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Review by bullmoose 
UPDATED: 31 days ago
member for 8.3 years, 39 visits, last login: 31 days ago
 Kuna,Ada,ID
 $30 per month (month by month)
 "It reminds me of the romantic days of overloaded modem based ISPs"
 "not a one (that is sarcasm)"
 "The jury is out, and has found them guilty of sucking!"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
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--- NEWEST UPDATES ON THE BOTTOM ---
I decided I didn't want to pay the local phone monopoly any longer, so I bought Clear and their super awesome great fun time WiMax. Having heard and read many a horror story about their service, support, billing, contracts, etc... I sprung for the month to month plan assuming it will allow me to get out more easily. 3 Meg Down, 1 Meg up for $30 a month.
Installation couldn't be easier if you're connecting computer A to modem B with nothing in between. (Assuming your computer already has a NIC). Network connection on computer set to DHCP, plug provided Ethernet cable from modem to computer, plug power into modem. Hardest part was aiming modem for best signal which consists of patience and slow and small movements every 10 seconds. Now surf! First time on, and within a couple minutes of being online, I was "captured" and forced to a Clear screen to complete my account setup.
I always have 4-5 out of five bars for signal. Nevertheless, this is the most erratic service I've ever seen. They clearly aren't paying for enough trunking. It reminds me of dial-up. You remember, you always knew when everyone was on because your connection ran like crap.! I'm pulling 400k or less in the evening, and on a good day in the morning I might get 1.2Meg. Sure, it'll rarely burst up above 2 meg, but the average download still comes in at about 1/2 the rates I was getting from the 1.5Meg DSL service I just gave up. YouTube and other video sites have gotten much more annoying now that all videos stop all the time to buffer.
...but beggars can't be choosers. I'm saving $13 a month over the $43 I was paying for the 1.5Meg DSL I had.
The Clear sales person I talked to talked out of his butt. He was uneducated about what he's selling, and I got the feeling he wanted it that way so he could sleep better. He made absolute statements about a service that you can't give absolutes! He was reading the company line, and worked hard to convince me it was gospel. So I went to a local third party vendor. He was nice enough, and knew a little more about the local area, but missed the part where I was going to get auto-debited from my account and won't have the option to change it, and will be charged a buck every time I want to change my account information.
Anywho.. I plan on calling Clear in the near future to see if there's something else going on here. I have to give them the benefit of the doubt thus far that it's a simple provisioning problem or some such thing. I'll let them make or break themselves, and post back.
...but at this point, I think it can best be summarized by quoting the immortal words of King Arthur... RUN AWAY!!!! RUN AWAY!!!!
UPDATE - UPDATE - UPDATE 28 August 2009
I spoke with Clear Tech support today. I have to say, this is some of the best tech support I have experienced in a very long time. They answered quickly with literally no on-hold time. Their native tongue was American English, and they spoke it very clearly and understandably. The clearly were required to have at least some level of competence, and if they had a script, it was limited enough to allow them to do something on their own that is virtually unheard of now... it's called TROUBLESHOOTING!! They worked with me instead of deliberately looking for reasons to get off the phone. You know they ones... The guys that say "Oh, well your computer is not attached directly to the modem and you use a gateway router, well then go away and come back when you have completely changed your configuration to match the only configuration we will support.. buh bye. Well let me reiterate, they weren't these people! They were good! They helped! They had real training! Oh, and this wasn't a fluke. I've spoken with three different folks now, and they all were comparable in their abilities. Great work Clear!
Anywho... They did identify that they have received multiple complaints regarding performance from the tower I am working off of. They told me they had already deployed their engineers to look into it. They went ahead and escalated my issue and added it to the pool of issues on that tower I would guess. I asked what kind of response I should get. They said if I don't hear anything and don't notice an improvement, call back in a week.
---UPDATE UPDATE UPDATE --- October 7, 2009
In the last month, I've contacted Clear a couple times, and did a whole bunch of trying to help them out.
