WiMax San Antonio TX

We would use stronger language to describe the 4G speed that we’ve been experiencing our our new Sprint EVO Phone, but this is a family rated website, so we’ll mind our language better.

We’ve been putting our EVO to the test and here are a few of our findings.

Battery life test- Yep, it sucks battery power.  We did make it thru the day once.  Got about 9 hours of life between charges, but we weren’t using it very heavily on the Internet.  Today, we unplugged the power at 8:30am, and by 11am, we were down to 67% battery power remaining.  We were surfing the web, doing more email and phone calls than the other day.  We’ll see how long it goes, but fortunately we did buy an extra auto power adapter for in our car, and an extra micro USB cable to keep in the car for charging also.

4G Speed -We sat in the shadow of a known CLEAR Wimax tower site and ran joint speed tests on both the EVO and our laptop.  Our laptop is of course running on the CLEAR 4G network, using their combo 4G+ card (dual 4G / 3G) equivalent of what Sprint offers.     The highest we’ve gotten so far on the EVO was a shade higher than 2mbps download, and 1mbps upload.  The lowest we’ve gotten was 0.5 mbps down and 0.14 up. (further away from tower in weaker signal area)    While our EVO was pulling down that 2+ mbps, our laptop was pulling down more than 10 mbps on the CLEAR network.   

Since both devices are using CLEAR WiMax for the 4G signal, shouldn’t the speed be similar?

We stopped by a local Sprint Store to ask that exact question, and here was their response:

“We’ve been getting multiple reports of the slower speeds with the EVO on 4G, and Sprint is looking into the problem.  Expect an update at some point in the future, but we don’t know how soon that will be fixed or if it will be fixed.”

Read the rest of this entry »

It was great weather today for a cruise outpast Helotes, past the San Antonio Ranch, all the way out to the Sanctuary, a new subdivision being build by Wilshire Homes and Gehan.  

No CLEAR 4G service out there yet, but the combo 4G+ USB modem worked quite well.   We sold one of the 4G+ modems plus a ClearSpot router to a new homeowner in the Sanctuary, then talked with a few other new homeowners down the street about CLEAR’s services.

We checked our email while we were there, found an email from Edward in the San Antonio Ranch asking about CLEAR, so we decided to take a cruise thru nearby San Antonio Ranch as well. 

Read the rest of this entry »

I couldn’t believe the reports I was getting from customers on the northwest side of San Antonio, download speeds up to 17 mbps, upload speeds up to 4-5 mbps?   Get Real!    

So I took a short drive out to the shopping center where Little Caesar’s Pizza was located (it was customer appreciate day after all) and set up in the parking lot near Tezel Road and Guilbeau Road.    We did some speed tests using www.speedtest.net and found out the stories were quite true!

Speedtest thought our IP address was in Midland, Texas, but we used the San Antonio server for testing purposes as always.

Feel free to contact us for all your CLEAR needs in the San Antonio Texas Metro Area by calling 210-771-7075 or email to lee@wimaxsatx.com.    We can offer onsite free demos for CLEAR and quick professional installs for DirecTV as well.

We are currently sitting inside the huge San Antonio Emergency Operations Center, posting this article using our CLEAR modem in one of the conference rooms, attending the monthly meeting of the Bexar County ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Service), the local emergency ham radio group.

Naturally, we powered up our laptop and plugged in the CLEAR USB modem, testing both the 4G only, and the CLEAR USB 4G+ (combo 4G/3G) modem.  We also demonstrated the CLEAR Spot mini-hotspot device as well.

Not the fastest speed we have seen, but considering all the insulation and shielding built into this huge facility, not bad at all.  The location of this super secure facility is well known as being on the former Brooks AFB, now called Brooks Citybase, but the exact location is still sort of a loosely held secret and access to the building is restricted those who need to be there.

Read the rest of this entry »

We’ve just been informed that CLEAR will be changing prices on its package plans, effective March 1st, at least here in the San Antonio Texas market, and will be removing the offering that says “price guaranteed for life” on the intro packages, and then offering the same intro price only for the first 6 months before increasing to the “regular” posted monthly rate.

For example, the PICK2 Plan advertised for $55/month will start out at that rate, but go up to $65/month beginning with the 7th month of service.  The PICK3 Plan now advertised at $75/month will go up to $85/month on the 7th month of service.  Naturally, CLEAR reserves the right to change their offered prices at any time, so you ought to lock in the lowest intro price now while you still can.

So if you were thinking about signing up for CLEAR 4G Wimax Wireless Internet, now’s the time to be making that happen, so you can save up to $120/year in service costs.

So to accomodate your needs and schedules, WiMAX SATX reps will only be available 7 days a week, days and evenings, and will take a break on the 8th day of the week, until everybody who wants signed up with CLEAR under the current low rates, had been signed up and activated.  We’ll bring the equipment to you, set it up for you free of charge, and leave you as a “happy camper” once more!

By the way, we set up a demo over the weekend for a client, who happened also to be one of our computer service clients.   His Road Runner speed was less than 2.5mbps and his CLEAR 4G Wireless Internet speed was over 12mbps.    Upon changing him back from his live demo test to his regular method, he could really tell the difference while surfing the Internet.  We suspect his mom will be signing up with us for CLEAR really soon!

