It's embarrassing to admit, but I hadn't been using my Clearwire connection very much since I signed up last year. It's a long and convoluted story about why I couldn't get my Clearwire modem connected into my household LAN, but now that's been corrected, and earlier today I "cut over" completely from pretty good Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) from a local Internet Service Provider (ISP) who I prefer not to name. (The wireline service is Verizon, but for any service issues, I deal with the ISP which was one of the primary attractions of working with them.)
A brief note - the Clearwire modem is just that - a modem. There's no router built into it. If there was, it would have been easy to set up many months ago. So if you're going to feed a household LAN from your Clearwire modem, you'll need a Network Address Translation (NAT) router.
When I have used it sporadically, the Clearwire modem has been totally plug and play. Unlike all the silliness that you have to go through with some DSL and cable systems about using their software to set up your system (which, again, if you're going to share out the connection, you have to "fake out" or later undo) and set a specific hostname, or set up Point To Point Protocol Over Ethernet (PPPOE), the Clearwire modem is, again, plug and play - just plug it in, and if your computer or router is set up for Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP), it'll just work.
My experience in "cutting over" from DSL to Clearwire wasn't quite plug and play, but that was entirely my fault. I had configured my household router for static settings on my DSL. Setting it up for DHCP was easy enough, but later in the day I could get to some sites with no problem, like Google, but not other sites like TypePad and SixApart. I took another look at the router and discovered that I had to manually remove the static Domain Name Service (DNS) settings - those didn't get flushed when I switched from static to DHCP. Once I purged those, and did a release/renew on the router, things started working again... after I did a release/renew on the computers to flush the static DNS settings from them.
After that, it's been smooth.
One thing that surprised me was that I didn't have to do anything for my Clearwire service to work (and well) with Vonage. Apparently Clearwire did (finally) get the memo about not being evil and not to block (competing) Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) telephony services.
Another was that the Clearwire Internet connectivity has been very solid. My DSL had an irritating daily outage at random times, typically most afternoons. It only lasts ten minutes or so, and by the time I would call my ISP, talk to the screener, wait in queue for a tech, it would be working again. This ended up happening so regularly that when it would happen, then was time to go get something to drink for the afternoon. That hasn't happened on the Clearwire Internet connection. The only time I would get upset with these ten-or-so-minute outages is if I was in the middle of composing a great blog post and I lost the connection. As Jerry Pournelle famously said about writing on microcomputers, and now triply applicable to writing on Internet cloud systems - "Save Early and Save Often!"
The three Internet connection types I've use intensively from my home office are, to my experience, fully equivalent:
- DSL / Ethernet / Router (1.5 Mbps down / 384 Kbps up)
- Clearwire modem / Ethernet / Router
- Sprint 1xEV-DO Rev. A modem / USB / direct (no router)
If it were just me, I could get by quite nicely with the Sprint 1xEV-DO modem providing connectivity to the household LAN when I was present, and disconnecting it and using it on my laptop when traveling.
I'll be testing the Clearwire modem as my only Internet connection for a few more days, or perhaps a week, but I doubt I'll be making another payment to the ISP for continuing the DSL. I'll probably pull a bit of a fast one and "fire" the ISP's DSL, wait a month or two, and then I may sign up for the very-el-cheapo Verizon DSL which, at about $20/month is a good backup for various household Internet functions.
Then again, I may decide not to do wireline Internet at all... (well... if Verizon does actually does finish the fusion splicing and gets around to offering FIOS, all bets are off...). I could just buy a cheap router with a USB port that would let me use the Sprint 1xEV-DO Rev. A modem as a backup Internet connection for the household LAN. I had been using it on my main computer when I lost the household Internet connection, but I'd like to do it better so that I can share the Sprint 1xEV-DO Rev. A modem on the household LAN. Yes, I know I could share it out with the native Mac networking with a few clicks, but then I have to reconfigure the Mac, the way things are connected on the LAN, etc. And yes, those are pretty minor hassles - the Mac does make it relatively easy, intuitive, and painless. It's the rest of the Household LAN that's the minor painful part of this idea.
If I did go the "route" (pardon the bad pun) of using the Sprint 1xEV-DO Rev. A modem as backup Internet connectivity for the Household LAN, then I'd also invest in a better router that offers two Wide Area Network (WAN) ports and does "easy" (as opposed to doing it the way "real" routers do) failover selection of Internet connectivity if the Clearwire Internet connection should fail. As David Isenberg said, and I took it to heart, Buy As Many Nines As You Need.
By Steve Stroh
This article is Copyright © 2008 by Steve Stroh. Excerpts and links are expressly permitted (and encouraged).
This article was written and posted via Broadband Wireless Internet Access (BWIA); Clearwire service using a NextNet Wireless / Motorola Expedience Residential Service Unit (RSU).
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