Clear Wireless Broadband Review

Just recently, I signed up for Clearwire’s Wireless Broadband Service. It’s known commercially as “Clear“.

I got the $55 home and mobile setup. Sadly, I wasn’t paying attention and missed out on a $50 per month for life on the same setup.

Rather than be tied down to a 2 year contract, I purchased the modems for each service outright. I did the sign up on line, giving them my credit card information and a couple of days later, received two boxes at my doorstep.

One box contained the The CLEAR Modem – Series M, for my connection at home,

and the other contained the Clear 4G Mobile USB adapter, for “on the go” usage.

The Mobile USB Adapter came with a universal joint type extender. I guess you would use that if you were unable to get to your USB port directly. I could see that as an issue as the Mobile Adapter  was huge.

They also included a miniature USB drive with the Clear Connection Manager software. Nice touch, but I didn’t really need it as I had already downloaded the software from their web site.

The Series M Modem didn’t look much different than a regular DSL or cable modem. This also was a little bigger than I thought.

One confusing thing occurred. When you buy the two modems as I did, you actually have two accounts under your name. A little hard to describe,

but it was confusing during the setup, until I called their tech support line and it was explained to me. It does make sense when you realize that each modem is for a separate account as you could cancel either one and still maintain service.

Setup was painless. With the Mobile USB Adapter, you load theconnection manager software. Stick the adapter in the the USB slot, and after a moment, the connection is made. This being wireless, your location is going to be important for how you connect. Using this adapter at home on my notebook, I managed to get a consistent 6Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up. Pings were about 62ms. Not bad at all.

Taking that same notebook into my office, in an office inside a building, I had widely variable results for download, everything from 900k/s download to 2.5Mb/s download. Uploads seemed to stay at around 1Mb/s. Pings were averaging around 100ms. Not  bad but not great.

The Series M Modem at home didn’t even need the connection software. I just hooked it to one of my desktops and got a clean 6Mb/s down and 1Mb/s up with pings in the 60-70ms range.

I’m not ready to make these guys my primary provider, but so far, the service has been good.

One thing I have to mention, and the last picture does not do it credit. The connection light on the USB mobile adapter is as bright as a searchlight! And as you use the connection, it constantly flickers.

I had the lights off in the one room while it was on, and it looked like a light show was going on. I found it very distracting while trying to use the notebook. I could only imagine how it would look to someone sitting next to you on a commuter train. Reading the Clearwire forum at dslreports.com, provided me with a solution. I used a felt tip marker and covered the connection light. It does not eliminate the light, but it cuts down the brightness considerably.

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