Clearwire newbie with some questions ...

I'm trying out my FIRST broadband experience with Clearwire that
recently came to the area. I'm about 1/4 mile from the local
transmitter and my speed measured using the speed tester on
speakeasy.net is 1486 kbps download and 239 upload and that's with
4/5 bars lit on the modem. My questions are as follows:

1) This appears a bit unbalanced DL vs UL speeds. I had trouble
selecting a driver for my USB to LAN Converter. I'm using a Realtek
USB to Ethernet Network LAN Adapter/NIC G9 and using their driver
.....An986n.inf. Can the driver affect the speed of the connection?

2) Is there a significant relationship between the indicated 'signal
strength' bars and actual download rates.? Particularly between 3 -5
bars? I ran some speed tests ... and there does
appear to be a minor relationship; maybe a 30% reduction between 3 and
5 bars.

3) Is there an applet or other small program that can monitor the
speed of the LAN connection with an indication placed in the the
Quicklauch TB or Google Desktop?

4) I'm in an area where my phone co. Verizon ... can only provide
limited service due to my location they can only 'guarantee'?
768/128 service and cable is out. So I'd like to maximize the service
I can get from Clearwire .... Any idea on how to speed it up??

Paragon wrote:
> I'm trying out my FIRST broadband experience with Clearwire that
> recently came to the area. I'm about 1/4 mile from the local
> transmitter and my speed measured using the speed tester on
> speakeasy.net is 1486 kbps download and 239 upload and that's with
> 4/5 bars lit on the modem.

What speeds did they promise?

Sounds like pretty close to normal to me, but I'm not a Clearwire
customer. As you pointed out in the DSL notes, the upload is frequently
considerably slower than download speeds by design.

Yes, signal strength can affect speed, but with what you're describing
sounds like pretty close to what it's supposed to be. But that's only a
guess since you didn't give more details.

They promise up to 1.5 Mbps but no upload speed is quoted.

I also notice that when transmitting ... my AM radio in the room ...
picks up some transmission static. I may have to move it around to
avoid the 'buzz'. I'm surprised by this a bit ... ... I hope it
doesn't screw up the FM.