Monday, July 19, 2010

Clear internet service review

In the process of trying to free up some cash, we (that is, my wife and I) decided to dump our cable provider. We barely watch live TV as it is, and the stuff we do want to watch is either available free over the air, or available to watch online if you catch it fast enough. Whatever else we watch we get through Netflix. Part of our attempt to save money was to switch internet providers. Unfortunately for us, the only other provider in our subdivision is Clear. So let's get on with it, shall we?

Cost
This is very competitive, especially for home internet. The only thing comparable would be AT&T DSL, which, in my area, has the same top speed and pretty much the same monthly rate. The only thing that holds DSL back, for us, is that we'd still have to pay for a land line from AT&T. However, the promotional rates offered by AT&T last a full year, rather than the two months that Clear offers. Also, Clear is typical of wireless service providers in that it subsidizes the cost of the "free" equipment by trying to get you to sign a 2-year contract.

Connection
I tried the fastest home internet speed available from Clear, at 6MBPS. What I actually got was an inconsistent connection that ranged from 3MBPS to 0.3MBPS (or lower). My connection would randomly drop speed (or just drop completely) for no apparent reason.
I cannot recommend that any heavy user of bandwidth use this service. Even at my maximum connection speed, I simply couldn't help but notice how slow it was. In my household, we have a total of 7 PCs and 3 other internet-connected devices. Microsoft's "Patch Tuesday" hit while I was testing this out. It took hours. I can say with confidence that I've never had a more painful experience updating my computers. They also market this as being suitable for streaming video; it's not. Our Netflix streams not only took longer to load, they were of much lower quality, with easily identifiable digitization and compression artifacts (think resizing a video on Youtube to full screen).

Customer Service/Technical Support
Very poor. Clear will ask you variations of the same questions, which can be reduced to three simple queries:
  1. "Is it your fault the service you're getting stinks?"
  2. "Are you sure?"
  3. "Can you prove that it's not your fault?"
I spent more than 3 hours with their tech support essentially proving that it was not my fault that I was receiving a bad connection. And their troubleshooting, which was obviously based on a script, was completely useless. In fact, it was so worthless that I was able to finish almost every statement the "tech" made to "help" me. Yes, I've reset my router and the modem - multiple times. Yes, I've already switched to OpenDNS, and I even know the IP addresses by heart. No, moving the modem doesn't do anything. Clearing my browser cache has no effect, and shouldn't because I do that regularly anyways, so it's not clogged.
Now, I understand that it costs Clear money to send a tech out. Obviously they want to cover as much as possible before they send someone out. But the thing is, when the person calling you for help can finish your sentences for you, you'd think they'd realize that all the basics, at least, have been covered. Telling me to do all the stuff I've already done, and redone, again, and then again, will change nothing.
Once they finally sent out a tech, it took him all of 15 minutes to tell me what I already knew: the signal was weak everywhere in my house.

Oh yes, as a side note, want to know which room had the best reception? It was the one in the rear corner, at least 30 feet away from the nearest ethernet port (my home is wired). It was literally the worst place you could possibly put a wireless router as well, as there was no way the wireless signal would have reached every device in the house. Moving the modem for better reception wasn't an attempt at a solution, it was an attempt to trap me in a contract (or into paying the early termination fee) for a service that did not come remotely close to what it advertised.

The Bottom Line

Redemption?
I have talked to several other tech-savvy people I know and a few people who have (and like) Clear. From what I've gathered, the service is one of those things that is either fantastically good, or abysmally bad. If you've got it, and it works, you get pretty much everything they advertise. If you get inconsistent or poor connections, it's almost as bad as dial-up. There's nothing in between. Since I'm located in Aurora, which is close to the edge of Clear's range in the area, I'm only covered by a single tower. Areas closer to Chicago get progressively better reception, though once you get to the skyscrapers the signal gets scrambled again by all those high flat, semi-reflective surfaces. I thought the fact that the tower was less than half a mile away would cover me, but it didn't. It's apparently best to be covered by multiple towers, regardless of distance. So here's a list of my recommendations, if you're considering Clear:
  1. Test the connection before you buy. See if Clear is willing to demonstrate the connection speed at your home, or get a friend who has their mobile internet service to test it out. The former might cost you an installation fee, but a bit of wasted money is better than a lot of it after you sign up and find out your connection stinks. Also, do not accept in-store demonstrations as indicative of what you'll be getting. Clear is trying to sell you something, so you can bet that wherever they're located, it will be where they can get the best possible connection to show off to potential customers.
  2. Do not commit to a contract if it's winter and you live in a tree-rich environment. Clear's 4G wireless internet can be a very line-of-sight technology, susceptible to anything that would interfere with a typical cell phone signal. Water is among the worst most dampening substances that does this. I have found several reviews online that suggest that the empty winter trees provide an excellent path for Clear's signal, but as soon as the leaves grow back, you lose at least part of your signal. If you think about it for just a second, not only are you losing line-of-sight, you're putting a few hundred or thousand leaves (filled with some water) in the way of your internet signal. This, I think, is what happened in our case; we have a large row of extremely tall trees in exactly the direction Clear said their tower was, so...
  3. Calculate your bandwidth needs. Someone like me, with several computers in the house and a high consumption of streaming video, will not be satisfied in the least with Clear's service, regardless of whether they get the best signal or not. However, someone with at most 2 or 3 computers who perhaps does a bit of surfing on Youtube may find that Clear is just fine. If you're getting a good connection and you're used to DSL, you won't even notice a difference.
In the end, I don't think Clear is ready for prime time, at least not here in Aurora. I'll take a look again in a few years; that ought to give them some time to shape up a bit.

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