Clear.com in Portland

I am not an early adopter. But I am cheap (err, thrifty). And with a really nice employee discount I have been lured into signing up for clear.com, the WiMAX broadband option that is now availble in Portland (Oregon). Here are my impressions so far: 1) easy sign up (hey, they had a booth in the cafeteria) 2) plug & play, literally. You go onto the web, login with the username they send you in the email, create your password, and voila, you're on the web. Now, there's a bit of a catch-22 here...the activation was done by getting an email & doing web-activation. However, I'd bet they can do it over the phone if you really had NO internet access. But really, how easy can you get? Take it out of the box, plug into the wall, see if you get a decent signal indicated by the LED's on the top of the antenna. The power cord has a nice, really LONG cable, so you have good options for getting it plugged in. No weird modem software setup. Nothing. Just plug it in and go.

The phone was just as easy. Plug it all in, hook up the phone, and activate the account on the web (read through all the e911 stuff, it is important). It assigns the phone number immediately. Bada bing, bada boom, a few minutes later, you're making calls with the new phone. Voicemail - first time calling in, it gets you all set up and babies you through changing your password.

I had to poke around just a bit to find out how to port my existing phone number over - it was in the additional phone numbers menu, but really - also super simple. I think that takes a bit (30 days?), and you do have to have an active phone number to be able to port your specific number.

All in all? So far, I'm impressed. Check back once I actually have the wireless router set up. That may be the PITA.