The internet has become an essential service for millions of businesses and billions of people. All of us need good, reliable service at a reasonable price. This is how Clear 4G WiMAX home internet service has performed for me for nearly a year.
What is Clear 4G?
4G internet service appears to be a matter of interpretation. So far there is little standardization in performance or standards. Clear uses WiMAX to achieve their version of 4G service. 4G is suppose to be the fourth generation of cellular wireless service. Clear 4G is offered as a cellular service for homes, and mobile devices.
The Clear 4G Home Plan
Clear broadly states that their 4G unlimited wireless service is for internet browsing, surfing, streaming movies, games, and just about anything else you can do on the internet.
Clear specifically outlines on their home page that you will get:
- Unlimited data service
- No speed cap
- Upload speeds of up to 1 gig
- $50 a month
- No annual contract
Equipment installation is very easy. Plug the power cord into an outlet, run the ethernet cord from the modem to the computer, turn it on. The modem will go through a power up sequence, search for service, and it’s done. In my case I ran the ethernet cord to a wireless/wired router to serve several computers in the home. No problem.
The reality of Clear 4G home service
I had to sign up for a two year contract despite the fact they state no annual contract.
The service is a real mixed bag. Sometimes it works fine, sometimes it doesn’t.
If I do a speed test it might show something like five or ten Mbps download speed and 1 Mbps upload speeds, but this is very deceiving. The service will work for browsing, surfing, and the occasional short video, but if you try streaming a full movie or two the service will drop down to 200 K or lower. I’ve even had speed tests show less than the old 56 K dial up speeds. I dropped Hulu and Netflix simply because it is almost impossible to watch movies.
Even when download speed appears to be adequate for streaming Clear may experience enough external interference, jitter, or packet loss to loose the movie stream.
Download speed slows to a crawl almost every evening.
Service interruptions or slow downs occur every day. Longer outages occur several times a month–especially in the mornings. I’ve had 24 and 48 hour service interruptions.
Calls or online complaints and questions to Clear are always answered with a stock statement of: Your service is working, but being managed due to traffic and congestion.
One year left to go on my contract…
Do I recommend Clear 4g WiMAX?
I can’t recommend Clear. In a small town (like me!) with limited service you may have no choice. If Clear was advertised as a 200K to 500K service with a $20, or less, per month price tag I might reluctantly recommend it. But Clear is advertised as an unlimited service with no cap. This is not true. Clear service is clearly managed (sorry for the pun). So–explore your options and hope you live where you can choose from a number of better internet providers.
