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w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

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w0g

Member

Voice and gaming suck on Clear - Sprint 4G? HAHAHA

I've been using Skype the past week and there's no way Clear could be thinking of using this network for voice. The latency is so bad, there's huge delays in conversation and drop outs. Like everyone else with WiMAX, the ping to the first hop is 50ms and higher, and the very best rating I get from pingtest.net is borderline B rating, VoIP can suffer and videogames. So I've been videogaming, playing Quake Live and the only servers I can compete on with Clear are the Seattle servers that I get 70ms pings to. SF, LA, Chicago, Dallas, all these other servers my 100ms+ ping makes me easy picking for the other players. I could go back to Comcast and get 20ms pings to these same servers, but I'm stuck in a location currently where I can't get a wired connection. One thing that stumps me is why the Clearwire customers, who use similar and less sophisticated technology than WiMAX, are able to get 2-3ms pings to the first hop and pings on average, 40ms lower than Clear. Information from wimax.com suggestions there's a huge latency performance problem with Clear WiMAX.
quote:
Quality of Service (QoS) is what determines if a wireless technology can successfully deliver high value services such as voice and video. The chief detractors from good QoS are latency, jitter and packet loss. Solve these issue and you have a carrier-grade service. Very simply put, WiMAX offers a very low latency across the wireless span. Most ven-dors have products where latency is less than 10 milliseconds from base station to CPE (and vice versa). To put this in perspective, latency must be measured end-to-end. VoIP, for example, is highly susceptible to latency. If latency exceeds 150 milliseconds for ex-ample, the quality of the conversation begins to drag. At or above 200 milliseconds many listeners may find a conversation unintelligible.

In the case of WiMAX, the large majority of latency will not occur on the air link be-tween subscriber and base station but rather on the wired portion of the connection be-tween the subscriber and what ever the "other end" might be (web site server, IPTV server or VoIP called party). The figure below illustrates how any latency on the wireless portion of a network is minimal relative to that on the wired portion of a network.
So what's the problem with Clear? :mad:

»www.wimax.com/education/ ··· imax/qos

Tracing route to www.l.google.com [74.125.53.105]
over a maximum of 30 hops:
 
  1     1 ms    <1 ms    <1 ms  mywimax [192.168.15.1]
  2     *        *        *     Request timed out.
  3    76 ms    89 ms    89 ms  96-25-64-2.war.clearwire-wmx.net [96.25.64.2]
  4    76 ms    89 ms    90 ms  64.13.115.161
  5    92 ms    82 ms    90 ms  64-13-49-226.war.clearwire-dns.net [64.13.49.226]
  6    90 ms    89 ms    95 ms  64.13.115.170
  7   116 ms    98 ms    80 ms  209.85.249.32
  8    77 ms    89 ms    89 ms  72.14.239.12
  9    86 ms    88 ms    89 ms  216.239.48.32
 10   100 ms    94 ms    84 ms  216.239.48.165
 11    91 ms    89 ms    89 ms  72.14.232.2
 12    76 ms    89 ms    94 ms  www.google.com [74.125.53.105]
 
Trace complete.
 
Signals are all good:
Service Provider Name RSSI (dBm) CINR (dB) BS ID Preamble Index Truncated Sector ID Truncated NAP ID Frequency (KHz) BW (KHz) Date & Time 
(*)  -56 27 0x0000020007da  91 0xda  0x02 2630500 10000 10/29/2009 03:10 AM
 

»/lineq ··· /2581467

w0g

1 edit

w0g

Member

BTW!!!! This topic isn't about bad connections, I'm talking strictly about perfect and normally operating service. So please go to one of the other topics before mentioning your other connection issues here.

Thanks!

knighthawktf
@clearwire-wmx.net

knighthawktf

Anon

You just noticed this,lol? Welcome to clear, I'll be surprised if you'll ever see anything below the mid 60's, my results here in GA are typically very similar to your own. Almost as if my traffic is being routed all the way to Seattle area and then on to it's destination from there.

p110011
join:2001-12-29
Oregon City, OR

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to w0g
Here's my Traceroute if it helps....

