| [General] How Clear's Network Management works to lower your ban Clearwire is without doubt the worst internet provider out there: lower than promised bandwidth, bad customer/tech support, abusive contracts, network management that limits your download speeds to as low as .2 Mbps (as opposed to promised 4 to 6 Mbps) yet they still charge you the normal rate of $45 and won't let you out of our contract without at cancellation fee. When you sign up they don't tell you about "Network Management" and how once you are targeted you can't get reinstated to normal speed levels, yet they keep taking your full rate money shamelessly. They hide behind their Terms of Service which says they have the right to slow anyone's speed down that they feel is a threat to the health of their over all network.
If you read their website their $45/mo service boasts unlimited speeds for such things as streaming videos which if you do this for more than a few days in a row, their automated "Network Management" system in their towers targets you as a "heavy user" and our line is dumbed down to sometimes as low as .2 Mbps which according to Netflix tech support is too slow to support normal streaming. Once targeted you can't do anything other than get your email slowly. I own a Mac and wanted to update to Lion OSX which is ONLY distributed now via download (about a 1.4 GB file) which once targeted a heavy user ,takes 5 hours to download and continues Clearwire's assessment that you are a heavy user.
I have made numerous calls to tech support and if you're nice and don't beat them up, they actually will be helpful, but be prepared for at least 45 minutes to any hour for every call. Timewise, it's totally abusive. Anyway everyone I've told my story has been totally sympathetic and I've been given the following workarounds to beat their system:
1. Move your modem to a different window to point to another tower. Each tower operates independently so if one tower has deemed you a "heavy user", the tower next to it won't know you. So if you can access another tower you can get a clean slate so to speak, but keep in mind that if you are doing a lot of movie streaming, after a short while the new tower will deem you a heavy user too and dumb you down to less than 1 Mbps. Call Netflix if you need an opinion on why to stay away from using Clearwire as your ISP if this blog post doesn't do it for you.
2. My fav: unplug your modem, call Clearwire tech support and complaint that you can't access the internet at all. They will try to ping you and won't see your modem online on their network and conclude that your modem is broken and send you a new or refurbished one. The important thing here is that each modem has a MAC ID which is similar to a VIN # on a car. Once you get a new modem with new MAC ID #, the towers in your area will see you as a new customer and not throttle down your speed. Until of course, if you keep streaming videos and such, eventually their towers will target you and deem you a heavy user. So when that happens, you can always try the dead modem trick again of course.
3. Send letters: Detail your problems and issues and send to the entire Board of Directors and Executive Team and any tech blogs you can. We must keep the issues and problems center stage to embarrass ClearWire into finally doing the right thing and taking care of business for us. Here is their contact info and personnel:
ClearWire Corporation
4400 Carillon Point
Kirkland, WA 98033-735
(888) 253-2794 Phone
(425) 216-7900 Fax
BOARD OF DIRECTORS:
John Stanton
William R. Blessing
Bruce Chatterley
Mufit Cinali
Jose A. Collazo
Hossein Eslambolchi
Dennis S. Hersch
Brian P. McAndrews
Kathleen H. Rae
Theodore H. Schell
Jennifer L. Vogel
Benjamin G. Wolff
EXECUTIVE TEAM:
Erik Prusch
President and CEO
Hope F. Cochran
Chief Financial Officer
Broady R. Hodder
Senior Vice President - General Counsel
Scott Hopper
Senior Vice President of Strategic Business Development
Dr. John Saw
Senior Vice President - Chief Technology Officer
Craig H. Reines
Senior Vice President, Customer Care
REMEMBER: THese people are stealing from us. Be relentless. Post Post Post. S |
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| Re: [General] How Clear's Network Management works to lower your you are incorrect on some points. They do not promise 4-6mbps download speeds nor do they promise unlmited download speeds. They offer unlimited downloads, not speedl there is big difference. The TOS clearly states speeds are not guaranteed and you might have your speed lowered to levels that could be less than you like. I doubt many of you actually read through that before you signed up for the service. This is wireless broadband not hardwired cable and you cant expect it too be qs good yet, that's not realistic. |
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 Icee
@clearwire-wmx.net | Yeah but the problem is that they advertisement as a replacement for hardwired cable. So you can't look down on a person who assumes that it will work just as well. |
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| reply to clear hater
It would be nice if they would state upfront what the CAP is before throttling kicks in. I was interested in this but this makes it USELESS. |
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| I doubt there is a preset cap. I expect it depends on a particular tower and usage at any one time. On a forum such as this you'll see mostly the complainers and people trying to figure ways to circumvent the system. People that are happy with the service are not likely to be on here so that's why the over abundance of negative reports you see here.
