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 Review by skeechan 
member for 1.3 years, 663 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 2 days ago
 Huntington Beach,Orange,CA
 $100 per month about 2 days "Very fast, available, $100 for 4G UNLIMITED! fixed + mobile Internet" "Needed outdoor antenna to get decent speed" "Only alternative is dialup or T1, CLEAR is a good deal"
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(ratings above consensus)
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My small office is on a street in an industrial park where VZ hasn't trenched for FiOS or installed an RT. It also predates cable so our street never got trenched by the cable operator back in the day. I've been using a Megapath T1 for nearly 3 years and it has been a nightmarish experience, lots of downtime, horrible customer service, horrible tech support, worst of the worst. Since they were bought out by COVAD service has tanked and they pile on the junk fees. The alternative was a local WISP which isn't reliable and charges way too much.
Since CLEAR ditched their contracts I figured as the end of my Megapath contract approached I'd give them a try before pulling the ripcord on the T1.
ORDERING: I placed my order online like everyone else. The site was easy to navigate and placing my order was easy. Just plunk down the credit card and they Fedex overnighted my modem.
INSTALL: Install was simple but being in a concrete tilt up warehouse building reception was abysmal anywhere except near the windows. This was noted in the CLEAR FAQ but is still inconvenient. I selected my modem, the Motorola CPEi725 because on the logic board are antenna test ports that with an overpriced dongle can be connected to an external antenna. None of CLEAR's desktop modems (AFAIK) have external antenna ports which is dumb given indoor reception is already pretty bad. Just by the window I was able to get 18db noise margin which is pretty good but the speeds weren't very consistent, typically 1.5-3Mb. Much better than my T1. After putting up my -18db directional flat panel antenna on the roof my noise margin jumped to -28 to -30 and speeds are now constantly in the 10-13Mb range. I'm very pleased so far. Latency to the speediest.net test server I used was about 50ms which surprised me (lower than I thought it would be). The drawback of the dongle other than the price is that you can't put the case back together unless you drill a hole in it. I'm not going to bother and have just been running the modem with the case off of it. Because of having to purchase and install an external antenna, I ranked the install poorly.
CONNECTION RELIABILITY: Connection reliability has been stellar so far. No down time at all, but again, the reliable connection and throughput required the purchase and installation of the external antenna. The modem my itself is virtually worthless.
SERVICES: For me, I have really no other choice. Obviously I would have opted for Roadrunner Business or FiOS if they deployed here but I'm plenty happy with CLEAR especially given the dirt cheap $50 price. They FAP but despite downloading 93 GB last month doing an OS X Lion reinstall along with all my app store apps plus iTunes match downloads, I never saw it. I was very pleasantly surprised. That is WAY above my normal usage so I suspect I will never get FAPped now that things are back to 'normal' with my desktop machine.
VALUE: At $50 for 12/1Mb vs $425+junk fees for my T1, CLEAR is a steal.
Overall I would recommend CLEAR if you have no real alternatives. I would never consider ditching regular wireline service like cable HSI for it, but it is definitely better than satellite or dialup.
Just do your research, look at the CLEAR site for the tower locations and figure you will need an outdoor antenna to get the best service. Don't assume you can just drop the box on your desk and get 10Mb from it because it won't happen.
Service:
CLEAR Unlimited $50/mo
CLEAR Unlimited Mobile $50/mo
Equipment:
CLEAR-Motorola CPEi 725 WiMAX Modem for fixed wireless 12Mb/1Mb
CLEAR Spot 4G (Apollo) for mobile Internet Typical 8Mb/1Mb
Extra equipment for fixed wireless setup
Murata 81-mxhs83qe3000 test probe (pigtail for connecting my external antenna cable to the modem test port picked up from Mouser Electronics)
18dBi 2.5-2.7GHz WiMax flat panel outdoor antenna
N-Female to SMA-Male adapter (adapter for main antenna cable to the pigtail)
100FT N-Male N-Male low-loss cable (for the roof antenna to the modem)
*******
UPDATE 20FEB2012: Since AT&T has seen fit to throttle my Unlimited 3G iPhone data plan to 56kbps after just 1.5GB I picked up a CLEAR MiFi type puck. So far so good. Speeds are not as good as my fixed modem-antenna setup but still faster than AT&T 3G and truly unlimited (for now anyway). At the gym for example where I use it with Slingbox and an iPad, I get 7-8Mbps and I'm very pleased.
