Thinking of Signing up for Clear in Las Vegas?

// August 30th, 2009 // Random Thoughts

Clear or Clearwire is still pretty new here in Vegas. They are spending massive amount of money on print advertising all around town…billboards, local magazine/newsletter ads, bus stops, etc. Not to mention a social media ad blitz and google adwords. They claim provide wireless internet all over Las Vegas, NV and some suburbs. I live in Henderson and was told the signal strength was great where I live. I would have signed up few months ago but the Mac version of the connection manager just came out Aug. 17th.

I was drawn to Clear mainly because of its mobile application using a USB thumb drive. It’s a little bit bigger than most thumb drives and requires the connection manager available on clear’s website. The manager software has to stay open while you’re connected.

I’ve been a Cox cable modem customer since they launched their service in Vegas (1999). Service is decent with Cox. There are occasional outages but for the most part it’s up and working. I’ve come across a couple great phone reps but the majority of the people providing customer support are quick to blame a 3rd party for your internet connection woes.

Hardware Purchase
I looked up “Clearwire in Las Vegas” on my iPhone map and 3 different locations popped up. I called all 3 locations and only number was connected. It’s a little authorized reseller operated by a gentleman named Miles. (direct: 702.979.2374). Signing up took all of 20min. The disk for the USB connection, as of 8/28/09, is windows only. I quick call to customer support showed us where to find the mac version. You’ll need an alternate internet connection in order to download the mac version.

Software link: http://www.clear.com/support/drivers.php

Setup

My home setup is Modem and Apple Airport Extreme Base Station. The home test was done using a Mac Pro with all the latest apple updates and an Airport Extreme card.

Before hooking up the Clear home modem I ran some speed tests using www.speakeasy.net. All speed tests used in this comparison use the San Francisco server.

Cox HOME Breakdown:

Cat5 Wired – Download Speed = 9966kbps, Upload Speed = 6465kbps
Wireless – Download Speed = 10126kbps, Upload Speed = 4410kbps

Clear HOME Breakdown:

Cat5 Wired – Download Speed = 1839kbps, Upload Speed = 499kbps
Wireless – Download Speed = 1836kbps, Upload Speed = 438kbps

I thought I had something wrong because the home modem only shows 2 lights for signal strength. With 5 lights being the best possible it doesn’t sound like I’m getting the best signal even though the Clear rep at customer support said I had a great signal in my area. The home modem setup guide says to move the modem around until you receive at least 2 lights. Preferrably near a window or exterior wall. They provide a long cat5 cable and power cord.

Clear USB Breakdown:

USB Adaptor – Download Speed = 1176kbps, Upload Speed = 236kbps

The USB speed test was done at Warm Springs / Gibson at my sons sporting event. It was indoors and I’m not close to an exterior wall. The service went out once while sitting here. It brought up a prompt to enter my password information to login to My Account. Not sure why, but after I filled in the info it reconnected.

Based on the initial numbers the speed is drastically lower on both up and downloads. I haven’t tried to download any torrents or other large files yet so the speeds haven’t really hurt my browsing. Pages seem to load quickly on both Safari and Firefox.

As I said earlier the big part of the switch was having mobile access anywhere with my laptop. I can’t rely on open wireless networks. The cost for unlimited home and mobile access is $60.75/m. Their website says $50/m, but there are taxes and fees similar to any cell phone or utility service. Setup costs were low because they were running a special on hardware. Definitely check with your local stores before buying online.

Cox residential cable modem service is $50/m.

Email
With most ISP’s they offer a clear email address. 2 email addresses with a basic account. I don’t need a free email address, but you will need this in order to send email on their system.

I have email through a hosted exchange company. In order to send mail while connected on Clear you’ll need to use the SMTP settings provided on their site. Then you’ll need to use your clear email login info to validate the SMTP setting. They use “smtp.gmail.com” and without your Clear email login info sending email is going to be a huge hassle.

One Response to “Thinking of Signing up for Clear in Las Vegas?”

  1. Chris G says:
    October 17, 2009 at 11:39 am

    Clear is a bit of an oddity. I have an office, and a house in Southern Highlands, <1/2 mile apart. My office has excellent connection (4-5 five lights) and great upload/download speed. My house is just the opposite. Speeds similar to your Cat5 wired and only 1 light, maybe 2 at times if I mess with the unit. Recently I had 3 at the house for two days and then back to 1, not sure why.

    I contacted Clear and was advised to install the unit in my attic? Like that will happen.

    I believe the service is fair and a colleague of mine that works with Clear in Seattle area says if you cannot maintain at least 3 lights constant do not use the service as drops will occur and any constant on item – server, phone, etc…, will have issues with service breaks. Likewise he advised me Clear says if you have an antenna within 6 miles you get service "great" service which he said is not the case and for actual service to be "acceptable" you need an antenna no further than 1.5 to maybe 2 miles with limited obstructions.

    All taken into account, the service with 3plus lights is good, and not a bad deal. The advertising is to bring on more clients and as such install more antennas. The service should improve and spread unless they pull from the area.

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