Only way to really know if it works for you is to try it like I did. And since it is wireless obviously it works much better in some places than others and even at some times than others, just like your cell phone. Sometimes my cell phones data connection is fast other times pokey, that's just the way it works. |
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| reply to Icee
I don't see where they claim it's a replacement for cable internet, it clearly states it 4g and there is a link on this page, »www.clear.com/discover, that has whats acceptable and explains network management might happen to heavy users. Anyone that knows or reads about wireless technology should understand that no one is providing unlimited use and speed on 4g networks. If they don't understand that they are buying that's not the companies fault. As a consumer you have to be informed and don't be mislead my marketing hype, which all companies engage in to some degree or another with Clear being no different than any others in that regard as far as I can tell. |
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| davidyo, +1 |
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Icee
@clearwire-wmx.net | In radio advertisement they have been claiming for years that this is a replacement for cable/dsl. |
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Icee
@clearwire-wmx.net | reply to davidyo
and from the website:
"CLEAR offers speeds comparable to cable and DSL for home..." |
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| I've been trickling at 0.20 Mbps all weekend. Horrible, horrible, service around here. Always has been.
I simply cant wait until the day I no longer have Clear.
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Satmex 5 | 970 | DirecWay SRS | Ver. 4.0.3.9 DAK403_P8 |
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1 edit | reply to davidyo
said by davidyo :I don't see where they claim it's a replacement for cable internet, it clearly states it 4g and there is a link on this page, »www.clear.com/discover, that has whats acceptable and explains network management might happen to heavy users. Anyone that knows or reads about wireless technology should understand that no one is providing unlimited use and speed on 4g networks. If they don't understand that they are buying that's not the companies fault. As a consumer you have to be informed and don't be mislead my marketing hype, which all companies engage in to some degree or another with Clear being no different than any others in that regard as far as I can tell.
The crazy throttle/many oversaturated towers is a known issue with clear. I suspect they have a monthly cap throttle as well as the normal because I've only noticed it kick in when I'm at very "round" numbers for the month (tracked in my router, was EXACTLY 30GB from 1-~20th of month when it kicked in).
However, it's funny either they've changed that page you linked or you are completely blind, as it demonstrates the direct opposite of all of your claims... you said it does NOT compare it to cable internet and that it clearly explains what's acceptable and network management. It does compare to cable, it explains "all the speed and all the data you want", "never have to worry about size of a download", "all the speed and all the data you want", and "surf, stream, game... all to your heart's content." -- that's the only description it gives repeatedly of "what's acceptable" use.
From the referenced page:
(near the top)
"Unlimited 4G Data
With our unlimited 4G data plans, you get all the internet, all the speed and all the data you want, virtually whenever you want it.
"
(near the bottom)
"WHAT DO
CUSTOMERS SAY?
* “I needed a service that I could take on the go with me and something for home. The local cable provider was too expensive and at times unreliable. So I took a chance with Clear and I’m glad I did. Great service at a great price!” "
(also near the bottom under the heading "How do I get clear")
" 4. Get connected
With our unlimited 4G data plans, you can surf, stream, game and more. All to your heart’s content. "
There is NO reference on that page anywhere to network management much less "has whats acceptable and explains network management might happen to heavy users". There is a singular link to the AUP Only when you hover over a question mark icon that has the text: "Our unlimited 4G data plans give you access virtually any time to all the speed and data you need. There are no preset speed caps, and you should never have to worry about the size of your downloads. See our Acceptable Use Policy for details on our unlimited 4G internet service." The words "Acceptable Use" are a hyperlink. Note that it does not say "see our Acceptable Use Policy for whats acceptable and explains network management might happen to heavy users like you said.
It's fine to argue competitors are deceptive too, or that there's no other choice or that they're going bankrupt so let them deceptively advertise all they want.... but why someone would make up excuses and act like it's not deceptive is beyond me... unless you're maybe one of the many amway-like Clear "resellers"(I'm NOT saying you are, just have no idea why you'd take up for the unethical and blatantly illegal business practices). And why someone would imagine the things you say are on that page and are not on that page.... unless Clear just went and changed it all on you during the past month which is always possible.
We may know how they operate, we may know what the service caveats are, but that's no reason to assume that everyone else in the general public does does or that it's not a bait-and-switch with deceptive advertising. In a perfect world they'd have been sued out of business long ago from the false advertising, or sued and suffered reasonable damages and then they would have decided to start honestly advertising the service rather than being sued out of business. |
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