UPDATE 9APRIL2012: Added photo of Murata test probe
*********
UPDATE 31AUG2012: Since some trees grew in between my antenna and the tower, I added a larger 24db grid antenna to the second antenna port to restore my speeds. With 2 large antennas, my speeds are very stable and consistently above 10Mb down. External antennas are absolutely essential for decent reliable performance. I don't see how Clear could sell ANY modem like the Clear Model M without external antenna ports. That is simply dumb on Motorola's part. The internal antennas are virtually worthless. Without them, I'd be lucky to see 1Mb service if I was fortunate to connect to the tower at all.
Also in looking at my usage, I am very happy with the unlimited plan. For the past 3 months I've averaged 100-130GB/mo, mainly from streaming video while working.
I am still VERY please with Clear.
*********
UPDATE - 21MAY2013 Things are still rocking with Clear. My usage is down a bit, typically 50-60GB per month from my fixed service and 10-15GB/mo from my puck and still not a peep from Clear, no throttling, nothing. Unlimited is still unlimited.
I'm still getting between 10-13Mb down and my capped 1Mb up. I had my first downtime on Saturday, about 4 hours. It is the only problem I have had with the service since getting it. Still a happy camper praying they don't go BK.
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 ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Albemarle, NC | Thanks An EXCELLENT review! Lots of fine info. | |
| | | | Re: Thanks said by ernliz:An EXCELLENT review! Lots of fine info.
Agreed. Nice long review.
I'm debating whether to go with Clear or not at the moment. I'm so sick of Comcast and AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Their services are unreliable and they always mess up my bills. | |
| | | | | Re: Thanks said by AuraReturn:said by ernliz:An EXCELLENT review! Lots of fine info.
Agreed. Nice long review. I'm debating whether to go with Clear or not at the moment. I'm so sick of Comcast and AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint. Their services are unreliable and they always mess up my bills. Edit: I've decided to go with Clear. Why not...
--
Ask me about my sites:
bay area jobs Dogs for adoption coupons NBA: »nbaintelligence.com | |
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| | | Great post!
I would like to try the outdoor antenna if I can find someone to install that for me someday. | |
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1 edit | I did similar without the outdoor work. After reading this, I move the antenna to our highest spot at our second floor by the windows targeting the tower. I got 13 mbps most of time also. During busy hour, I still got 7 mbps in Los Angeles metro industrial area. we are about 1.5 miles away from tower where we can't see it.
Before, we only got from 3 to 6 mbps download when we put it at first floor by the windows. Since we catch similar to the outdoor antenna concept, our noise number reduce from -81 to -60 sometimes -56 range. At this point, out ping time to LA severs is like 76 ms compared to your 50s ms. I wished someone can go up to roof and set the outdoor antenna for me what can improve the ping as well as VoIP quality.
We use most of our phony business phone lines on Skype, Skype-In and Skype-Out with US numbers. For this setups, skype is fine; not fine with Good Voice though. We are experience iffy results with Good Voice due to internet line of quality on the SIP. I just can't work this out without landline based internet.
Again, great thought and review. | |
| | | I have clear and am very unhappy with it. We get kicked when ever we have 2 people using email or normal internet. If anyone wants to play a game they either can't get on or it's so laggy it wont work properly.
Also I have found out recently that Clear is run by the government and that they cap it so you can't really get the speed they promise. They are and have had lawsuits filed against them. Just search online for Clear Lawsuits and you'll see more than most people want to go through. | |
| | skeechanAi OtsukaholicPremium
join:2012-01-26
AA169|170
kudos:2 Reviews:
 ·Cox HSI
 ·Clear Wireless
| Re: Clear LOL...couple of extra folds in that tinfoil hat. Perhaps that is the source of your modem's connectivity problems.
Clear isn't owned or run by the government. They are a publicly traded corporation owned mostly by venture capitalists and Intel.
»www.nasdaq.com/symbol/clwr/insti···holdings
Meanwhile just search for lawsuits for any ISP, Cox, Comcast, Verizon, AT&T, Cablevision, etc and you will find no shortage of them. There are no black helicopters flying over Clear. | |
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Review by richyque
member for 173 days, 191 visits, last login: 2 days ago
updated 51 days ago
- Chicago,Cook,IL
- $38 per month
- "Always on"
- "none so far."
- "The 34.99 1.5 down 0.5 up is great here in chicago"
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I dumped comcast here in chicago and replaced them with clear, to my suprise clear has held up great the 40 plus days i have had them.