Being only a mile from the tower, it's hard to get the modem to not pick it up. However, with some experimenting, I figured out that by placing the modem on the floor, and covering it in aluminum foil for a while (I don't remember how long), I could get it to drop the bars down to two. At that point, I could remove a little of the foil, and it would jump back up to about four bars, and I would have about a minute where if I did speed testing, I would suddenly get speeds I was paying for! 2.5Mbps consistently for the 3.0Mbps service I'm paying for. My only explanation for this was that I had to be hitting another tower out there somewhere, and when the modem hits two bars, it begins to look for a stronger signal. More work, and some creative work with the aluminum foil for the modem, and I discovered that if I did the magic "on the floor and cover it up" technique, and I got it to home in on another tower, I could move it back to a better position to gain a better signal, then cover it with foil to attenuate the signal in the direction of the closest tower, I could then get the modem to stay on that more distant tower for quite a while before it would eventually home back in on the closest tower. While my modem was connected to this other tower, I always got advertised speeds.
...and so it came to pass, I contacted Clear with this information. Of course, they first wanted to go through and verify my network was not the problem. They are allowed to be something more than a monkey following a flipbook, so we were able skip that part purdy quickly. Thank God they have a little common sense! I asked them to verify the theory. I asked them if they could see when my modem connected to another tower. They said yes. So I asked them to check. Then they said they could not do it, they'd have to ask the next tier support. So after 5 minutes wait, and them trying to Instant Message internally, their next tier responded back to tell me the tower my modem was "currently" on, not what my modem had been attached to. In other words, they were worthless to help. I hung up in frustration.
A week or so after that call, I received a followup call from someone. I wasn't around, so they got the answering machine. It was someone wanting to verify things were working, and the issue was resolved, and gave me the main tech support number to call. I thought that was nice, but I figured "what's the point" and never bothered. OK, so I won't fault them for trying that, but I'm at the point where I'm supposed to give them a chance to work the problem, but am also at the point where I wonder how much of my time is being wasted because even the most willing person is for naught if they aren't qualified to do the job they're in. You may mean well, but if you don't know what the hell you're doing...
Over the last couple weeks, there have been a couple outages. One was this last Friday for about 30-45 minutes starting at 5:30 PM. I thought it was nice of them to shoot me an email and let me know what was going on. That last sentence was sarcasm. They didn't call, and I was left thinking my payment didn't auto-debit or something. I use VoIP, so it wasn't like I could call or surf to check with Internet down.
They have clearly done something in the last month. Now, instead of being miserably slow and crappy all the time, it seems to run acceptably in the morning, but when everyone gets home from work, forget about it. It's so bad, I can't even consistently get enough bandwidth to support a single VoIP call. ...and yes, this is with only the phone trying to do something on my network.
I use DD-WRT on my Asus WL520-GU gateway/router. It's a good box capable of support 20Mbps across the WAN and LAN (yes, I tested). My experience has been that DD-WRT doesn't seem to have the best QOS implementation. If the modem can depend on a given max-bandwidth, it'll work by assign port or MAC address priority, but no matter what I do, I can't give priority to VoIP packets like I need to. That's a side note, and my issue. What that does mean though, is if the service becomes marginal within my network, it's because I'm not getting the speeds I'm paying for, with five full bars on the modem. At that point, if I'm on the phone, I can stop all other network activity, and get enough bandwidth for the call. However, about 90% of the time, if the call comes in after 7PM until 9PM or so (don't know about beyond 9PM), not even that will give me enough bandwidth for the call. At those times of the night, if I do a speed test, I might be lucky to get around 200k.
