Review by xxxdevourxxx 
UPDATED: 239 days ago
member for 239 days, 3 visits, last login: 234 days ago
 Medford,Jackson,OR
 $65 per month (24 month contract)
 about 1 days
 "Easy Setup, Mobile"
 "Terrible Customer Service, Slow Speeds, Inconsistent Connection Quality"
 "Steer clear of Clearwire unless there is absolutely no other choice."
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Services:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
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Since I had some customer service issues with Charter Communications, I thought I would give Clearwire a try. If only I had known what I was getting into...
My plan: ClearPremium 1.5m Down/256k Up + VOIP Phone
The installation was easy and straight forward. It works well with my home network/router... WHEN it works.
The connection is very unstable. Doing a series of 5 speed tests can produce results from 200kbps to 1800kbps download, 25kbps to 400kbps upload. It does not matter if the connection comes through my routers wireless signal, or if I plug the modem directly into my ethernet port. The speeds are always the same. Inconsistent.
During any kind of weather, other than clear blue skies, the connection will rarely reach 500kbps. Even more so if you are trying to use your internet between 8-10AM and 10PM - 1AM. That leaves 7 hours a day that you could possibly get decent speeds.
But, that is only if they are not throttling your connection. Sure, It's blazing fast for checking emails. But so is 56k. When you get onto youtube, expect to spend more time loading the video than actually watching it. I timed the loading of a 2:37 video once a day for a week. It ended up taking an average of over 5:00 to watch the video. With something like 35 buffers.
Peer 2 Peer? Forget it. They block almost all ports. You will experience a torrent speed of around 10-30kb/s.
Gaming? Sure if you want constant latency issues. Averaging around 400ms.
The customer service is pathetic. After I ruled out my router, wireless card and cables I ended up taking the modem in to them. He plugged it in, loaded up some pages and said it was fine. I guess he missed the 5 seconds it took to load up google.com. After I explained to him the symptoms (Poor connection quality with 5 lights, Inconsistent line speeds, high pings and the modem locking up 2-3 times a day.) He somehow determined that it was the power cord.. He must have seen the look on my face when he told me that because he quickly added "That is the cause of these problems most of the time." So I accepted that, rather than telling the guy how much of an idiot he was, I would go home and try it. That didn't solve the problem, go figure.
Finally after the second visit I had a new modem. Yay. I though maybe it would fix it. Wrong. It was blazing fast at first, probably since they hadn't had a chance to configure the throttling yet, because it soon went back to the same slow speeds. Granted the modem doesn't lock up anymore, but the speed is still very slow.
I'm going in tomorrow, and going to ask him to bring up my remaining contract time so I can see for myself. Then I'm going to tell him that I DO NOT want my contract renewed.
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