Clearwire Brings '4G' To Best Buy Wireless Service $45 For Unlimited Mobile WiMax Best Buy Connect Service In July of last year, Best Buy jumped into the MVNO business, selling wireless service under the brand name Best Buy Connect. That service, powered by Sprint's network, had some fairly standard pricing -- though users could net discounts on a number of netbooks and other hardware. Clearwire today announced that the company has struck a deal with Best Buy that will effectively make Best Buy an MVNO for Clearwire Mobile WiMax service. According to Clearwire, Best Buy Connect will offer unlimited 4G service for $45 per month with a month-to-month or two-year contract. Signing that two year contract will allow potential customers to waive the $35 activation fee and receive up to an additional $150 off "select" hardware devices. It's not clear if Best Buy will mirror Clearwire's definition of unlimited, which involves throttling users back to 256 kbps after they cross an invisible line dictated by unspecified, regional tower congestion. Clearwire currently faces a class action lawsuit for that practice by users who claim Clearwire is advertising a service they can't actually deliver. Granted, some users prefer throttling to steep overages, but Clearwire's communication on this front left plenty to be desired.
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  Simba7I Void Warranties
join:2003-03-24
Billings, MT | Not bad, actually. "It's not clear if Best Buy will mirror Clearwire's definition of unlimited, which involves throttling users back to 256 kbps after they cross an invisible line dictated by unspecified, regional tower congestion."
Not bad, considering almost everyone else wants you to bend over and take it if you go over that line, especially with 4G. | |
| | | I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product!
because they are normally so good at covering their asses when they screw people | |
|  |  BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32
 ·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by Camelot One:With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product!
because they are normally so good at covering their asses when they screw people
LOL this surprises you? Cmon Best Buy sells premium priced HDMI cables making all sorts of false claims and have no issues with it. It's not much of a stretch for Best Buy to sell a wireless broadband service as unlimited when in fact it's very limited  IMHO this is sooo Best Buy it's not funny. Now if they could only find a way to bundle one of those $240 HDMI cables in there somehow Best Buy gonna be laughin all the way to the bank.
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | | Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... Well, it's not a bad deal if you have service coverage. I would MUCH rather be throttled due to congestion rather than get rammed up the rear with overages AND of course get throttled for congestion anyway! What do you think will magically happen if you go to a congested tower with Verizon's ma$$ive price overage model? Do you think YOUR connection will be faster then anyone else s somehow? No ... they will have no choice... | |
| | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
 ·SONIC.NET
 ·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by cruz1 :Well, it's not a bad deal if you have service coverage. I would MUCH rather be throttled due to congestion rather than get rammed up the rear with overages AND of course get throttled for congestion anyway!
Verizon 4G doesn't have a massive-price-overage model.
What are you talking about? | |
| | | | | | | Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... Well, Verizon is $10/GB overage ... To an occasional mobile user that may be OK but it is very easy to bust the 5GB cap with movies and even a few large downloads. I use many hundreds of GB on my home connection ... If I were to use "only" 20GB/mo my bill would be $45 with Clearwire (BustBuy, etc) but Verizon would be $200!! - $50/5GB + $150 overage ($10x15GB).
There is nothing I hate more than watching the meter ... I don't want this hassle in any form. I am very techy and can manage fine if I had to, but the stress of giving, say my wife, a connection with big overages is too much for me to worry over... | |
| | | | |  espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2
·Clear Wireless
| said by elray:Verizon 4G doesn't have a massive-price-overage model.
What are you talking about? »www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/veri···of-data/
$50 for 5GB, $80 for 10GB, and $10 for every 1 GB over either of those amounts. That's pretty steep no matter how you look at it. | |
| | | | | | elray
join:2000-12-16
Santa Monica, CA Reviews:
·SONIC.NET
·RoadRunner Cable
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by espaeth:said by elray:Verizon 4G doesn't have a massive-price-overage model.
What are you talking about? » www.engadget.com/2010/12/01/veri···of-data/$50 for 5GB, $80 for 10GB, and $10 for every 1 GB over either of those amounts. That's pretty steep no matter how you look at it. 10GB @ $80 is half what they charged for 3G about a year ago.
A 50% price reduction is hardly "steep", and the $10/GB overage rate isn't punitive or massive. | |
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| espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| said by Camelot One:With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product! The service works fine for 9 out of 10 folks. The 1 out of the 10 who run into issues due to traffic volume are just unusually well represented here. | |
| | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by espaeth:said by Camelot One:With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product! The service works fine for 9 out of 10 folks. The 1 out of the 10 who run into issues due to traffic volume are just unusually well represented here. Oh really? And you base your statement on what facts?
--
"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by BHNtechXpert:said by espaeth:said by Camelot One:With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product! The service works fine for 9 out of 10 folks. The 1 out of the 10 who run into issues due to traffic volume are just unusually well represented here. Oh really? And you base your statement on what facts? Average utilization statistics gathered from multiple sources (FCC / Cisco / MINTS) combined with usage patterns that trigger the throttling as defined in the Clear forums (»forums.clear.com), and also the churn data as identified in Clear's financial reports. | |
| | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by espaeth:Average utilization statistics gathered from multiple sources (FCC / Cisco / MINTS) combined with usage patterns that trigger the throttling as defined in the Clear forums (»forums.clear.com), and also the churn data as identified in Clear's financial reports.