So at this point, I'm stuck. There's really nothing else in the area at this price point, and I need to be at this price point for the moment. I'm on a month to month plan because I wasn't going to sign any agreement long-term with these yahoos for everything I read here. That means I should be able to call them and have my service reduced to the 1Mbs service. It'll save me five bucks and get me closer to what it is I'm actually receiving. I'll then call them and complain about the service, and see if there's anything they can or will do. I really really wish I could dump these losers! I am pist and frustrated. All they need to do is keep me in the loop, give me dates, times, shoot me an email.. You know, basic customer service. Treat me like a customer and not a number and a revenue point. Otherwise, I'll become a number they don't want, one that falls within their "Churn" statistics.
I've had them for a month now. I want to give up.
Followup comments:  crws
join:2000-05-18
Vancouver, WA
 ·Clearwire
 ·Clearwire Wireless
|  Re:"The jury is still out... They need to fix known tower ..
I have been dealing with this exact issue for over a month. Completely irratic speeds, unreliable connections, good tech support that tells me the tower(s) in my area are 100 users or less, and my connectivity (CINR above 18) is stellar.
Oh yah- my issue has been escalated and the engineers are on their way!
I mean this is my issue literally word for word. My 6M/500k service pulls 1.5m/250k IF I'm LUCKY.
The latest update was that the engineers had added an additional node to the tower I connect to, and I should see dramatic improvement. Maybe, but I'm not convinced yet. Service was out- -zero- for the whole night 9/4/2009.
I am beginning to look at alternatives for my home service. The Clear mobile where I work in Hillsboro, OR is great. Where I live in Vancouver, Wa- sucks.
I have Clear unlimited w/ VOIP service (EMS911), so if their service is so bad my land line phone doesn't work reliably, then they have a serious issue that needs to be addressed pronto, or it is a bogus service promise, and I will have to fight them to have the home based portion of my contract rescinded. - this is a 51% Sprint owned company, you remenber. And Sprint just lost a huge contract lawsuit involving punative disconnect fees.
Hopeful, but guarded, I will update in a week. | |
| bullmoose
join:2001-07-01
Kuna, ID
·Clearwire
1 edit | Amen brudda! Unfortunately, I used to work for Sprint on the ION project back between 1999 and 2002. It really seems to me Sprint has gotten to deep into Clear or at least their corporate cultures match, because I am seeing many of the same failures I saw when I was there. The biggest one appears to be they once again underestimated the bandwidth needs and hunger for something other than the incumbent in many areas, and didn't staff up with enough people and qualified people to be able to move quickly to resolve issues. In other words, rolling out too much too fast. They also underestimate their brand. I hate the incumbent, but I sure don't want to go to some local yokel either. Having a big name come in with good pricing is awesome! The flood-gates of pent-up demand opens, and Sprint like usual messes it up and screws their brand name because they didn't get it right. Marketing was OK with losing a percentage in the beginning as they slowly work to resolve the issues. They were OK because I think they continue to fail to recognize how critically important word of mouth is. So, by the time they've got the bugs worked out, the customers they had are gone, and told 20 of their closest friends! They also seem to continually underestimate how magically slow the local incumbent will become when they have to provision bandwidth for the competition. Somehow believing that the 1996 telecom act protects them from that, even as they did the same thing on their local side when they owned local phone. | |
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Review by crws
UPDATED: 49 days ago
member for 9.4 years, 863 visits, last login: 2 days ago
Vancouver,Clark,WA
$80 per month (24 month contract)
 Qwest
"Good service out in Hillsboro, their development market."
"Class Action filed in Seattle for ETF and Breach of Contract"
"51% Sprint, 49% dog. who's wagging who?"
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JFC! Finally!
After yelling, threatening, and playing along for HOURS on the (cell) phone (voip wouldn't work, service too degraded to keep from dropping calls) my 50 calls & 3 tickets finally convinced a Clear escalation manager to rescind my WiMax and Voip contract with no EarlyTerminationFees.
This was after an almost daily occurance of speed and latency issues that would start degrading like clockwork in the late afternoon with the onset of dusk, reaching the worst at about 11pm-12am, then improving throughout the early am with maximun speed about 11am.