traceroute to www-real.wa1.b.yahoo.com (209.131.36.158), 30 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 mywimax (192.168.15.1) 1.995 ms 1.306 ms 1.290 ms
2 * * * Request timed out.
3 96-25-64-2.war.clearwire-wmx.net (96.25.64.2) 74.937 ms 127.244 ms 88.820 ms
4 64.13.115.161 (64.13.115.161) 92.959 ms 72.456 ms 93.531 ms
5 six.yahoo.com (206.81.80.98) 88.813 ms 87.402 ms 68.616 ms
6 so-2-1-0.pat1.pao.yahoo.com (216.115.110.42) 108.289 ms 106.932 ms 118.578 ms
7 ae1-p150.msr2.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.77) 113.536 ms ae1-p140.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.53) 112.393 ms ae0-p140.msr1.sp1.yahoo.com (216.115.107.49) 166.967 ms
8 te-8-1.bas-a2.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.19) 106.807 ms te-9-1.bas-a1.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.21) 102.195 ms te-9-1.bas-a2.sp1.yahoo.com (209.131.32.23) 101.791 ms
9 www.yahoo.com (209.131.36.158) 107.020 ms 105.096 ms 108.469 ms
Trace complete

My VOIP works well, but I'm not a gamer. Hope the Clear techs can fix this.....
stuckpixel
join:2008-07-23
Charlotte, NC

stuckpixel to w0g

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to w0g
Are you using the latest Skype? Mine sucked on Clearwire 3G then I upgraded Skype and it sounded perfect(on3G). Now on 4G no issues at all...
phaqu
join:2005-05-26
Marietta, GA

phaqu to knighthawktf

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to knighthawktf
said by knighthawktf :

YAlmost as if my traffic is being routed all the way to Seattle area and then on to it's destination from there.
I believe thats because it is.

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

w0g

Member

Probably, but he says he's in GA!? If he's in the northwest, most traffic is routed to Seattle because it's the largest major peering point on the westcoast outside of California.
phaqu
join:2005-05-26
Marietta, GA

phaqu

Member

said by w0g:

Probably, but he says he's in GA!? If he's in the northwest, most traffic is routed to Seattle because it's the largest major peering point on the westcoast outside of California.
My first hop is to Kirkland WA.

knighthawktf
@clearwire-wmx.net

knighthawktf to w0g

Anon

to w0g
Mine is as well phaqu

I don't know why they wouldn't peer their ATL or southeastern traffic in general @ 56 Marietta st. downtown where just about everyone else does. Perhaps they will straighten this out with future expansion, seem lame to send my our traffic across ~2500+ miles and then on to it's destination.
Automate
join:2001-06-26
Atlanta, GA

Automate to phaqu

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said by phaqu:

said by w0g:

Probably, but he says he's in GA!? If he's in the northwest, most traffic is routed to Seattle because it's the largest major peering point on the westcoast outside of California.
My first hop is to Kirkland WA.
And I thought it was bad when Atlanta traffic between Comcast and AT&T was gong through Dallas »IP traffic between Comcast and AT&T going through Dallas

w0g
o.O
join:2001-08-30
Springfield, OR

w0g

Member

Don't get me wrong this was meant to be constructive critisism for Clear and others. The service is really fast and great for web surfing and downloads, VoIP isn't THAT bad, and gaming is much better than EVDO or UTMS. Glad to have it.
phaqu
join:2005-05-26
Marietta, GA

phaqu

Member

said by w0g:

Don't get me wrong this was meant to be constructive critisism for Clear and others. The service is really fast and great for web surfing and downloads, VoIP isn't THAT bad, and gaming is much better than EVDO or UTMS. Glad to have it.
I dont think anyone is taking you the wrong way. Im just saying that I have the same issue, only more extreme. I would love to have just a 65ms ping time. Mine is usually in the high 100ms to low 200 ms range.

As I understand it,and I may be wrong, if Atlanta traffic is routed to WA state first, that means connecting to a server here in Atlanta is around a 5-6 thousand mile one way hike (from ATL to WA back to a server here in ATL),and again, correct me if Im wrong, a 10,000 to 12,000 mile round trip (to a server that may be physically 5 miles away), since it would have to be sent back to WA before coming back to my comp.. That could be the cause of our latency problem here in the east coast. But,... Im just guessing.

I do know that a friend of mine (hard core gamer) has just dropped Clear (last week) because of the latency issue.
Automate
join:2001-06-26
Atlanta, GA

Automate

Member

Can you post the results of a trace route to an Atlanta IP address? Say

tracert 68.86.106.46
phaqu
join:2005-05-26
Marietta, GA

phaqu

Member

Click for full size
said by Automate:

Can you post the results of a trace route to an Atlanta IP address? Say

tracert 68.86.106.46
Im assuming you meant from me.
Automate
join:2001-06-26
Atlanta, GA

Automate

Member

96.25.160.2 and 68.86.85.233 are in Atlanta, the location information for the four address between them:
75.94.255.161
66.162.21.1
66.192.243.130
68.86.86.141
are not consistent but from the ping times it does not seem as though they are on the west coast.

