Senza Fili, a consulting firm in market research, published in January 2009 a white paper entitled “Testing WiMAX performance in the Clear network in Portland”, which is complementary to the interview with Marc Wallis about Clear. Monica Paolini, President of Senza Fili Consulting, provides in this report a detailed analysis of the indoor/outdoor coverage, the limitations, the downlink and uplink speed, the connection manager…of the network, illustrated with figures. The speed tests were run with FrontierNet Network Speed Test.
- “The performance of the Clear network was consistently good, with throughput typically over 3 mbps in the downlink and between 350 and 400 kbps in the uplink. Internet browsing was fast, so I decided to spend most time checking video applications (YouTube, New York Times, and even a full screen movie from Hulu) and video-conferencing with Skype”
- “For the indoor locations, I picked a garage building (Figure 2, Figure 3), where I could freely go where I wanted; a big bookstore (Powell’s Books, Figure 4); a hotel; a restaurant; and the public library. Clear stated objective is to provide first-wall coverage—you need to be close to the outside perimeter of the building to expect a good connection (this is also the case for 3G networks). This was consistently the case. Furthermore, the throughput was usually good even in deep-indoor locations, even though there was some degradation in performance or in some cases lack of coverage.”
- “In the area between NW 18th Ave and NW 23rd Ave, the coverage was not sufficiently strong to keep the connection. Throughout the rest of the streetcar route, however, the coverage was reliable and handoffs worked well—the connection was maintained throughout the route.”
Here is the Google map with location tests and throughput :
Sprint Nextel along with Clearwire initiated the first west coast WiMax network in Portland, Ore. in January 2009, 3 months after its Baltimore launch of the first WiMax network in the country. The network in Portland consists of 300 cell phone towers equipped with Wimax base stations and covers 90% the Portland metropolitan area.