The ticket I filed with engineering was addressed by adding an additional sector on the 100ft + tower. It initially helped my speeds a little, but did nothing stabilize reliability. I was 1.2 crow flies miles from the tower with 5 bars, and 72/20 CINR, etc.
I would call every other day, sometimes every day, and got the "give it time" request from very (tried to be) helpful Level1 & Level2 staff, both of which were intelligent and proactive in helping me, until 45 days later when I said I was done F**ing around and needed sevice that worked. After some BS about how I refused to reconfigure my network to accomodate speed tests, I got Level1 & 2 to acknowledge and document degraded service, called back for the 60th time in 2 months, told retention they could let me go peacefully or kicking and screaming, and if the latter, I'd join the Class Action ( »www.tzlegal.com/clearwire.asp ) and sue their ass. Then viola'- got Melissa, AT HER DIRECT EXTENSION 5106, who after giving me crap the previous day, immediately facilitated my Release From Contract, free of Early Termination Fees (ETF), with a prepaid UPS retun label for the modem sent by email.
NOW! 3 days later, F***N rock solid with Qwest 7meg at 6meg+/- on a 2Wire 2701HG-B (AT&T) with key code 52HP 2374 A3A2 22A2 B2LP.
Can't wait for my Netopia 3347 to get PPPoE authenticated with my transparent ip passed thru the modem to my NIC again.
What a frickin' ordeal just to try and save a couple bucks from Comcast. I never thought I'd say it, but I should have gone with Qwest to begin with, even though their tech support is a bunch of hog-tied lamers who can't elaborate on any advanced modem configurations other than the stupid install CD, at least there is tons of info online for the reading.
Stand back, there's going to be a Big Fire over in the Clear-ing!
Attachments:
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 Review by SteveLV702
Posted: 51 days ago
member for 5.5 years, 1324 visits, last login: a few hours ago
Henderson,Clark,NV
$50 per month (24 month contract)
"None"
"Sales Reps are a bunch of liars, Cancellation/Retention Department bunch of liars, speed/reliability sucks"
"Can get better connection/speed on AOL Dialup"
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I saw some advertisement about Clear and then seen them a few times at a Park, Walmart Parking lot and other places in their green colored mini's so went to check out and seemed pretty awesome so went home and eventually ended up calling and talking to a sales rep who assured me that Mobile USB Modems work with Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). So I place order and once get cards find out no they dont work with 10.6 (Snow Leopard) only currently work with 10.5 (Leopard) and they wont have drivers for Snow Leopard until atleast end of November.. So there is Lie # 1.
Also before I signed up I asked about Static IP Addresses and was told that Business Accounts come with them otherwise its $10/month per IP (which is hell of expensive) anyway so I open account in my Business Name no come to find out he lied about that 2.. So there is Lie # 2.
So since service wont work with my computer I called to Cancel the Service... The next day I get a call from Clear asking what they can do to keep me as a customer.. I said nothing really since service will not work with my computer.. So she told me about the ClearSpot Personal Hotspot device.. I was well I dont have $139.99 even if I did I wouldn't spend it on something I really don't need/want... So she said she would send me one free of charge.... After a week never received the thing and so contacted them and lady never put in the order... So there is lie #3.
Then on top of that never received the UPS Shipping Labels to send equipment back so now locked in a contract... So ended up going and buying a Clearspot and then set it up and service sucks... Got better connection, speed, ping, etc on AOL Dialup......
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Review by xxxdevourxxx
UPDATED: 207 days ago
member for 207 days, 3 visits, last login: 202 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."
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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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Review by jfliehr
Posted: 333 days ago
member for 333 days, 0 visits, last login: 333 days ago
Chippewa Falls,Chippewa,WI
$35 per month (24 month contract)
"Mobile"
"Customer Service!!!!!"
"No internet is better than Clearwire!"
