Hi, Sam!

On 08/02/10 12:47 am, Sam Lewis thus wrote :

   The CLEAR Spot is made by Sierra Wireless, and is essentially, an
   AirCard W801
   (http://www.sierrawireless.com/productsandservices/AirCard/MobileHotspots/AirCardW801.aspx).
   It does not do N, only B/G.

   CLEAR aims to provide 3-6Mbps on the downlink and throttles
   uplinks to 1Mbps. There are service areas close to towers where it
   is not unheard of to get 10-12Mbps (I was in an area today where
   we had 8.95Mbps down, consistently, and about 0.95Mbps up). The
   network here is still being built, so service is spotty, but where
   it works, it really does, well, work. :-)


What's the latency?

Good question. The tests I've run haven't given me full reporting (or I've been more concerned with sheer bandwidth, to make my own mental coverage map vs CLEAR's Google Earth overlay), though I can tell you that video streams quite well. At my Leesburg townhouse (which is not yet on the coverage map, but does report 2+Mbps coming down), I got a stall watching a 10-minute youtube video. However, switching back to my soon-to-be-disconnected FiOS connection, I got the same stall...so it must have been youtube and not my connection.

FWIW, I love FiOS here, but the price point of CLEAR can't be beat: $40/mo for 4G-only service, and I can lease the terminal adapter - okay, they call it a "modem," but we all no that it's not modulating or demodulating anything - for $3.99/mo with a 2-year service agreement, and that provides for extended warranty coverage, as well. I also love the wireless aspect of the connectivity, of course. Obviously, it's not for everyone, and if the main location isn't on the short list for coverage, it's not worth the frustration of trial and error to attempt catching a signal. Otherwise, it's really the next wave of connectivity (consider how many people simply no longer have wired phones anymore, and that's where we're headed with broadband).

Now, if I could just get this darned little Wi-Fi router to pay attention to my ThinkPad, I'd be a happy