Back in July I signed up for the CLEAR WiMAX wireless broadband service. Previously, I had 9 years of problem-free DSL broadband service so I wasn't really looking to switch service due to shortcomings of what I had. My rationale came down to basic math. For around what I paid to get DSL, CLEAR offers more bandwidth for my home connection as well as a mobile service that is just as fast. I looked into Wireless broadband before and the cost was just as much as home broadband ($60 for unlimited if I remember correctly), with CLEAR it was like getting one of these services for free so I figured It was worth checking out.

The signup

It's clear (ha!) that these guys are doing a full-court press on the city trying to get as many subscribers as possible. You can't go anywhere intown without running into a CLEAR rep pushing the service on you and even harder to consume any sort of mass media (including the web) and avoid a CLEAR commercial. I was accosted in the computer section of the Best Buy over in the Edgewood Retail District. The pitch was the pick 2 plan which gives you unlimited home and mobile service for $55 a month (an alternative plan which is 2 mobile device for the same price is available too, also a bandwidth-capped plan at $45). This $55 plan was supposed to be a special until the end of July when it would go back to its normal price of $65 per month but it looks like the deal has been extended indefinitely. The advertised speed was 6 MBps, which some seem to scoff at in light of 12 and 22 MBps cable pipes, but that is plenty fast for me. I'm as much of a power Internet user as anyone but I never had any complaints with my 3.0 MBps DSL service.

Further enhancing their drive to get as many people as they can fast, getting set up for the service was a breeze. You pay your first month of service and any hardware costs (I chose to lease, more on that in a sec) and they send you out the door with your equipment already activated. The plan requires a 2 year contract with a $120 early termination penalty that drops a pro-rated $4 per month. For what it's worth, they guarantee the $55 price tag "for life" though I can only see the price of such services going down instead of up in the long term. I suppose the real message is that you're not dealing with an introductory price that will eventually rise to the regular advertised price. Also, it looked like they were set up for credit checks. They bypassed it - probably to get as many people signed up as possible - but it looks like it'll be part of the normal sign up once the blitz is off.

The setup

The CLEAR equipment is very simple. The home modem is a rectangular device with two wires: power and RJ-45 Ethernet. The mobile modem is a small rectangular dongle-type contraption with a very useful hinge attachment that allows you to orient it in ways that are much more accommodating than just laterally sticking 4 inches out the side of of your laptop. I normally orient it in such a way that it sits at an upward 90 degree angle from the keyboard.

Since the CLEAR network is a wireless network as opposed to WiFi, there is no configuration needed as the Electronic Serial Number embedded in the equipment is tied to your account so you are instantly recognized. For the home service, installation literally takes seconds as it's just a matter of plugging the modem into the wall and your computer / router and you're ready to roll - no passwords or anything. The mobile setup is a little more of a hassle as you have to install a connection manager type application that works with your modem. The setup is simple enough though and again there is zero configuration which is generally the thing that makes such things annoying. Once you get the connection manager installed, it will detect your modem and search for the network. Once it finds the network, it presents a large green button for you to click in order to connect to the service.

The service

Clear advertises a 6 MBps download speed and .5 MBps upload speed. Using the Speakeasy speed test I got the following results on my first day of service using the mobile connection:

12 MBps down

As it turns out, this is one of the faster results that I've achieved. Speeds normally average between 8 and 10 MBps which, as I said before, is plenty fast for me.

Now, all of this bandwidth assumes that you are actually getting a signal, which is where this otherwise positive assessment of the CLEAR service takes a bit of a detour. One of the advantages coming with living in the middle of the city is, when it comes to over the air signals, you're generally in the best place to receive them. This is evident by the large number of TV stations I can get clearly (ha!) over the air. When it comes to something like WiMAX I would assume that I could achieve similar results and - on balance - I can, but there are some really strange anomalies.

For example, at home I easily get three out of five bars of signal on the home modem and it works great. I have it sitting on a table in front of a window and every now and then the fourth bar will flicker. I am reliably able to exceed 7 MBbs when I do speed tests. The mobile modem is a different story.

Part of my problem with the mobile setup is that it can be really fickle when it comes to acquiring a signal. Or rather, it's not fickle when it comes to acquiring the signal, it's fickle about connecting to the network once the signal is detected. I would say more often than not the connection manager will show a signal of 2/10 bars or higher and not be able to establish a connection. Normally I am connecting from inside a coffee shop or restaurant and my first guess was that the penetrating power of WiMax isn't so great but the modem is picking up a signal. What I wonder is if that signal is an actual WiMAX signal. More annoyingly, when I'm in my office on the 4th floor of a high rise with no outside obstruction and my laptop sitting next to the huge windows I can't get a signal period. Other places it works great and, when it works, it's just like home. When I figure out the pattern here I'll let you know.

Verdict so far

As things are currently, I would give the CLEAR home service 8/10. It is fast, reliable, and stable which is the bottom line for Internet Service. I dock it a couple of points because I seem to get high latencies in online games. If you care, I've played Street Fighter 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, and Company of Heroes with a noticable degradation of quality in online experience versus DSL. This makes perfect sense given the nature of wireless networks but I didn't really think about it until a friend asked about it.

The mobile service is disappointing and gets 5/10 because it only works in maybe half the places I've tried it. I expect a better outcome smack dab in the middle of Atlanta's urban core. The connection is blazing fast when it works but I hoped for a little more consistency. However, since the mobile service is basically gravy for me, I'm not harping too much on it. You might. Overall CLEAR gets 7/10 from me.

Side notes

- I decided to lease the modems because I was told that there was an upgraded 3G/4G modem coming out (this lets you use already established 3G wireless networks that are much slower but available in many more cities than 4G) and it probably wouldn't be a great idea to buy equipment that was months from obsolescence. The modem has since been released but the rates for the 3G/4G service were astronomical (something like 80 bucks just for mobile) so I decided to stand pat. I'll probably just go ahead and buy the current hardware soon.

- One annoying thing is that most GIS applications pick me up as being in Kirkland, Washington instead of Atlanta. It's not a huge deal but it can be mildly annoying when every site is offering you goods (and women) from a city more than 3000 miles away. It also completely nullifies one of the more interesting new features in Firefox 3.5.

- Apparently CLEAR is available in two Georgia cities: Atlanta and Milledgeville. Rut Row?