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The internet is slow. Trying to disconnect the service after the contract is up in a pain. I had to talk to 5 different people before they would finally let me cancel my account. Very Frustrating!! Even the supervisors are horrible to deal with. I don't recommend this service to anyone.
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Review by jimmyd007
Posted: 1.6 years ago
member for 2 years, 44 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
Jacksonville,Duval,FL
$25 per month
"Easy setup"
"Not very consistent"
"OK for web access, bad for gaming, streaming, p2p"
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Basic internet access, not stable enough for much else
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Review by bcdady
UPDATED: 1.6 years ago
member for 8.8 years, 32 visits, last login: 1.6 years ago
Kenmore,King,WA
$38 per month (24 month contract)
about 5 days
"Mobility, price, I'm not supporting the Comcast empire"
"Occassional speed/connection problems"
"A decent alternative to cable and DSL"
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I was tired of Comcasts connection issues at my last home, so I decided I didn't want to use them again. I have also given DSL a fair spin and didn't want to go back. A friend strongly recommended Verizon's FIOS, but it's not offered here yet, so that pretty much left me with Clearwire.
I didn't want to get stuck in one of their contract plans (I eventually did anyway, but I didn't pay their $150 for the modem), so I bought the modem on eBay. This turned out to be more trouble than it was worth because I had to wait several days for upper level tech support to update their records so the modem could be attached to my new account. I selected the ClearPremium plan which gives me up to 1.5Mbps download and 256Kbps upload max speeds for $36.99 + tax (if you opt for the rental modem, they charge another $4.99/mo).
I've done some speed testing and had mixed results, but no solid culprit yet. Apparently bad weather can interfere with the Clearwire signal, and the modems also get stronger signals near windows. Even with what I've learned, I still have occasional connection quality issues, as evidenced by my corporate VPN connections being dropped without warning. But this is an improvement in service consistency and prices over my past Comcast plan, so I'm content.
Followup comments: WAR10CK
join:2008-04-15
Duluth, MN
| Not alwas true i have clear Wire i do agree with the download and upload speed ant all that great but i am from Duluth MN we and a blizzard last week and my clear wire operated at 100%
through the entire storm but i guess it depends on where you live i live about 8 or 9 blocks from there Tower in the east
end of Duluth but i thought it would got out for sure bit i was shocked when it stayed connected thought the entire storm
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 Review by Dark Fiber
UPDATED: 1.7 years ago
member for 4.7 years, 122 visits, last login: 38 days ago
Boise,Ada,ID
$43 per month (24 month contract)
Qwest
"Fast to set up, somewhat portable"
"Incompetent tech support, clandestine contract renewal, shady business ethics"
"If you can get cable, DSL or even cellphone broadband, don't waste your time or money."
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High speed Internet access without wires...sounds great doesn't it. That is the only good part of their offering, if it works. Their tech support is incompetent. Their customer service droids are robotic and unfeeling and will support their employers unethical business practices to the end.
Clearwire has managed to double charge me for a static IP, lose my static IP, delete my personal webspace (which had strictly innocuous content, safe for the most conservative kindergartner:a single blog post about my lost cat, actually), and clandestinely enter me into a new contract term without my express consent.
What burns me the most is the unsolicited placement into a contract term without my express consent. It reminds me of date rape. If you ask for consent and get no answer, the answer is no. Opt-out is theft, pure and simple. Their utter refusal to reverse the unauthorized commitment without a punitive cancellation fee is disgraceful. Defending the ethically devoid technique with the stand-offish claim that it is perfectly legal and written into the fine print is an insult to their customers and an affront to decency.
I wouldn't wish Clearwire on my most hated enemies. Sprint's choice to back out of their joint venture with Clearwire was probably one of the smartest things they could have ever done. With as long as I have been a customer of Sprint, I have regrettably had my share of go rounds with them, but incompetent outsourced employees, as bad as they may be, definitely take second place to willful malice and greed.
