[X4U] Thoughts on Clearwire?

[Dave B]

I use a similar service offered by Rogers (cable TV, ISP, cellular  
provider, and too much more) in southern Ontario, Canada. It is a  
fairly good service, if you are willing to accept the limitations.  
Weather and obstructions are the main obstacles.

I purchased a portable modem used the system at our cottage, which is  
on an island. The only tower that is close to us is on the opposite  
side of the island, and we are technically out of the coverage area.  
With some experimenting, I found that one particular window of the  
cottage has a small opening through the trees and rocks of the island  
in the exact direction of the tower. With careful placement of the  
modem (portable unit rather than the permanent install) I can get up  
to 2/5 signal strength. This is good enough to support a continuous  
VPN connection. VoIP calls suffered from high latency and some packet  
loss. I've seen up to 80KB/s download. While this isn't even close to  
'fast', it is a darn sight better than our dial-up connection on a  
pulse line (yes, we still use a rotary phone!). The ability for my  
wife and I to work from the cottage is worth

Weather like heavy rain will interrupt the signal. And in our case,  
wind that moves the trees will also disrupt the signal. A cottage on  
the other end of the island has a clear view of the tower down the  
lake and they are usually at full signal and speed. Make sure that if  
you do try this service that it is 100% refundable within 30 days. You  
will want to test the service to make sure that it is going to live up  
to your expectations.

HTH,
Dave

---
Yesterday it worked.
  Today it is not working.
  Windows is like that...

On 18-Mar-08, at 11:09, n wrote:

> We just got a pretty tasty offer in the mail from Clearwire and are  
> mighty tempted to go with it, and I wanted to gather opinions from  
> any of you who've used it, either good or bad...caveats...are they  
> strong or weak on Mac support, any security issues, etc.
>
> thank you!
>
> n