Clearwire in Bray

Blaster99

I had a Clearwire rep at the door today. They're doing it from the ESB mast off Boghall Rd. I asked the guy to demo the service and it works spot on. It's just a wireless modem that has an ethernet port. I think their demo setup doesn't have any limits so I got what was probably the limits of the service. I'm less than 1km from that mast so I had full signal and got 2.8Mbps down and about 350kbps up. Pings to Boards were 40ms. In fact, pings to the mast was about 40ms so the rest of the network is clearly not particularly busy. They're connected to INEX. He said those pings were quite high as he would have expected about 20ms. It was raining at the time, maybe that messed up the signal.

The service is nomadic so you can bring it with you and it will connect to the nearest mast. They seem to have fairly good coverage in Dublin. He rattled off most of south Dublin and Swords and Naas I think. They're gonna launch outside of Dublin too.

They disable VoIP by default but will enable it if you request it. The reason being that they want to keep marketing stats on who uses VoIP, which sounds a bit odd. They're going to launch a VoIP service as well. Skype worked fine, so I'm not sure if that's because he doesn't have the block on his demo aerial or if Skype is more difficult to block.

From what I saw, it's an impressive service. It's Ripwave that works. I think they're a bit on the expensive side, €39.95 for 1M/256k, €49.95 for 2M/256k.

AARRRGH

I've had some experience online with these guys. Seems good. Much more reliable/less scummy than IBB.

vasch_ro

This guy called into me today....
By default I am relying on non phoneline BB , with IBB at the moment with 2mb up and down, this is what put me off clearwire its only 256 up which is a bit of a drag in my opinion. I told him I would keep an eye on the company and see what the reports were like and he recommended Boards.ie to me !!

Mr_Man

Did the rep say anything about operating off the East Coast mast on Windgates as I've heard they were going to put a transmitter on that mast ?

Thanks

M.

vasch_ro

well he kinda of roughly pointed in the that direction I'm on the southern cross
but I was just up out of bed and was really wrecked so not too sure
unfortunately their site does not seem to have a coverage map .

RangeR

I got ClearW*re a week ago in Naas. Have had no problems at all.

2Mb Down : 256Kb up. irishisptest.com shows about 1.8Mb:190Kb so I can't complain.

I use Esat BT for VPN and surfing and use Clearwire soley for VoIP. Works a treat. I don't use a public VoIP server but rather our private H.323 connection but I have had no problems with it.

They don't supply Static IP at the moment but mine hasn't changed at all today which is great. However, they are assigning my a static DHCP IP on Monday which will be tied to the MAC address of my router so I can do my VoIP without problem.

On thing I did find was, their radio "modem" is a DHCP server so it can sometimes interfere with your router DHCP server, depending on which is turned on first. Not a major problem for most but if you need control of your internal ip numbering [which I do], it could pose a problem.

Technically, their radio isn't a DHCP server but connects to their DHCP server in their main office, so their head tech guy said. I couldn't believe it, their head tech guy [again, I don't give out names, so don't ask ] rang me yesterday to talk about my concerns of their product. I've NEVER been treated that way with IBB. It might seem like a small thing, but it made me feel that they cared about their customers which is something I've never felt with IBB.

He said that they are "thinking" about releasing business packages with Static IP and maybe a 512Kb upload but this is further down the line, maybe next year. For now, I have to have two connections. As soon as my Esat contract is up, I WILL be getting a second clearwire unit.

It's still early days but things are looking good.

Blaster99

The thing that impresses me with them is their coverage area. I would say they have more Dublin coverage than NTL, and this is without talking about it for 10 years. I suppose the thing that helps them is that their NLOS technology clearly (sorry) works so they can go for the lower mobile type masts like the ones ESB have which there are plenty of around the place, instead of high sites that IBB and the likes are limited to. Maybe they're using ESB's backbone as well. I think they could put a pretty big dent in the broadband market, particularly for people who share houses and stuff, who don't want the hassle of a phone line etc.

Blaster99

Mr_Man wrote:

Did the rep say anything about operating off the East Coast mast on Windgates as I've heard they were going to put a transmitter on that mast ?

I missed your question the first time around... The transmitter is on the ESB tower off Boghall Rd.