Reviews:
 ·Clearwire
| [General] Advice for potential Clear customers. If you're thinking about signing up for Clear 4g, do your homework for your area. We had a bit of a rocky start with the company, been with them for 8 months now and our complaints are minimal all things considered. I'm not a Clear employee and I'm not discounting all of those bad reviews out there with suck speeds. I know it happens to a lot of folks. Clear's 'management' system is very 'clearly' heavily dependent upon location, location, location, and how congested the towers are in your location. The speed posted here is the high end of the average we receive regularly from both our home modem and our Apollo mobile hotspot. On average we get 3.5 (sometimes during the evenings/peak hours) to 12.00 on the DL. The ping in this example is a little high, it normally runs between 70-80. But the usage posted is about the same every month.
Again, find reviews for your area before making a final decision. 99 percent of the time we really enjoy our service. We love the portability of it and even take our home modem to friends and relatives that don't have internet or have really slow internet. It works well for us, but I imagine the towers aren't congested at all in our relatively small town.
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 SysOp
join:2001-04-18
Douglasville, GA
 ·voip.ms
 ·T-Mobile US
·Clear Wireless
 ·Comcast
3 edits | As with cell phones, data usage is usually higher the first month as you explore. I don't think the Clear marketing team got that memo.
The marketing blitz meant to attract new subscribers may have caused part of the early growing pains. They did a great job selling the network to capacity in a short about of time.
Their plan was sound. Sell the network first. Check. Locate bottlenecks. Check. Use money from subscribers to add antennas and upgrade from micro-wave back-haul to millimeter-wave to meet demand as needed. Check.
They actually had a good communication system in place for the customer, hosting an open online forum is unheard of.
But wait! Throw in a miss-calibrated network management application to ease congestion until the back-haul goes in and you get backlash and churn.
Well the dust has settled. I've come back to Clear since my needs have changed. Getting better than advertised.
Clear may come out of this better than expected...
»connectedplanetonline.com/3g4g/n···ax-0914/
Considering Clearwire owns its own backhaul network, it could find itself in a unique position to supply transport for other operators. Not only is Clearwire putting in high-capacity links, it’s implementing a next-generation Ethernet transport architecture using Ciena gear, which would be ideal for transporting the cellular operators’ ever-increasing loads of 3G and eventually 4G data traffic.
LTE/WiMax/UMTS performance still depends on the back-haul.
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Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| reply to mikalares
Amazing.
The only time I ever saw anything near 11Mbits was during my trial period (go figure).
Its been an absolute nightmare since. Basically I cant do anything with this service during peak hours. I'm throttled at a miserable 0.20Mbits from about 3PM to 1AM.
I wouldnt suggest this service to my worst enemy. I've heard its pretty miserable all over Houston as well. Its just downright horrible.
I'm out as soon as an alternative arrives.
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Satmex 5 | 970 | DirecWay SRS | Ver. 4.0.3.9 DAK403_P8 |
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SysOp
join:2001-04-18
Douglasville, GA Reviews:
·voip.ms
·T-Mobile US
·Clear Wireless
·Comcast
4 edits | Miserable? Horrible? I too was addicted to the internet once.
I was one of the first customers to sign up in my area. Ran it wide open until Clear implemented the Sandvine network management system. Was "managed" to 256kbps for a week after 10gigs of transfer. Then it let up to 1.5mbps the second week. Back to normal a few weeks later. Cancelled after that.
Single user for SD videos, email and web it's fine. But for multiple users streaming HD movies or warez; you will have to get your fix elsewhere. |
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Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Well, not an addiction, more of its my job to be in front of computers.
It gets miserable, when, on a daily basis a friend, or what have you, offers a video link and it takes 20 min to view it. Or, you know, god forbid, you like viewing pictures/media.
Fortunately netflix has dumbed-down their transfer so, its actually viewable even at 1994 like speeds.
and lol @ MULTIPLE users streaming HD. Never had the connection to even try that. Even SD youtube videos are a struggle.
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Satmex 5 | 970 | DirecWay SRS | Ver. 4.0.3.9 DAK403_P8 |
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| reply to mikalares
Agreed, the big thing with CLEAR is location location location.
If you are in a "good" area and are okay with 5 to 10 Mbits average. CLEAR rocks. Period. Then add unlimited ... you're golden.
If you are not in a prime location, obviously, your mileage will vary.
With all these "free" WiMax offerings lately I was worried about more load on "my" towers; however, with Sprint no longer offering new WiMax devices, this should balance things out hopefully, if not even make things better as folks will probably hold out for LTE devices. I have noticed my average download rates creep up lately, probably suggesting folks are moving to other wireless solutions - maybe even the 4S on Sprint.
