How I learned to Test my Broadband Speed!

Our internet service has been very slow! We have been Clearwire customers since the company entered out market about 3 years ago. Last summer I complained to the company and they sent us a new modem to cure the problem. We obviously didn't get the memo that the new one was available. It had been a very frustrating summer of slow uploads and creeping downloads. I blamed Foxfire, my computer and the neighbors dog. The new modem did seem to help but we only used it for a short time because we went to Arizona for the winter. We put our Clearwire service into hibernation while we were gone.

Now we are back from Arizona and I have been going on about my blogging, Hub writting, blogcritics writing and so on. Again the download speed is so slow I feel like I have been sent back in time 10 years. Today was the day to actually find out what was wrong. Boy did I learn a lot!

My husband is the one that loved the wireless service and he was the one that signed up for a lifetime price of $25 per-month. He had the account under control and didn't want to change a thing because the lifetime price was going to go away. I had resigned myself and kept fiddling with my computer thinking the problem was there. Then I had an aha moment. It occurred to me that I could actually go online to the account and see if it was Clearwire and not my computer. Could it be that, if I paid more, the speed would increase? What a concept!

By accessing the personal account on Clearwire I discovered that a lot self-help information was available. Clearwire has a function called the Clear Toolkit. By clicking on this you can see where you are located in relationship to the towers and what your signal quality and strength is. But best of all they will send you to a website called Speedtest. Speedtest can give you the speed of your broadband connection no matter who your server is. I have set up an account which is free and will be keeping better track of my service. When I tested my speed it looked pretty dismal to me so I decided that I needed to talk to a real person.

Because there was not listing for a phone number on the website, finding the service number required an online search ([888] 888-3113). The tech help service is located in India or some overseas country and the man helping me was in a location that was so noisy he could barely hear me. It is a good thing he was a very nice man because I was not a nice customer. Sorry!

I found that there were several levels of service available.  I could bump up the service at least three levels. We were getting the very least there was available. Our service was $20 for the connection and $5 to use their modem. By moving the service to the top available, we would be paying $45 plus the $5 modem rental fee.  There were lots of choices.

This is what I decided to do. I have upgraded my plan to include a download speed of 4-6 mbps and an upload speed of .6-1.0 mbps. The monthly service fee is double what we were paying. There was no surcharge for the upgrade. The speed is already increasing and they tell me that it will continue to go up for about 2 hours. I will call them back if it does not get markedly better. I am not a happy customer yet.

So what can you learn from all this?  Test your broadband speed. Be sure your internet service is what your company claims it is.  Call a real person, ask a lot of questions, keep talking until you truly understand and if you get someone from India, be patient. They are just doing what they are paid to do.