Our goal at CLEAR is to make the Internet simple. That’s why we’ve gathered some common Internet and troubleshooting terms together for this installment of DECODED. We’ve chosen some common terms that we use when troubleshooting and others that you might encounter.

A term you might hear when troubleshooting with one of our reps, Powercycle-  turning the device off and then on again, resulting in re-authentication to then  CLEAR 4G network

MAC ID – A code found on the bottom of your device. A rep might ask you to verify this number. Media Access Control, usually written like AA:AA:AA:BB:BB:BB or AA-AA-AA-BB-BB-BB is assigned to a device by the manufacturer. This is the unique number for your device.  When you surf the web this is how the router knows where to send the IP packets you receive from the Internet.

For our voice service users, ATA- Analog Telephone Adapter, translates digital voice information to analog.

VOIP- What we offer our existing voice service customers. Voice over Internet Protocol, sends telephone calls over the internet

What you might see when we ask you to run a Speed Test:

Bytes- basic unit of measurement for computer storage

Ping- reports how many “hops” are required to connect two internet hosts. Sends packets of information to specific address and waits for reply. (Imagine the scene in Willy Wonka where they teleport the candy bar.)

Mbps – Megabits per second. A measure of the total information flow given over a period of time.

MB- A million bytes or one thousand kilobytes

GB- gigabyte, a unit of measurement to quantify disk capacity

Kilobyte – a unit of measurement equivalent to one thousand bytes of computer memory

Bandwidth – the amount of information that can flow through a channel (the same idea as traffic).

IP address – a numeric address given to users and servers connected to the internet. Every device that connects to the internet has its own IP address.

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