I have the 1.5 down .05 up here in the 60617 area, i have a tower .06 miles from my house. the signal is solid 5 bars all day.
Update 12/16/2012 my speedtest is »www.speedtest.net/result/2377286837.png
Update 12/18/2012 my test [URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]»www.speedtest.net/result/2380942843.png
Update, 4/1/2013 Speed is still great [URL=http://www.speedtest.net][IMG]»www.speedtest.net/result/2615714···G][/URL]
Comments:
Rob_Premium
join:2008-07-16
Mary Esther, FL | Be careful Unlimited doesn't mean unlimited (read the stories on here..)
-Rob | |
| | Reviews:
 ·Verizon FiOS
·AT&T Wireless Br..
| Re: Be careful I have a friend who cant get nothing they live in condo in Brooklyn only thing they cant get is verizon dsl up to 1.5 mbps so I suggested Clear the higher plan for 50$ the speeds go from 4 to sometimes 12 mbps they stream online TV just like netflix last month they used 40+ gigs and no throttling or nothing. | |
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Review by ocjosh
member for 64 days, 46 visits, last login: 1 days ago
lodged 55 days ago
- Santa Fe Springs,Los Angeles,CA
- $60 per month
- (24 month contract)
- about 2 days
- "Good price for 2 lines, no cap, no speed limit till you work it out your own"
- "Require outdoor antenna to make it usable, new customer need to pay a lot more now"
- "I am lucky"
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It's definitely not good for mobile use, because it can't continuous connect to different towers right away like 3G when you are on the go. Only if you are moving within that single tower covered area, you may move as fast as you want. The coverage is great outdoors only. Indoors are more pathetic on most of cases, only by the opened windows. The WiMax signal can't go through low e windows well, not to mention insulated walls (from full bars to nothing easily).
Both home modem and hotspot mobile modem, I have to use external outdoor antenna which are hard to install and expensive, to make it stable and good speed. I use the service in high condense populated Los Angeles area. Speed varies like any ISPs, but decent 4.5 Mbps to 16 Mbps from peak to normal hours. I watch Netflix through smart TV, IPTV box for live international channels, and a lot of online radio streaming. It's wonderful service till I have outdoor antennas installed, which the rooftop installer cost is about $50 after calling around and the antennas for $31 for my mobile hotspot (now it went up to $100s range) and $89 for my home modem external outdoor antenna.
I should have signed up the 3 lines for $80 back in October 2011, it's so precious now for the plan and affordable price. But again, outdoor coverage is more usable.
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Review by turkman143
member for 11.1 years, 1587 visits, last login: a few hours ago
updated 79 days ago
- Maple Shade,Burlington,NJ
- $45 per month
- about 2 days
- "no bottlenecks in IP traffic or crazy redirects like Comcast that causes packets to arrive out of order."
- "India Technical Support"
- "good value for a 10MB ISP"
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I can add a horror story whereas an outage occurred on a Friday evening and was not resolved until the following Thursday - Something happened to the Philadelphia tower (N/W of Maple Shade NJ) that blocked the binding to the tower. Found that the tower to the (N/E of Maple Shade) broadcast a stronger signal but also had connection issues with the replacement modem (WIXFBR-117) they sent. The third modem (WIXFBR-131) solved the issue. Tech support cannot explain why at 8:23 PM (20:23) the tower suddenly reduced it's broadcast power.
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 Review by TejasToolMan
member for 99 days, 2 visits, last login: 97 days ago
lodged 99 days ago
- Roanoke,Denton,TX
 Business customer- $25 per month
- about 1 days
- "works right when you close to the svc towers or taking it to friends houses that don't have net in town dallas ft worth"
- "if you're on the out skirts bandwidth drops significantly even with external antenna added an aimed properly."
- "for the price 25.00 a month nothing compares on the market"
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Fios not in my area, charter cable, 29.95 1st year then they price gouge after, limited to 50 gigs then 10.00 if you go over.... that's not much these days, att dsl too slow, 6 month plans 768k & 1.5 but as all dsl does slows during high traffic all across the networks. & Satellite internet is a joke in Tx
1.5mb plans were my choice, have all my own equipment so there was no bargain there.
only experiences is fee's that change and download caps. Fee's increase but caps & speed doesn't??? what a crock
I chose clear because I can take it all over town and to work + home, built in wifi beats any of the hot spots or pucks that get hot, run down in 6 hours
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Review by Reverse2
member for 3.5 years, 2 visits, last login: 123 days ago
lodged 123 days ago
- Alpharetta,Fulton,GA
- $25 per month
- about 1 days
- "Cost of service and hardware"
- "Limited coverage, tech support"
- "Good option for unlimited data in metro areas"
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I have been a customer since they first started operations with their 4G service in the Atlanta area a few years ago. I bought the usb stick to use while on the road, not for home use (we have Comcast at home). Good thing, because our home is in a wireless black hole (not just for Clear, also for cell service).
