In conversations some years ago (4? 5?) with their CTO at the time, they were actively considering how to prevent VoIP from working correctly to external providers via filters or QoS re-routers. The comment was something along the lines of "They're stealing my revenue!" I can see his point - yes, VoIP providers who are not associated with the layer 1 network do seem to compete with products also offered by the layer 1 provider. But... welcome to being a network provider. This was the conversation that solidified my already-strong opinion of why network neutrality is a good idea despite the downsides. I believe there have been several shifts of management since then, and perhaps they're no longer considering such intrusive methods for "management" of external VoIP traffic. I have no idea if they actually ever implemented such tactics, but it would occur to me that a few tests would show suspicious behavior. In a related note: has anyone built a toolkit for testing for the presence of artificial QoS degradation? It would be interesting to see it done with a Java applet (or other "smart" app-like environment) that could be launched via web browser by customers in the field. JT On Oct 24, 2010, at 1:41 AM, Alex Balashov wrote:

No customers in that role as a service provider, but I can say anecdotally that VoIP works quite well over Clear here in Atlanta. I do gather that is not the case everywhere by any means, but evidently the access network and backhaul here are not saturated enough (yet?) to impede VoIP. It also seems that they do take some QoS/prioritisation measures for VoIP media, though I am not clear (no pun intended) on what those are.

-- Alex Balashov - Principal Evariste Systems LLC 1170 Peachtree Street 12th Floor, Suite 1200 Atlanta, GA 30309 Tel: +1-678-954-0670 Fax: +1-404-961-1892 Web: http://www.evaristesys.com/

On Oct 21, 2010, at 5:45 PM, Carlos Alvarez <carlos at televolve.com> wrote:

...

Anyone have customers using Clear for small/remote offices? We have a national customer that need to deploy some small offices with 1-4 handsets and 1-2 concurrent calls. Many locations can't get even DSL, or it's very low speed/quality.

-- Carlos Alvarez TelEvolve 602-889-3003

I believe there have been several shifts of management since then, and perhaps they're no longer considering such intrusive methods for "management" of external VoIP traffic. I have no idea if they actually ever implemented such tactics, but it would occur to me that a few tests would show suspicious behavior.

I don't know what QoS policies that they might have in place, however I know Intel testers were specifically running skype tests in moving vehicles to see how well the calls stayed up during handoffs between cell towers. Latency and jitter in the DC area has been pretty stable so voip is doable. I've only tried with a built in card on my laptop, I haven't tried via tethering to an EVO or their USB stick. The base station they sell that hands off ethernet might be the best option so you can have a fixed install where the signal quality is best. ~Jared