WiMax: My love hate relationship

This past weekend I was given a chance to test out the new WiMax service offered by Clear. I’ve been a big supporter of WiMax ever since I heard of it way back in 2005, before the first towers even went up, so I was pretty excited to give the service a chance. So I was happy to carve out a little bit of time to do some testing.

I did the majority of my testing on tried and true T42 Thinkpad.

Setup/Install:

Setting up the USB WiMax dongle was a piece of cake. I ran the install CD (1 minute) and then plugged in the dongle. Almost instantly I was connected to the web. I was impressed, this was actually easier and faster than connecting to a wireless access point.

Speed Test:

Immediately I decided to run WiMax through speedtest.net. I ran this test while sitting at my desk out near the Streets of Tanasbourne in Hillsboro. Here are the results:

1.12Mb/s

Not bad but not broadband. Lets see how my iPhone does:

Did not see that one coming

I ran it a couple of times using the Speed Test App and my ping scores were all over the place but my up and downs held steady.

So according to speed test my 3G Iphone is indeed faster than WiMax from this site. However, one thing that did seem snappier was loading websites on my T42 vs the iPhone. Processing power does play a significant role it would seem.

Further Testing

I really would have liked to show off ample test results on online gaming, P2P service, and HD Video streaming. Unfortunately I was unable to get the dongle to work with my desktop PC and I discovered that the USB dongle is not supported by Vista 64bit. This took quite a bit of research to find out.

All of that would have been moot anyways since from my place, in the heart of NW Portland, I was unable to get a signal to connect to the service. I had to walk out to the street and stand on my sidewalk to get it to work. Apparently penetration through buildings built in the 30′s isn’t very good. I had the same issue with my 3G iPhone when I first got it, but as soon as they updated the firmware, all of my issues disappeared. I wonder if they can do the same with this? I was still surprised that while being right in downtown I had connection issues.

Outside of my home it worked much better. I was able to surf the net, watch youtube, and access my work email relatively fast. There was some additional delay but nothing that was totally unreasonable. Whenever I moved inside was when I had issues, it would seem that sitting next to a window helped as it did not lose the signal from outside. I cannot confirm this 100%.

My Thoughts and the future

I really want this technology to be successful. Currently I can see this service having the most benefit for business people who are out and about all day long. Anyone in sales or management would have a significant leg up over their competition. Take a real estate agent for instance. Imagine being able to pull up listings anywhere you are rather than having to decide upon ahead of time? Like a neighborhood you’re in? Pull up a list of all the other houses for sale and see them that day rather than having to reschedule.

From a consumer perspective I don’t think the need is there yet. If you are commuting via public transportation to work, it would be great to use this with your laptop. Beyond that I have a hard time justifying its service price when wifi hotspots are ample and mostly free. Realistically who lugs around a laptop everywhere they go beyond business people? Sure netbooks are getting smaller and more powerful, but they still don’t slip into my pocket like a 3G phone. I just cant justify spending $50 a month for your service when my phone does almost everything you offer and more.

Clear definitely has an uphill battle to get people to embrace this new tech. What they need to do is show off real world examples in their advertising rather than a stadium overflowing with beer. Show a real estate agent looking up houses on the go, have a photographer uploading wedding pictures immediately to a wedding site, or even show a guy riding the MAX watching Hulu or catching up on email. Show people how this tech will improve their business/life and make it something that they cant live without.

In this day and age internet access shouldn’t be a privilege but a right. Clear has the opportunity to bring internet to the masses, they just need to figure out their strategy a little bit.