Service:
On the road, in the greater ATL metro area, and also in other metro areas (Nashville, Chicago, Dallas) connection speeds would vary, but generally would be between 4 to 10 Mbit down and 1.5Mbit up. Fast enough to work over VPN during the day while streaming music, and watch Netflix at night. While the service may not be truly unlimited, I have used well over 30GB per month without a peep from Clear, or any kind of throttling. Reliability when connected is generally very good. It does pay to look up coverage before travelling somewhere, since there can be white, non-coverage areas even in cities otherwise blanketed by WiMax.
Price:
I actually cancelled the service last November, and switched to unlimited 4G on my phone. Unfortunately, that didn't work as well as Clear, and (because I wasn't really supposed to tether) resulted in complaints from my provider. Back to my original Clear plan, which they let me reinstate at the original price: $25/month, a screaming deal compared to 4G data plans (that allow tethering) with the 'big four'. Coverage is more limited with Clear, but for my purpose that doesn't matter.
While current rates are higher, they still are a good value IMO.
Equipment
I use the USB sticks, and also bought a wireless mobile router (rebranded Cradlepoint) from Clear a few years back. Equipment is reasonably priced, and now also readily available on Craigslist etc. No contract, since I buy my equipment. One faulty stick was quickly replaced under warranty.
Support
Tech support has gone from unbelievably awful, outsourced Indian support to much better, but still sub-par support today. It isn't until you are moved up a few tiers that you will actually find a knowledgeable tech. Still, they do their best. I even received a free signal-boosting external antenna once for my usb stick, in an attempt to improve reception at home.
Customer service
Non-tech service is usually pretty good (billing etc,)
So...
If my house wasn't in a wireless signal black hole, I'd consider using Clear for my home internet as well, and ditch Comcast altogether. As it is, it's cheap enough to keep around for my mobile internet access. It is important to verify coverage before you sign up, and to realize it doesn't really work outisde metro areas. If you need non-metro coverage, it's better to get a 4G data plan from one of the major cell providers. Expect to shell out much more for that though.
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Review by cmarslett
member for 6.5 years, 70 visits, last login: 16 days ago
updated 178 days ago
- Pflugerville,Travis,TX
- $52 per month
- (month by month)
- about 1 days
- "As fast as AT&T DSL, portable, real customer service (real people, helpful)"
- "Slightly more expensive, sensitive to thunderstorms."
- "No service technicians needed, so I'm very satisfied."
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I had AT&T DSL until they decided to discard me as a customer (cut me off with about 2 weeks notice), tried to connect with their replacment (U-verse) - and it never connected once. Technician came out at a time/date that we explicitly told them we were not going to be home. Overall, experience was bad enough I just told them to take the modem back and cancel our U-verse service as well!
So far this year I have had three outages (one for about a day, the other two for well under an hour) - not bad for something that depends on signals transmitted over the air. Well it has been a year and a half - still with Clear, the rest of the review is still accurate, too. In fact, in the last 6 months, only one more 1 hour outage. Pre-sales may be better or worse, I don't know, but I doubt the install is anything but perfect, still. Service and value still beat any other alternative I have....
Occasionally I get 300 kbit down/300 kbit up (probably just short of losing the connection), And pretty reliably at 6 AM I get 6000-7000 kbit down/1000-1200 kbit up. That's actually better than my DSL connection ever did. Normally I get more like 3000 down and 900 up. Still quite acceptable.
Only slightly more expensive that the $40 AT&T charged for the 6000/768 that I never got, so I'm very satisfied!
AND I'VE NEVER HAD TO HAVE A TECHNICIAN OUT....
