[whereinutep]

Get Verizon, the largest 3G network and I just purchased the Netbook...great service and fast speeds. Very reliable, Im originally from texas and when I visited Las Vegas, the service was great.

[AA702]

Originally Posted by whereinutep

Get Verizon, the largest 3G network and I just purchased the Netbook...great service and fast speeds. Very reliable, Im originally from texas and when I visited Las Vegas, the service was great.

You cant compare the speeds between 3g and 4g WiMax. I agree that Verizon's network is great, but the speeds are much slower than what you will get with Clear. In a few years, Wimax will be all over the country and will be very easy to implement.

[Goo++]

For several reasons I dumped Cox for both TV and internet. I did decide to sign up with Clear Wireless Broadband Internet because my need-for-speed was not that great (I am not a gamer). However, since I live on the fringes of the valley (just north of Rhodes Ranch and near Summerlin South), I did not get anywhere near the speed promised.

Inside the 215 Beltway, you'll likely get about 3-8Mbps download speed. In my location, however, and locations in far northwest Las Vegas, you probably won't average more than 2Mbps down and 750Kbps up. I actually average less than 1.5Mbps/500Kbps.

Except for the Clear receiver/router positioning, set up was easy. However, in my location just getting a stable 2 bars was difficult - I finally located an area just above my laundry room that worked well. BTW, pointing the unit 1/4 inch one direction or another can result in loss of sufficient signal.

Once set up properly, stability was good. I have rarely had any downtime from the Clear network. Clear's WiMax uses transmitters from 100+ cellular towers (eventually 300+) around the valley. Unfortunately, in my location I'm probably only getting the signal from one of those transmitters.

As Clear's business grows in Las Vegas, hopefully there will be more towers. That's why I decided to go with Clear's current 1/2 off for six months offer for "unlimited" home service. If, after the six months, they have not amplified their signal to my area, I'll drop down to one of their $20 or $30 per month plans.

When I signed up for Clear at their store near Ft Apache and Charleston, I noticed that location got a full five bars signal whereas I only got two bars in my location. Because of that, I would only recommend Clear for those well within the green area shown below or for those in the valley who tend to be mobile.

If you're outside the center of the valley I would recommend finding someone who already has Clear and have them bring the Clear receiver/router box to your house to see how many bars you get. 3 bars or more is probably okay but 2 bars (like me) is barely adequate.



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[Goo++]

A good way to get the best Clear WiMAX signal is to grab a portable notebook PC and use your web browser (Firefox, I hope) to log in to your Clear receiver/router box. The web address is http://192.168.15.1 and password is motorola.

You will see an entry "WiMAX" CINR. A higher number is better - at my fringe location, mine is a pitiful 7dB. A decent number would be 15dB and a great number would be 35dB.

Below is a tested signal optimizing approach. This will be time consuming since you will have to repeatedly plug/unplug the power to the Clear box and wait for it to reboot.

Methodically move your Clear box around the house, typically (but not always) near windows (usually higher up is better, a few inches below ceiling level is often best). At each location set down the box and check the number of bars and write it down on a notepad. Rotate the box 45 degrees. Write down location and number of bars. Repeat until you've tried all directions at many different locations.

Choose the location where you got the highest number of bars. That will be your starting location.

Plug an ethernet cable from your notebook PC into the Clear router box. Assuming that you are using standard network DHCP settings, you should be able to start up your web browser. Log in to the box at 192.168.15.1 and view the CINR number. Now change the direction of the box slightly and click REFRESH to view the CINR number. Keep trying directions to get the highest CINR number. Once you have the best signal direction you can refine things even more by moving the box location slightly (keep the same direction) a few times and checking for the highest CINR number.

If you have a very long 50+ foot power cable, you might save some time rebooting the Clear box by placing the notebook PC and Clear box on a movable tray and keep them plugged in as you check around your house for the highest number of bars. Do note that it takes a few seconds at each location for the Clear box to stabilize its "bar reading".

[las vegas drunk]

I got this...

WiMAX CINR: 17 dB at my work.