I just wish CLEAR would give 1.5 up for their "home" folks like they do their "mobile". |
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| said by theoak:I just wish CLEAR would give 1.5 up for their "home" folks like they do their "mobile".
indeed I don't understand the logic, why 1.5 for mobile and 1mb for home? |
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ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Abilene, TX Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| reply to mikalares
Good review and commentary. But I have to say this. That 155 GB of wireless usage is pathetic, IMHO. It's no wonder there are so many bottlenecks in the wireless arena. |
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| said by ernliz:Good review and commentary. But I have to say this. That 155 GB of wireless usage is pathetic, IMHO. It's no wonder there are so many bottlenecks in the wireless arena. No it is not. THis is what Wimax and LTE promised 10 years ago and can deliver. If you have the time, study their infrastructure, is no different (in my opinion better) than any other big ISP and totally capable to delivery this type of payload. It all depend on the area where you are. |
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| said by gabriele64:said by ernliz:Good review and commentary. But I have to say this. That 155 GB of wireless usage is pathetic, IMHO. It's no wonder there are so many bottlenecks in the wireless arena. No it is not. THis is what Wimax and LTE promised 10 years ago and can deliver. If you have the time, study their infrastructure, is no different (in my opinion better) than any other big ISP and totally capable to delivery this type of payload. It all depend on the area where you are. I agree. Clearwire spent a boatload of money doing wireless backhaul, tower to tower.
The potential is there if not greater than cable.
It is a bit like a beach though ... if everybody and his dog is swimming in it ... it can turn yellow  |
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ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Abilene, TX Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| said by theoak:I agree. Clearwire spent a boatload of money doing wireless backhaul, tower to tower.
The potential is there if not greater than cable.
It is a bit like a beach though ... if everybody and his dog is swimming in it ... it can turn yellow
Thanks for the reply, and you too gab... Nevertheless, if what you say is correct, why are we always having these conversations about throttling due to tower loading, network management, and the like? Promises and potential are idealistic but the reality is that there are many of us getting slow speeds due to overcrowding of bandwidth requirements placed on that infrastructure. And that 160+ GB/mo!!! Wow! My family runs two computers and two connected iPhones for about 4 hours/day each: email, surfing, some streaming, Windows updates and others, app updates, and we use less than 5 GB/mo. Anyway............. |
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ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Abilene, TX | reply to theoak
And here's an example of what I wrote above:
»I hate being lied to.
Excessive bandwidth usage by those who'd rather watch TV on their computer than on a .......um, TV!! |
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| reply to ernliz
said by ernliz:Thanks for the reply, and you too gab... Nevertheless, if what you say is correct, why are we always having these conversations about throttling due to tower loading, network management, and the like? Promises and potential are idealistic but the reality is that there are many of us getting slow speeds due to overcrowding of bandwidth requirements placed on that infrastructure. And that 160+ GB/mo!!! Wow!
I feel your pain and I've been in that situation myself with a previous wireless ISP but his problem was the backbone.
I think the big problem with clear is their business model. They wanted at all costs safe business from Sprint. They got it (although not profitable) but if you are in a certain area you can have literally thousand of people with cellphones on a single tower. It is like having cable on a skyscraper with a single 10Mbit line coming in, the BW for each user would be horrific while the next building would have great BW. Now the example is not technically correct but just to give you the idea.
Clear may die by those business practices, now they made a deal with this company that is promising free wireless internet to everybody. I don't know you but I don't like free because usually it sucks and it sucks also for people that is paying.
Having said that, any chances to get on another tower? Any chance to put an antenna on the roof? In your case Cable is a better solution but if you live like me in a place with no cable service it may be a good thing to insist with clear.
I'm totally convinced that is not video by someone that is killing your BW. You can't do any video if the situation is so bad, I think that you have a minimalistic tower with too many users. Many services on 4G aren't real time like email, sending photo etc. These little phones keep doing retries until the message with the big attachment is out while for people like you just surfing life sucks because with surfing you want immediate feedback. I just think that you have a congested tower because they are too many users milking from it. |
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| reply to ernliz
said by ernliz:said by theoak:I agree. Clearwire spent a boatload of money doing wireless backhaul, tower to tower.
The potential is there if not greater than cable.
It is a bit like a beach though ... if everybody and his dog is swimming in it ... it can turn yellow
Thanks for the reply, and you too gab... Nevertheless, if what you say is correct, why are we always having these conversations about throttling due to tower loading, network management, and the like? Promises and potential are idealistic but the reality is that there are many of us getting slow speeds due to overcrowding of bandwidth requirements placed on that infrastructure. And that 160+ GB/mo!!! Wow! My family runs two computers and two connected iPhones for about 4 hours/day each: email, surfing, some streaming, Windows updates and others, app updates, and we use less than 5 GB/mo. Anyway............. To continue "gabbing" ... 
I don't think anyone is saying you are wrong. You experience what you experience. I can't take that away from you nor can I prove otherwise. CLEAR sucks for you. Period.
For some of us though ... CLEAR is great! ... Unlimited data is great! ... Voice is great! ... The price is great! We may be the exception ... but great is still great ... I'll take "great" anyway I can get it
I had DSL prior to CLEAR. At the time DSL in my area only went up to 1.5 ... so I jumped shipped to CLEAR. A few years later and DSL can now go all the way up to 50 in my area ... but if I were to switch back to DSL to get the 50 ... I would be paying 50% more once you throw in all of the phone company taxes - even with the "introductory rates". For me ... I don't need faster ... I would sooner save the 50% ... and ... well ... for me ... CLEAR is great |
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