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Review by Dr Grande
member for 217 days, 1 visits, last login: 99 days ago
lodged 217 days ago
- Cumming,Forsyth,GA
- $50 per month
- about 1 days
- "Faster speeds than local DSL and Cable"
- "Higher ping time, You Tube videos seem sluggish"
- "It works and it's worth the cost"
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I ordered my service from Clear on October 2, 2012. I received my hardware (Clear Hub with Wi-Fi) a day later, as promised on their website. I read through the instructions and set the Hub up at a nearby window, plugged in the Ethernet cable to my PC, and powered the unit on. I was not able to access the internet at first. It turns out that users will NEED to update the firmware on their hardware in order to access the Clear network. Luckily I was able to use my smartphone as a tether and download the correct upgrade files from Clear's website. I wish I would have thought of it sooner. I've seen the "upgrade your firmware" on every other piece of networking hardware I've owned for a few years.
After upgrading the firmware I was able to reach the internet and began running regular speed tests over at speedtest.net. I've signed up for the $50 unlimited 4G plan. Clear's website advertises average download speeds of 3-6 Mbps, and Upload speeds of 1Mbps. I am proud to report that I'm getting average download speeds of 8-9 Mbps, while the upload speeds are indeed capped at 1 Mbps.
I consider my location to be something of a perfect storm for Clear's WiMAX service. The tower is only about 2500 feet from my apartment, I've got a line of sight to the tower, and I'm assuming it's not heavily loaded with users during the week. This was my biggest problem with my former "high speed" cable internet service.
That service, provided by DirecPath LLC would get terribly bogged down from 7 PM until 10 PM with traffic, and my connection speeds and ping time would suffer. As a result, I was unable to access email, use Skype, or play any sort of online game (FPS, MMORPG, etc.) I have also used AT&T's DSL, but it was even worse. AT&T doesn't give a rat's a$$ about their DSL infra-structure in my region.
I'm currently satisfied with the WiMAX service from Clear. The only nagging downside (in my case) are ping times and sluggish load times from you tube videos. I'm currently experiencing ping times between 50-130ms, with my hardware is connected to a Netgear router with wireless-N activated and gigabit ports. The router is then connected to my PC, all via Ethernet cables.
I've experimented with a few configurations, and this seems to work the best.
I'll post an update if anything new should happen.
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Review by DWolfman
member for 10.8 years, 2306 visits, last login: a few hours ago
lodged 240 days ago
- Kansas City,Clay,MO
- $49 per month
- "Good speed, no dropouts yet"
- "None yet"
- "Good service for what I need"
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Signed up for Clear 8/24 after buying the modem at a local Best Buy store. Was online within minutes after hooking it up. With the $49.99/mo option they say 3-6 Mb/s for download and 1 Mb/s upload. I rarely see below 3 Mb/s, typically see 10+ Mb/s most times of the day. And the upload is always 1 Mb/s in speed tests.
As for others saying they throttle sometimes, I do expect that to happen at some point, but so far it has not. According to my router (Linksys WRT54GS running DD-WRT), I've used this much so far in Sept: September 2012 (Incoming: 136849 MB / Outgoing: 18475 MB). According to Clear, I've used 191294 MB for Aug 24 thru Sept 23, which sounds about right from what I'm seeing.
Connection has been stable, only had one time where there was an issue, but it turns out I didn't reset the Clear modem properly. Seems you need to leave it unplugged for a while (at least 30 seconds?) or it won't re-connect when it powers up.
As for only "average" for tech support, can't say since I haven't had to use their tech support yet. 
When I went looking for internet in August after not having it for months, I really only had this one option. Have had some hard financial times lately (which is why I didn't have internet for a while), and owe both Time Warner Cable and AT&T money on some old bills. As a result, I can't go back to them without paying a lot of money to deal with those old bills first. With Clear, it's pre-paid. So if I can't make a payment, we just won't have internet that month and won't have to worry about any old bills hanging around.
All in all, it is so far so good!
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Review by theFarm
member for 249 days, 48 visits, last login: 2 days ago
lodged 247 days ago
- Washington,District Of Columbia,DC
- $50 per month
- about 1 days
- "No contract, solid and mobile hardware"
- "WiMAX requires line of site, meaning don't expect a signal inside many buildings"
- "A fantastic service for my use case."
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Using the Clearspot Voyager for wireless broadband for my phone, tablet, and whatever else I feel like connecting. (up to 8 devices)
On average 2-5MB Down 1-3MB Up, bursts between 10-20MB
The network manager site is the best I've ever used. Detailed control, clean interface
Clear's coverage map is very accuarate. If you're area is well covered and your home/work/etc isn't in a gap, you should definitely try their service. With no contract and a generous return policy there's nothing to lose.
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![www.speedtest.net/result/2615714···G][/URL]](http://www.speedtest.net/result/2615714004.png[/IMG][/URL]){kind=link}