is clearwire any good?

12/4/2008 6:32:15 PM

only if there's absolutely no other alternative.

12/4/2008 7:04:48 PM

for the money, no...as ^ mentioned above, it's the worst of the options if it's just for use in your apartment

then again, if you want something locally mobile (i don't know if they offer expresscards yet, though that'd be awesome), then it's a great option

12/4/2008 7:13:25 PM

Well even if you're looking for mobile internet, it would almost always be cheaper to tack on a data service from your cell phone provider (provided you have a cell phone, of course).

I've been seeing a lot of commercials for this $40 a month plan from cricket lately. Supposedly it's unlimited internet with no contract. One of the biggest reasons why I didn't even look twice at clearwire is they required a 2 year contract. No way I'm gonna commit $60 times 24 months to something that I might not need 6 weeks from now.

If you're considering clearwire, I'd at least take a look at cricket's internet service. At first glance it at least appears to be as good as clearwire and significantly cheaper.

12/4/2008 7:38:37 PM

Quote :

"$60"

where'd you get that from? did they really jack up their service rates by $23/month?

an old gf of mine had the "full" plan and it was $36.99/month

you can get their slower plan for $30/month, IIRC

12/4/2008 7:55:58 PM

I just checked their website and it says "

Regular Price: $ 59.99 /mo

NOW $ 49.99 /mo
for the first 24 months "

I'm sure there are probably discounts (hell they even mention a $29.99/mo plan on the site), but at first glance all I saw was $60 a month for 24 months minimum and I ran for the hills. I'm pretty sure I did my "shopping" at a best buy.

12/4/2008 8:04:22 PM

jeebus, $60 is ridiculous

but yeah, i suspect you can get it for the same price as cable/DSL, but they can't match the speed

12/4/2008 8:17:59 PM

^ they will have faster speeds soon enough. they got a cash infusion and the faster technology given to them. so hopefully they'll do something with it.

12/4/2008 8:28:00 PM

i used it for a year, and for the most part, it worked as advertised - I got pretty consistent speeds of 1.5Mbps, and the advertised 256kbps up.

I used it during my "no TWC" experiment where I only used OTA HD for TV, so I was using CLearwire to torrent some cable shows. After about a year, my speeds started slowing down a lot, and I think Clearwire was throttling me.

Furthermore, even at 1.5Mbps, that was just not very competitive with RoadRunners ~7Mbps for about the same price, so I just went ahead and got RR instead.

12/4/2008 8:37:13 PM

http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/120508-clearwire.html?fsrc=netflash-rss

12/6/2008 4:32:54 AM