[Goo++]

CINR: Carrier to Interference + Noise Ratio

Here is a slightly technical discussion about another WiMAX system in Baltimore (Sprint/XOHM) using a ZyXel receiver/modem instead of the Motorola one used by Clear.

I wish Clear that had chosen ZyXel instead of Motorola because the ZyXel WiMAX box has an external antenna connector for use with an optional stronger WiMAX antenna for fringe areas like mine.

The thread discusses the great signal improvement he got by the optimizing placement and direction of his ZyXel box. He went from a just okay CINR of 15dB out-of-the-box to a good 24dB CINR after initial location/direction optimizing, and finally to an excellent 36dB CINR after a thorough 2 hours of placement/direction testing.

He also describes his own WiMAX box placement strategy:

XOHM in Baltimore - dslreports.com

[Goo++]

Discontinued Google Web Accelerator

As stated in my earlier posts, I get much slower speed than advertised for my Clear WiMAX because of my fringe location in the Las Vegas valley. So, I tried to find ways to tweak more speed out of my less than optimum internet connection.

I found one solution that seems to work well for me (your mileage may vary). I downloaded and installed the no-longer-supported free Google Web Accelerator software. Not a cure for slow broadband, just a small but noticeable boost.

Downloading Google Web Accelerator from Download.com

If you are overly paranoid about privacy, this Google software is not for you. If you already have very fast internet speeds, this software is also not for you. However, for those who, for whatever reason, have slower broadband, it may be just the apparent speed boost you need. Note that this is only for web browsing (I only use Firefox 3.5.4) and not for other internet connections such as P2P and bittorrent downloads.

Give it a try and post your own experience, good or bad.

Update:

Since Google's Web Accelerator partly works by caching much of your most viewed web pages, I really saw a major speed improvement when using Google's Chrome browser, particularly on one of my own sites that is normally fast loading with Firefox but, for some reason, had been slow loading using Google Chrome.

Google Web Accelerator is an application that uses the power of Google's global computer network to make Web pages load faster. It is easy to use; all you have to do is download and install it, and from then on many Web pages will automatically load faster than before. Google Web Accelerator is currently optimized to speed up web page loading for broadband connections.

Google Web Accelerator uses various strategies to make your web pages load faster, including: Storing copies of frequently looked at pages to make them quickly accessible; Downloading only the updates if a web page has changed slightly since you last viewed it; Prefetching certain pages onto your computer in advance; Compressing data before sending it to your computer.

[Randolphus Maximus]

I've had Clear since they first introduced it out here a couple of months ago. I have the unlimited home modem and the laptop USB dongle (with the wifi Clearspot) and pay $60/month.

When it first launched, the service worked as advertised for me between (4-6mbps download on the home service) I'm over by West Trop and Grand Canyon. I get 4-5 lights consistently. What I have noticed in the past week and a half is that during the late afternoons to late evenings the speeds drop down to unusable levels (speedtest.net shows .14 mbps as the download speed with latency around 350) even with the signal strength at 4-5 lights. Using the clear spot it's the same slow speeds. In fact, I found this forum because I was searching to see if anyone else was having the same sort of problems. (And right now, I'm connected to the internet using an ATandT 3g laptop card that I use for work which I'm getting 1.3 mbps download speeds). Maybe it's growing pains and Clear has a lot of new subscribers in the area, but I don't know how much longer I can take not getting the service that was advertised to me and that I've paid for.

[AA702]

I'm not getting any kind of fluctuations in my speeds. Pretty consistant and I've had the service for 4 months now. Have you tried to call customer service and ask them for any advice?

[Randolphus Maximus]

Originally Posted by AA702

I'm not getting any kind of fluctuations in my speeds. Pretty consistant and I've had the service for 4 months now. Have you tried to call customer service and ask them for any advice?

Yep, spent an hour chatting online with tech suppport doing the reboot, unplug and restart, optimize the browser thing.

I don't believe it's a hardware thing, because I'm getting the same slow speeds using the Clearspot as well, and it's only at certain times (like right now). But I'll swing by the clear store tomorrow and see if I can swap out the modem. I did what Goo++ suggested and logged into the modem and it shows that my CINR number is +16. Which, according to him is decent. If that is the case, would my download speed be THAT slow?