4G WiMAX (Clearwire) in Hartford area

I suppose I can end the year with a service that has been a nice surprise.  I noticed Clearwire when I was at a mall in Lancaster, PA, a few years ago.  I noticed that they were trying to get people signed up for home/mobile service.  I decided to keep an eye on what they were doing, since the technology looked promising.  Recently, Clearwire installed some towers around where I live, in Hartford County Connecticut.  I decided to sign up and see what the service is about, especially since my wife has recently needed to make many trips to the hospital, and our lives are becoming much more mobile.

So far, the service has been about what is advertised.  In an area that has strong coverage, I get the 3-6mbps down and 1mbps up.  It does burst to 12mbps/sec at times, in fact, one download I did stayed around 12mpbs/sec.  Of course, I’m thinking there are probably very few users in my area at this time, so I’m sure the speeds will drop a little as more people subscribe to the service.

My house is not supposed to have coverage.  In general, this is true, but I did order the USB adapter performance dock, and this coupled with positioning in a window does provide me with a usable signal.  I only get about 1-2mpbs/sec down, and about 0.04 mpbs/sec up, which isn’t terrible great for uploading, but it does get the job done for surfing and downloading things.

Clear says they will be expanding in 2011.  I’m hoping they will add a few towers near my house so I can get the best speeds.  I may switch my home service to them, depending on how strong a signal I end up with at my residence.  For now, having fast mobile broadband on the go is very, very helpful.