Solearth
join:2009-10-21
Lubbock, TX

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w0g
Your download and upload numbers are far higher than Clear provides to me on my unlimited plan. That same test only measures 2 Mb/s down and 0.25 Mb/s upload, ping 85ms.
Oddly enough, the testing servers think I am in Kileen TX, but I am in Lubbock TX. That is about 350 miles away.

Clear offers a voice plan, but with their latency issues, I assume that it is substandard (unless they are removing the excessive latency ONLY for those who purchase THEIR voice package).

Uncompressed VOIP (G711) seems to be tolerable on Clear, but G729 compressed (eg Nettalk TK6000) is totally useless and badly garbled (as if there is any such thing as goodly garbled). Strangely enough, If my VOIP ATA is hooked up directly to my Clear Modem, the line indicator lights go out after about 20 minutes. Even Magic Jack puts up a message to reconnect to the internet. However, if I hook up my VOIP after my Netgear router, the service stays on. It seems that Clear is deliberately blocking communication ports, but my router re-routes the signals through different ports that it can find open. However it is only my theory until I can find evidence to prove or disprove the reasons behind blocked ports.
Jet101
Jet101
Premium Member
join:2009-10-01
Pflugerville, TX

Jet101

Premium Member

said by Solearth:

Clear offers a voice plan, but with their latency issues, I assume that it is substandard (unless they are removing the excessive latency ONLY for those who purchase THEIR voice package).
WiMAX has the ability to do great QOS, and I suspect that Clear Voice gets top priority. No complaints on my 3 week old Clear Voice. However, I think that there must be something going on with the residential modem when it comes to any voip service other than Clear's.

I've tried everything to get a remote extension working that when plugged into any other internet service works like a charm. I cannot for the life of me get it to work with the Motorola CPEi 150 modem. I have run it straight into the modem and configured and re-configured every possible setting in that modem to try and get it to work. No luck to date. The extension registers with my asterisk server, but won't even pretend to make a call.

This irks me, as I had wanted to tie some Clear Wimax service into remote extensions out in the field for remote phone service. What's strange, is that I can use a softphone with the Clear USB modem, but cannot use that same softphone with the residential modem. I've tried this with an ip phone plugged directly into the modem, with switches, and with routers. Nothing works. Oh well, I won't be offering Clear internet for my customers that want remote phone service in their temporary field offices.

Solearth
join:2009-10-21
Lubbock, TX

Solearth to w0g

Member

to w0g
Their VOIP (SPA2102) plugs into the residential modem for the clear voice. The problem is NOT in the Motorola modem itself, but in a configuration out of control of the customer. I assume that they deliberately create a latency issue in those who do not pay additional for their own voice service.

If I am wrong about the deliberate latency in those who do not pay extra, then ALL of their modems, including those in which are used for the Clear Voice have the voice problem.
ITTech71
join:2005-11-15
Dallas, TX

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reposting
ITTech71

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turn logging features "on" in your router and proof them.
four4gtester
join:2010-02-11

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as of 2/11/2010, Sprint 4g is very inconsistent and provides constantly dropped connections (like dropped calls) whether you are traveling from one area to another or in a stationary location. Also, Sprint will start throttling your "unlimited" 4g connection after you have used about a combined total of 5 gigabytes of data download/upload usage, it is even stated in the new brochures which you can find at a local Sprint Store.

At the expensive $59.99/monthly rate, Sprint is outrages for even considering and implementing a automated service, which is handled by Clear/Sprint's computer servers based out of Southern California & Kansas City (Clear/Sprint's respective main headquarters), to dramatically downgrade the quality of your wireless internet connection and reduce raw download speeds.

The reality of the situation is Sprint sells consumers on false expectations. This is one of the reasons why Sprint will keep on bleeding subscribers like a stuck pig because consumers will expect Sprint to live up to their advertised "unlimited 4g" with "speeds up to 10 times faster than 3g" (which is about 10 megabytes per sec.) In return for consumers hard earned money, Sprint provides consumers with less than half the advertised download speeds & downgrades the "unlimited" 4g service to as tolerable as dial-up speeds.

Sprint receives an F for FAILURE on the launch of their 4g services.