My favorite broadband internet connection for home is still DSL.  In my years of experience, it is fast, reliable and affordable.

However, the phone company in my area is run by a bunch of morons.  They literally have a monopoly on DSL and phone services on the island and they still manage to screw up.

How do you figure an extra $200 in charges for  one month, ridiculous.  But I'm not mentioning any names.

Don't get me wrong, the internet connection is great.  But they can't figure out their billing to save their lives. When we called them to ask about extra charges and a bill for the modem we never received, even they couldn't figure it out.

Bye bye DSL, hello Clear

So in looking for alternatives, I went back to good ol' Clear, previously known as Clearwire.  I had Clear a few years back and it worked well until the modem died.  My 2 year contract was up and I didn't feel like dropping another $100 for a new modem, so I just dropped the service and went back to DSL.

This time around, they had some new offerings.  One that really caught my eye was the “biscuit”, as they call it.  It is a small pocket-sized internet connection and WiFi router in one.

So you don't have to have any additional equipment, you just charge it up and go. You can connect up to 8 wireless devices to the unit and share the unlimited internet connection.

Pretty sexy.

Well, at least in theory.

I was excited when I brought it home and started using it.  First, I surfed regular web pages.  Worked pretty well.

Next I tried YouTube.  It was a little slow, but it worked.

Then Forex.  It worked fine with Oanda and Metatrader running at the same time.

Then I tried the true test (for me at least)…Netflix.  So what happened?  Fail!

The connection was slow, even when the signal was supposed to be strong.  But even more than that, the connection kept going down.

I was in the middle of the city with two major towers nearby and it was dropping the signal every 10 minutes.  Sometimes, I actually had to restart the unit because the signal would get lost forever.

Anyway, I tried everything and nothing worked.  I even tried resetting it like the people at the dealership suggested.

Nope.

You need to pay an upgrade fee

So, needless to say, I called their call center in the Philippines and asked to switch to the regular home modem (pictured at the top).  They said I would need to pay an upgrade fee.

How is that an upgrade, when the regular modem costs less?  And can't I just return the Clear Spot under the return policy and just re order the regular modem?

Bullshit.

Great service at my local Clear dealer

So I called the local dealer and asked if they could do something for me.  They were very helpful and even loaned me a regular modem at no cost to try out for the weekend before I switched over.

Of course the regular modem worked great (just like before) and I was able to exchange the Clear Spot with them for no extra charge. They even credited the difference between the purchase prices.  What a concept…phone company.

How does it work for Forex trading?

Well, in reality, you can trade Forex on a pretty slow connection.  I also have a Verizon 3G USB card that I get from my work and the speed is decent, but I cannot watch movies on it.  Even that works for Forex.

However, if you are looking for an all around broadband internet connection that you can take with you and trade Forex on, I would recommend Clear.  Just be sure to get the regular home modem.

Of course, since Clear works off of cell phone towers, you need to check if your area has coverage.  But it works great for me!