IT Professionals

Clearwire – Destined For Greatness?

Posted by on Mar 8, 2007 | 7 Comments

I remember when I first made mention of Clearwire. In just a couple of years, it has expanded beyond its public beta to go on and service other areas such as Seattle and the surrounding county.

Today, its IPO continues to do well, however, I believe its successful boom into the market will eventually return to Earth once people get a handle on the limitations put forth with any kind of Internet service that does not have hard-line redundancy offered by such companies as cable companies and DSL alternatives.

But then again, I never did pursue Clearwire with a request to beta test its service back in 2005 – maybe I should have? What do you think? Use the comments area to sound off with your thoughts on whether Clearwire has a shot at competing with established broadband options.

[tags]clearwire,dsl,cable,comcast,roadrunner,internet[/tags]

  • http://kurtknapp.wordpress.com Kurt

    I think that this could be a breakthrough technology potentially. If speed and reliability is at an acceptable level, why would anyone want another provider? You could have the internet where ever you go, not just in your house. I haven’t looked into Clearwire myself since I live in Michigan and the service isn’t offered, however if the price is reasonable and the aforementioned is present, I don’t see why this idea wouldn’t catch on.

  • je vidrine

    Clearwire solves the problem of the last mile once and forever. The baby bells will longer have a monopoly on the last mile where they can block broadband at their pleasure. The baby bells refuse to bring fiber optics to the homes because of the expense. Clearwire solves that problem with broadband to every home at a fraction of the cost. As for redundancy, Clearwire can always sign a contract with one of the telecos such as LVLT or Verizon to provide for redundancy. For example, Clearwire could providfe LVLT with cell phones for the redundancy. LVLT could then offer a bundle to its subscribers.

  • “SLUGWIRE” SUCKER

    I chose to go with Clearwire in Seattle after finding very favorable reviews online – all were from other states as Seattle service was barely off the ground. I chose the fastest speed and signed a 2 year contract. Now I could kick myself because the speed is barely comparable to dial up and trust me, it is NOT on my end.

    Clearwire customer in Northgate area.

  • John from Jax

    I agree, the technology seems promising, BUT AVOID THIS COMPANY. The service is good one day, bad the next, gone altogether for days (in our case over a week a few times). Try to escape after tolerating this for over a year, and they threaten you with fees. This is Clearwire. they make it painful. My opinion – stay with the dial up until something else comes along.

  • hodomojo

    This service is a fantastic service within the coverage area, almost all the problems people have are when they are nearly out of the coverage area. 9 times out of 10 people that complain of slow speeds have pc’s so full of adware and 3 different firewalls running, and two antivirus programs going all at the same time. If you truly are having signal issues a tech will come out to your house and resolve the issue for you (usually giving you the option of canceling is service is not as it should be) Most people simply live with poor signal on the fringe of the coverage area and complain, even though the tech has come out to their house and shown them that the modem will work fine if they put it in “this room” and use a wireless router or clearplugs. The equipment is incrediably simple to set up and use, people make it complicated. It’s not like you have to have someone come to your house and drill holes and run cables all across it and wait 6 hours for an appointment that the tech will be late to. For the most part the service either works or it doesn’t, and if it doesn’t I would encourage you to call and have a tech come out to troubleshoot your service. It may be inconvient to some to have to put it in a room that the pc is not in, but think about this…comcast, roadrunner, and other isp’s limit you to one connection in your house only…Not all over the city in your car, at the coffee shop, in a park, etc.

  • http://twitter.com/blakeherring Blake Herring

    Hackers are much needed element in our society today just as the heroes of the revolutionary war were needed back in their day – Hackers do a fantastic job of upsetting the establishment and in a world where law enforcement personnel skills and technologies are lagging behind, a little upheaval from the hacking community is a must – Hackers force law enforcement officers to catch up with the times so that the next time a hacker tries to have a little fun the law enforcement officers – can do a back trace and get root on his computer. Bottom line hackers give way to growth in law enforcement for the better :) – Hack the Planet!!!

  • Daniel Gellman

    Ron…you sir, are about as intelligent as a $2 smoothie. Hackers are a complete necessity. If not for them, security wouldn’t even be a thought. Now imagine, if you will. a bank that never locks up the money. Would you bank there? This is what the role of all criminals are, to make us think twice about doing something completely and utterly foolish! Aside from what Blake is saying about law enforcement, corporations need to start thinking about security as a NECESSARY cost. Hacktivists like Anonymous and LulzSec are NOT the problem. They are the alarm clock ringing in your ear telling you to wake up and realize that you need to protect your data better. If not for them, the real underground, organized crime families that have moved into cyber-crime for one, would be able to walk into any company, steal there information and instead of broadcasting it, they wouldn’t say a word this way they can go back for more later. The blasting of peoples weak security forces accountability onto corporations and companies because i can tell you that only about 10% of all hacks are ever reported. No company wants to report it let alone do anything about it.