If you can get cable, DSL, or even high speed access from a cellphone carrier, don't waste your time or money with Clearwire. They only care about separating you from your money, and you are sure to regret it.
Followup comments: WarmCoke
join:2007-01-31
Boise, ID
·Clearwire Wireless
1 edit | No problems in Boise here.... Have been using Clearwire in my home in Boise for over a year now with consistent speeds and great, uninterrupted service. Doesn't sound like you had connectivity issues - at least you do not mention them. I completely understood the terms of the contract that I was signing when I signed it and am ok with the length of time.
If you are looking for reliable internet access - I recommend Clearwire every day of the week. And twice on Sundays! | |
| | | | | WarmCoke
join:2007-01-31
Boise, ID
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: No problems in Boise here.... I'm always very clear as to the contracts that I am signing and what the terms are. Many of the "unethical business practices" that Clearwire supposedly has or the "multiple complaints about Clearwire" that you can find are in large part due to knuckleheaded customers not optimizing their service properly, giving up and then trying to get out of a contact they did not understand in the first place.
There is a lack of personal responsibility being shown by a lot of people more and more as each year goes by. | |
| |
Dark Fiber
Premium
join:2005-01-23
Boise, ID
·Clearwire
| WarmCoke, you have well established yourself very transparently as a Clearwire shill, and your opinions are weighted accordingly by all who read them.
I didn't mention connectivity problems, because the shoddy connectivity is not what I found despicable. Reneging on an agreement is inexcusable. My term was expressly for 24 months. After meeting my contractual obligation, the contract could have been placed into a month-to-month status, or a new agreement could have been offered. If a vendor wishes to entice me into another agreement via a discount, new hardware, or other incentives, there is nothing wrong with that. Slipping a punitive agreement in without my consent, is enough to guarantee that I will permanently discontinue use of such an provider. Trying to charge an early termination fee on an agreement I never authorized, is just bad business, and Clearwire has rightfully earned its ire.
The fact that shills like you feel the need make excuses and be abusive to wronged Clearwire customers by repeating your "should have read the contract better" mantra just further reinforces my position that Clearwire doesn't deserve customers. People grow weary of being exploited by service providers, and will actually pay more for a comparable product from a provider that actually appreciates their business. In a twist of irony, I actually pay Qwest less money for more bandwidth, more reliable connectivity and more static IPs than Clearwire can offer on their best day. Best of all, that comes without a contract, and amazingly without the abuse and incompetence that Clearwire insists upon.
A company that feels it must resort to holding it's customers captive should have no customers. That single aspect of their anti-customer behavior is what changed my mind as to whether I could even recommend Clearwire under very limited circumstances. There are no longer any situations where I could ever recommend Clearwire, and they brought it upon themselves with their own incompetence, disrespect, and I would daresay, evilness. | |
| | | WarmCoke
join:2007-01-31
Boise, ID
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: No problems in Boise here.... So any satisfied customer with a service that you have an almost scary dislike for - is a shill? Just so that we are clear.
Sites like this more than anything get the "squeaky wheels" that are upset about something. Clearwire has thousands and thousands of completely satisfied customers, and I happen to be one of them. Most of these people never come to a "review site" like this one and let people know how smooth everything is going. I am different in that respect.
I understand my contracts, I understand my fees and I understand my monthly bill. I have consistent and reliable broadband - and that is what I pay them for. | |
| ernliz
join:2001-11-25
Abilene, TX
·Clearwire Wireless
| ..... or here! I agree with WarmCoke. I have fine connectivity with Clearwire and that's the ONLY thing that interests me! I can deal with any "contractual" issues, support (if needed) and whatever else -- you just have to know how and whom to deal with. But reliable and consistent broadband is a must for me, and Clearwire delivers.
