 days ago
 Emeryville,Alameda,CA
 $90 per month
 about 5 days
 "Fast install turn-around, Great connectivity to major providers, no wires, very personal service"
 "A little more expensive and longer time for physical install than DSL"
 "So Far, much better than any other internet connection I've had"
| Pre Sales Information:
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After being a Speakeasy DSL customer for 7 years I had to find another provider due to AT&T continuously moving my copper in preparation for providing television in my neighborhood. I couldn't stomach Comcast, and FIOS isn't available to me, so I decided to try wireless. I set up wireless networks as part of my job, albeit for a much different application (large groups in concentrated areas rather than long distance point to point) and as such was leery of trusting a wireless link. The nice bit about Unwired's solution is that they use Motorola's Canopy product which uses licensed spectrum (5.7Ghz). I've only had the link for a week, so I'm not sure how reliable it will be in weather, but other reviews suggest that I don't have anything to worry about. They used a dish about the size of a Satellite TV dish for a 4 mile connection.
Unwired is a small business and support is very personal. I just email or call my contact and he responds personally and promptly. I have a routed /30 subnet for my single IP, something most providers do not do, and had the option of a /29 without additional charges. I play FPS games online casually, and latency is much less with Unwired than with DSL. Web pages load *very* fast. Bulk downloads seem to average around 3Mbps though I have 6Mbps class service. The one drawback seems to be their bandwidth to subscriber ratio is lower than larger providers. I might be upset but for the fact that they are very upfront about the "burstyness" of their connection. Oh, and latency to my office is 14ms. SSH is just like being on the office lan.
------------ update May 2008 -------------
Now that I've had the service a couple months I can readily recommend it, as long as your primary internet use is not bittorrent. Unwired allows bittorrent and requires users to police their own usage limiting rates depending on the tier of the user's subscription. A week or two ago a fellow subscriber didn't cap his/her rate, the result of which being latency shooting way up, at times to over 1000ms on the first hop. Web surfing still worked, albeit slow, but interactive ssh and my favorite FPS game were pretty useless. Once notified Unwired took care of the offender. and the connection has been fine since. I hate to say it, but cases like these make me a little more sympathetic towards ISPs that shape or limit bittorrent traffic.
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Review by bbrown888
UPDATED: 344 days ago
member for 2.8 years, 2 visits, last login: 344 days ago
Oakland,Alameda,CA
$89 per month (12 month contract)
"Personal Service, Highly technical staff, excelent value, high quality"
"Limited service area"
"Superior alternative to wireline, high speed upload rates"
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Unwired provided me with a custom wireless link between my home and Internet with static IP’s and reverse DNS at no additional charge. Upload/Download speeds vary with radio frequency and technology, my link is 3mbps (slowest due to trees etc. in the pathway). Unlimited monitors the quality of signal and link status every five seconds and sends me a quick email if there are any issues. Unlike many wireless services my real life wireless loop delays are much less than T-1’s, typically pings to WWW sites is less than 6-8ms. You will get great customer service. I have checked all of the East Bay San Francisco Bay Area WISPS and Unwired is simply the best quality WISP I have found.
11-07 Update:
It's been 3 years since connecting with the service and everything is still running great. My radio link is monitored 24 hours a day for quality of the connection. When I've unplugged the radio to re-wire I always get a followup email just to make sure there are not technical problems with my service. The stability is far better than any copper based internet service I have had such as Covad, DSL, @Home, ATT, or Comcast.
-Brad
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Review by Uxorious
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 8.3 years, 107 visits, last login: 12 days ago
San Francisco,San Francisco,CA
$89 per month
about 5 days
"High (symmetric) speed. Small company with highly skilled workers."
"Difficult installation. Burstable speed. High installation cost."
"Highly recommended."
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Pre-installation was a breeze. Unwired was extremely helpful in providing pre-sales information - both non- and technical. Installation was scheduled just a few days after the order.
The hardest part of the installation was getting the dish located in a spot with good reception... but then again, I'm quite far away from the radio tower so I guess that is to be expected.
When the installer initially came out, Unwired didn't have a "high gain" antenna live in the tower, so I was unable to get 6 mbit. They installed the radio/reflector dish in the spot I preferred, and everything was running. About a week later, the new radio in the tower went live, and hey switched me over - but for some reason I was only getting 6 mbit upstream. Downstream had issues and was giving me around 3 mbit. Not bad - but I was looking for the 6 mbit plan.
After a few weeks we agreed to try moving the antenna. They sent the installer out again, and we spent a few hours moving the dish around and doing measurements. I guess when you're 14+ miles away from the tower, the location can get a bit tricky. Moving the dish even a few feet had dramatic effects. In the end we were getting a solid 6/6 connection.
The connection is "burstable" meaning that the bandwith is shared across multiple users, and so you will not always get the full speed. (This is also the case with cable-modems and such - they just don't advertise it). I have yet to be botherd by it. All the speed tests I have run have been 4+ mbit, and the majority has been closer to 5 or 5.5 mbit.
The Pro plan came with 5 useable static IP addresses, and Unwired will set up reverse DNS at no charge.
I have now had the service for a month or so, and I am very satisfied!
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Review by stephthegeek
Posted: 2.1 years ago
member for 2.3 years, 9 visits, last login: 115 days ago
Oakland,Alameda,CA
$90 per month
about 7 days
"SO fast, personal attention, great price and upload rates"
"Limited availibility, long installation/tweaking period"
"The best and cheapest option for synchronous connectivity"
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Fantastic service so far. The installer was here for several hours on the first day, trying to get a clear shot of the tower over BART and through power lines. He also came back the next day for some more adjustments, but it's working fantastically now. Speed tests range in the 3500-5000 range, for both upload and download.
One odd thing to note, they used my last name as the default for the hostname. I didn't exactly want my last name being broadcast to everyone on IRC  I pointed it out and had it changed, but I don't know if they will continue to use that as their standard.
I posted some photos of the installation here: »www.stephthegeek.com/index.php?q···Id=21997
And here is some information from our pre-sales email exchange:
* They offer four plans with the same radio equipment: residential 3mbps/3mbps ($50/mo) and 6/6 ($90/mo), and business 4/4 ($160/mo) and 7/7 ($380/mo)
* Setup fee plus equipment = $285 after rebates for the residential 6/6, $275 for the business 4/4
* I asked what their usage limits were: "If we see sustained usage above 1 mb/s CIR we usually talk to the user"
* Setup time is usually less than a week
* Residential plans have a best-effort SLA while the business plans have a 24x7 SLA with rebates for SLA violations
* Business plans can be shared and residential plans cannot
* There needs to be a clear line of sight to the tower (in my case, the Oakland Hills ridgeline)
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Unwired Ltd
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Still great after a month
I'm still ecstatic to have these speeds and reliability. You think web surfing feels zippy on a premium cable/DSL line? You'll actually notice a difference with this. And if you're a web developer moving large files around and poking around on servers, it's an absolute dream. The fast uplink enables me to run my 24/7 webcam project like nothing else for the price could: »