Clearwire 4G internet

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darkmatter08

Weaksauce
Joined
Nov 8, 2008
Messages
120
Hey everyone,

I live in the Chicago area and Clear is running a promotional deal for 4G home and mobile unlimited internet for $50/mo for life. This seems like a great deal but I am curious to what the speeds are actually like. They advertise consistent 3-6Mbps with up to 10Mbps speeds, and I am not sure of this. I currently use Comcast Business internet and pay $70/mo, which is pricey but it is fast, consistent, and unlimited bandwidth. If I get the Clear Home+Mobile plan, I will drop Comcast after 1 month or so.

I would have limited use for the mobile connection, because I no longer travel and currently work from home. The rest of my family has limited use for it as well. However, it is such a cool technology that I would love to have. I am not concerned about the absolute speed of the home connection, as long as I get ~5Mbps or more (questionable). My major problem is that I use Vonage (VoIP) and I heard from someone I know that it does not work well with Clear because of the latency and/or limited bandwidth.

So, what do you think I should do?

darkmatter08
 
depending on the VoIP coded used they will use at most 64kbps of your bandwidth, so even a 3mb connection will be plenty. however, if your network gets a lot of traffiic it might be a problem. i would say ask clear if you can try there service for like a month and see how it works with it.
 
VoIP and wireless typically do not mix. Out here in Cali clear wire drops packets and has inconsistent and high latency, all of which is problematic for VoIP.

I'd try it for a month, to see, but I would expect to give up your cable connection over it. The technology behind cable is inherently better suited for Voip than clearwire.
 
I've never used Vonage, but if they offer g729 instead of g711, you can decrease your bandwidth requirements down to 8kbps instead of 64. Even if your total bandwidth is remotely respectable (DSL speeds or better), you should be ok.
 
cgram23 said:
I've never used Vonage, but if they offer g729 instead of g711, you can decrease your bandwidth requirements down to 8kbps instead of 64. Even if your total bandwidth is remotely respectable (DSL speeds or better), you should be ok.
Click to expand...

In practice, you'll find those figures to not be accurate given the inherent overhead in the rest of the stack. In the real world, you have to allot 24kbps and 80kbps for 729 and 711 respectively.

Back to the original point, wireless is nice for mobility and convenience but latency and jitter suffers and will impact the quality of any real-time services such as voice.
 
To Everyone,

A friend of mine got the service and also has Vonage. He says the voice quality is poor. I am going to visit him and see how it is and the quality of the connection and VoIP.

darkmatter08
 
Service is spotty in Chicago right now
Do a Google search and you will be hard pressed to find a happy customer in the Chi.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
Comcast is coming out with a Clearwire/WiMax/Sprint plan for wireless net, and it's VERY competitive in price. Stick around for a few months... Should be in Chicago very shortly
 
That is clear.com, my friend works for the company. If you want daily downtime, go for it.
Posted via [H] Mobile Device
 
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