Abilene, TX | |
| 
Prineville Blues
@clearwire-dns.net
| Clearwire problems in Oregon I support and concur with all the problems listed above. Clearwire is an EXCEEDINGLY shady business and I, too, wouldn't wish it on my worst enemy. In fact, they offered to let us out of our contract if we could find someone else to take it over...and my significant other pointed out to the "Customer Service Rep" (although, she was not servicing us) that we LIKE our friends and would like to keep them! Our problem? New windows! Yup, true story. Because we have new-double paned- windows in our home the Clearwire signal can not get out of the house. Where is the proviso in our contract stipulating the need for old and shoddy windows??? Non-existent.
Upon calling to complain and attempting to terminate our contract, a technician was deployed to our house and got one whole bar on his technical doodad machine...and deemed us as receiving a signal, and wouldn't cancel our service. I'm sorry but my computer can't even open web-pages because the signal is so slow it times itself out. The technician made us rearrange our guest bedroom so that the signal modem could face out the only window that received any sort of signal.
We have repeatedly just wished ourselves OUT OF THE CONTRACT...something, the company will happily do IF we pay $150...or find someone else to take over our contract.
We are in the process of contacting the Better Business Bureau but would like to warn off any potential Clearwire victims before it is too late for you too! | |
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lind
@charter.com
|  Re: Clearwire problems in Oregon
After our contract was up. They made us pay $180 to get out of it because they automatically renewed for 2 more years.
You must cancel your contract in exact window after your runs out and they auto renew.
These customers that say it is our fault we didn't follow the terms just have not tried to end their contract. And I am glad they are happy with their service.
There time will come and then they will be complaining with us how they got ripped off by Clearwire when and if they move to a different service. | |
| Mark J
join:2008-02-16
Los Banos, CA
| Clearwire? I've had Clearwire for about a year now and have had no problems until about 2 weeks ago. I noticed that the service had come to a crawl and went through my entire home network thinking the problem was on my end. When I called their Tech support I was informed that they had cut my service back and explained I was using to much Bandwith and for me t make sure I didn't have someone else taping into my network. I told them that 1.I had a 128bit security on my wireless router and that I live out of city limits with no houses around me. Thats when I found out about their NAZI BANDWIDTH RULES!!!
Today they did it again and told me to back off my use or they would cut me back for good. I build and repair computers all the time and need alot of downloads. I pay for the premium service. I also love not being tied to dialup as I had been for 15 years. Living out in the country I have no other service to access.
What upsets me is I find no mention of limits in any of the information that came with the modem.
I don't like the being told what to be doing with a costly service that I pay them every month.
Mark J. | |
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Review by Xproject187
UPDATED: 1.8 years ago
member for 4.5 years, 33 visits, last login: 54 days ago
Modesto,Stanislaus,CA
$47 per month (12 month contract)
about 2 days
AT&T
"Rural Locations where there are no DSL /Cable Digital Lines available & Mobility (I can take it with me to my Moms house)"
"Contract Rollover & Penalties/ Traffic Shaping / Blackouts /Speed"
"If You live way out in the country where Cable /DSL is not available only then would C-W be advisable."
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!! Consider this a RANT !!
I have the Clear-wire Premium Pkg(1.5MB) I bought it at a local PC repair shop here in Northern Cal (DATA COMPUTERS MODESTO CA.) & from Day-1 I had trouble. You see it's supposed to be plug & play, well as soon as I got it home it failed to pick up a signal,so I called the PC repair shop & told them of it & straight away they told Me they did not support the product & that I would need to call Clear-wire, so after a day of trial & error with the Clear-wire rep he had Me take the modem back to the shop 20 miles away & he had the salesmen try & connect with it & it was at that point that the modem itself was deemed bad.Then all of a sudden outta the blue one of the worker's at the shop speaks up & says "oh wait a minute that might be one of the bad ones" like they had a bunch of em but had failed to separate them properly .I swear I hate incompetence!