For more information about CLEAR WiMAX services in the San Antonio Metro Area, including New Braunfels, feel free to contact us direct at 210-771-7075 or email us at lee@wimaxsatx.com.

I drove up to Ft. Hood this past weekend, to visit a friend who is about to get redeployed back to IRAQ for his 3rd tour of duty in that country.  He’s also been deployed previously to other countries in that area, but he’s naturally more concerned about IRAQ right now.  He offered to give me access to his Wi-Fi network, but I told him “I have CLEAR WiMAX with me!” and proceeded to power up my USB CLEAR Modem and jumped on the Internet right away.

We had great WiMAX coverage in the area, but the download speed was only up to around 5mbps most of the time.  I was told by another resident (also US Army) that usage of CLEAR was very high, and that while it started out in the 10+mbps, over time the speed has settled down to the advertised range.  I didn’t notice any delays or buffering while surfing the web, and while showing him and his wife some of our YouTube videos, so I can’t complain about performance even with the slower speed!   Go CLEAR!

But we’re back home in SA again, and our other sales guys never left town, so feel free to keep calling WiMAX SATX for your CLEAR WiMax needs, or any computer problems in general.  Call us at 210-771-7075 or email us at lee@wimaxsatx.com.

Last month I had a flat tire on my CLEAR van, or at least a screw in the rear tire and the air pressure was leaving fast enough to cause problems.  I spotted the tire going low while stopped at a neighborhood Valero gas station on Blanco Rd, and used their free air to pump it back up to useable levels.  

I got on my laptop with my CLEAR USB Modem to find the nearest tire repair shop, since it was around 5:30pm on a weekday, and I was concerned that most of the quicky tire repair places would close soon.

I found out the Pep Boys Shop  over on San Pedro Ave, inside the loop towards Basse Road, was open until 8pm, and if I joined their Rewards Program (free) before paying for the tire repair, it would be free of charge!  Yay!   Regular price to repair the flat was $12.99 plus tax, not the cheapest in town.  But by signing up for their rewards program first, and having the cashier scan my new rewards card, I got the repair done for free!

Read the rest of this entry »

Great haircut, fantastic CLEAR speed

Not a clipjoint, this is a real barbershop over near the entrance to Lackland AFB on Valley Hi & Loop 410, called Razor Sharp Cutz.   Just got a really great haircut here from Richard Vaughn, who is also now reselling CLEAR WiMAX Wireless for WiMAXSATX.com.  Welcome to our company, Richard!

Did a speed test while here, after the cut of course, and scored an amazing 12.40mbps download speed from the barber chair!

Bexar Bulverde VFD CLEAR Speedtest

We just visited the Bexar Bulverde Volunteer Fire Department up north in Bulverde, Texas, on FM 1863, on Cougar Bend. We were at the monthly meeting of the Hill Country REACT Team, www.hillcountryreact.org.  the volunteers from the REACT radio team provides public safety / service type two-way radio communications for four counties near San Antonio.

Anyway, following our usual practice of conducting speed tests, we are happy to announce we had a full 10 bars out of 10 possible on  our CLEAR  USB Modem, and got12.12 mbps download, and 0.80 mbps upload (bursting to 1.24 mbps up).

So if you are in the Bulverde, Texas, area and want to get signed up for CLEAR, feel free to contact us at 210-771-7075 or email lee@wimaxsatx.com to arrange for a home / office visit on-site.

We went out of town last week, flying thru Houston to St. Louis on the way out, St. Louis thru Dallas back to San Antonio on the way back.  No signals in St. Louis yet, but we’ve been told from various sources that CLEAR is getting their infrastructure planned for that city to implement later in 2010.

Obviously Houston is already on the calendar for activation in about another month or two, But Dallas was already activated.

CLEAR WiMAX Speed Test from Inside Southwest Airlines 737 Jet

So, when we passed thru Dallas on the way back home, and we were sitting in the Southwest Airlines 737 Jet at the gate waiting to load new passengers, we cranked up the laptop and checked out CLEAR’s signal from inside the airplane. 

We got an amazing 8.39 mbps download speed while sitting inside the airplane!  Wow!

Obviously if you travel a lot outside the CLEAR coverage areas, you want to get the combination 3G/4G modem for your laptop, not the less expensive 4G modem.    CLEAR offers a combo 3G/4G USB modem card that runs on the CLEAR WiMAX network in 4G mode, and then it drops down to 3G on the Sprint PCS network (with a 5gb usage cap). Pricing is competitive with similar offerings from Sprint (cause they use the same network) and the new offering from Time Warner (also using CLEAR’s network).

CLEAR offers the option to buy the combo card, or lease it for a few bucks per month.   In our opinion, you are better off leasing the card under contract than you are to buy it out right.

Contact us at 210-771-7075 or lee@wimaxsatx.com for more information about this item or any other service that CLEAR offers.   Don’t forget, we also offer on-site service, free demonstrations on-site, and computer services (anti-virus, anti-spyware, PC troublehooting, etc.).