From The Labs: Clearwire WiMax

While it has yetto roll out a commercial WiMax network, Clearwire does offer broadband wireless services in 16 states based on Motorola (NYSE: MOT)'s proprietary OFDM-based Expedience technology. Clearwire recently launched service in Syracuse, N.Y., the home of our Syracuse University Real-World Labs, so we grabbed an opportunity to try out the network.

Clearwire provided us with two access mediums, a PC card and a standalone modem designed to provide residential access. Both products delivered as-advertised average downstream performance, 1.9 Mbps. Upstream performance, advertised at 256 Kbps, came in at 200 Kbps in our testing. The norm for latency was 86 milliseconds. In comparison, our last round of EV-DO Rev A testing yielded average downstream results of 1.1 Mbps and upstream transfer rates of 511 Kbps.