But regardless there's a Whole lotta Traffic-Shaping going on over at Clear-wire so if You P2P & Your considering Clear-wire as an ISP I'd say DON'T Do It ! For instance let Me tell You of my bout with Clear-wire this week:
After days of frustration & waisted time doing Research,Scans,Cleanups & Post in various forums I finally realized that Clear-wire had put a cap(56kbps) on My Bandwidth & if Clear-wire did try to notify Me of the Cap,then I'd retort with"They didn't try hard enough" & once I got Clear-wire on the phone they talked to Me like I was a criminal & made Me feel as if they were able to remotely view all My families surfing habits,sh*t they even told Me how far I lived from the freeway(very invasive) indeed.So after the Clear-wire Rep read Me the Riot-Act about P2P Bandwidth-Hogging & told of how a girl 13 years old has been ordered by the court to pay Sony a million dollars or some God-awfull amount once she turns 18 due to her violating copyright infringement laws, then & only then did he finally remove the Bandwidth-Cap. Now I'd like to think that an ISP (who I buy a service from) would be the last entity I'd need to be concerned with in regards to monitoring My families E-consumption & after this here last bout with Clear-wire it left Me wondering if in fact they might be overstepping their Boundaries in doing so.I mean to sell something & then monitor what it's used for,seems illegal to Me?
After being with Clear-wire for over 3 years (due to Contract Rollovers) I feel I've had plenty of time to gain a clear perspective of what they offer & it is without any hesitation I have to say "I completely hate Clear-wire" & as a Free American who's Dad & Uncle both fought in Vietnam & who's Grand-PA was in The Big One WW II, I feel comfortable in exerting My rite to say that it's My opinion that Clear-wire Sucks on Big Wet Donkey Balls until The Fullest Level of Orgasmic Achievement is obtained by the Damn Donkey. "I hate You Clear-wire "
~X~
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Review by nixrosinfer3
Posted: 1.9 years ago
member for 1.9 years, 0 visits, last login: 1.9 years ago
Kailua,Honolulu,HI
Contract price not specified.
"Fast setup, and wide availability of sellers."
"Bandwidth throttling making Clear premium (1.5mb/s down, 256kb/s up) and Clear value (756kb/s down, 256kb/s up) the same speed."
"Find a different ISP."
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I started off with Clear Value (765kb/s download, 256kb/s upload). However, download speeds were always inconsistent: jumping from 30KB/s to 15KB/s, and going up to 100KB/s, and plummeting back down to 30KB/s, and then leveling off at around 70KB/s. It was difficult to watch online tv, and downloading movies was nearly impossible. The actual speed never reached what was advertised. I then decided that since the next plan was only seven dollars more, and claimed 1.5mb/s down and 256kb/s up, my problems might be solved. Well, I upgraded, and experienced the same problems. My download speeds were always inconsistent, going from 180KB/s to 120KB/s, and then leveling off around 70KB/s. It took the same amount of time to download a 600MB file (a linux distro) with the Clear Premium plan as it did with the Clear Value plan. The upgrade was wasted money. I found out that Clearwire throttles your download speed in order to keep it in an "acceptable" range, so that you don't use up all of the network resources. However, those network resources that we customers are using are resources that we paid good money for. Within the limits of the law, we should be allowed to use them as we see fit. As an analogy, if someone were to give you the choice between purchasing a 10lb burger for $10 and a 5lb burger for $5, with the condition that for each of them you could eat no more than 2lbs because the rest of those burgers you paid for were also sold to other 20 other customers, it would be wrong on the seller's part because (1) there is no difference between the more expensive purchase and the cheaper one and (2) the seller does not have enough of the product to supply to the customers. This is what is going on with Clearwire and Comcast. If I knew about this earlier, I would have gone with another ISP. But because I didn't, I am stuck with this plan for two more years. The plan will end November 2009. If I cancel, I will have to pay them $200 for early cancellation.
If you value your money, and want to get what you pay for, do not purchase a plan from Clearwire.
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