That's even funnier than your first statment. So you're basing your "facts" on data from the company itself. The very company on the precipice of potential bankruptcy much in part due to the gross mismanagement of the previous management team....that's funny and very misguided.
There are bunch of unhappy users here and elsewhere that would tell you what you can do with those "facts".
--
"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by BHNtechXpert:That's even funnier than your first statment. So you're basing your "facts" on data from the company itself. The very company on the precipice of potential bankruptcy much in part due to the gross mismanagement of the previous management team....that's funny and very misguided. To be fair, since the Enron and Worldcom implosions a number of laws were enacted (ie, Sarbanes Oxley) that call for independent auditing of SEC-filed financial reports. I think that makes the churn data at least reasonably reliable, unless you think Deloitte & Touche LLP is willing to put their reputation on the line and face government action / imprisonment of key stakeholders to cook the books for Clearwire to fudge churn numbers?
said by BHNtechXpert:There are bunch of unhappy users here and elsewhere that would tell you what you can do with those "facts". There are unhappy customers of every company that has ever existed since the beginning of time. Having some dissatisfied customers is interesting, and unfortunate, but rarely tells the whole story of a company. | |
| | | | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... Who they use for their auditing does nothing to impress me (Deloitte & Touche especially) and churn data is only ONE small element here. You seem determined to spin this for some reason however it won't work with me or the many many thousands of very unhappy campers out there. Nice try however...I'll give you credit for (pardon the pun) CLEARly attempting to obfuscate the obvious.
Sarbanes Oxley attempts to protect investors from management teams who willfully cook the books but does nothing to protect investors from losses as a result of gross mismanagement as is the case with Clear. Sadly there are no laws against being an idiot...CEO or otherwise.
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by BHNtechXpert:Who they use for their auditing does nothing to impress me (Deloitte & Touche especially) and churn data is only ONE small element here. You seem determined to spin this for some reason however it won't work with me or the many many thousands of very unhappy campers out there. I was generous with my numbers in favor of accounting for dissatisfied subscribers. Even with 9 out of 10 being satisfied with the service, that's 10%, or 440,000 people out of their subscriber base of 4.4 million that have some gripe. I honestly don't think the numbers are that high, but I guess I don't really care enough to find more data to dispute it either.
I believe your principle issue with the network (outside of getting a bum device that didn't work) was that the retail operations were abysmally bad. That's a fair complaint, as is evidenced by Clear ramping down their physical sales locations.
Still, of Clear's 4.4 million total subscribers, only 1.1 million of that is folks with Clear branded devices. If the whole situation is as bad as you're implying, where is the outrage from the 3.3 million Sprint, Comcast, and TimeWarner subscribers who are paying for access to Clear's network through these parties?
The bottom line is Clear's wholesale customers have better retail operations than Clear could ever hope to have itself. They have much more extensive physical locations, inventory tracking, and better end-user billing. If you sign up with Sprint and the device doesn't work to your liking, you get 100% of your money back without fighting for anything, it's just how things work there.
So Clear sucks at retail operations -- that is going to end up being a non-existent part of the company's charter going forward anyway. | |
| | | | | | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
1 edit | Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... My issue with clear had nothing to do with a defective unit (not sure where you got that because it isn't in my review as such) and in reality my experience isn't what we're talking about here. My experience is similar to a significant number of people.
You rather casually dismissed all of our concerns as though they were nothing to be worried about when in fact it is our experiences as a whole that point to everything wrong with Clear.
Now you can quote this that or the other fact, figure and you can attempt to deflect the issue as "well that was the old Clear retail org....the new wholesale customers run far tighter ships and know what customer service is blah blah blah blah"....BUT the reality is people know that it's still CLEAR that they are getting service from and while you may be able to take the stink out of shit...it is nonetheless still shit.
Consumers aren't that stupid...it's a bit too late for Clear to attempt hiding behind wholesale (they should have done that from the very start). Now the shits outta the horse and as you and I both know...no matter how hard you try there aint no way to put that shit back.
Shy of entirely dumping the Clear brand and starting over it's not likely you will continue to see consumer adoption of anything with Clear's name it. With recent news hinting that Clears future is in question with even the interim CEO saying that bankruptcy is an option they are considering you can be sure consumers will stay away from the Clear brand.
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | | | | | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by BHNtechXpert:Consumers aren't that stupid...it's a bit too late for Clear to attempt hiding behind wholesale (they should have done that from the very start). Clear came into being as a merger of networks from Sprint Xohm and Clearwire. As such, Clear has always had a wholesale component, and it is the largest part of the business (making up 75% of subscribers, or 3.3 million subscribers as compared to 1.1 million direct Clear subscribers).
Sprint 4G, Comcast 4G, TimeWarner 4G, Millenicom 4G, and now Best Buy 4G are all technically Clear. Feel free to find and link to horrible reviews for any of those offerings to support your point. | |
| | | | | | | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by espaeth:said by BHNtechXpert:Consumers aren't that stupid...it's a bit too late for Clear to attempt hiding behind wholesale (they should have done that from the very start). Clear came into being as a merger of networks from Sprint Xohm and Clearwire. As such, Clear has always had a wholesale component, and it is the largest part of the business (making up 75% of subscribers, or 3.3 million subscribers as compared to 1.1 million direct Clear subscribers). Sprint 4G, Comcast 4G, TimeWarner 4G, Millenicom 4G, and now Best Buy 4G are all technically Clear. Feel free to find and link to horrible reviews for any of those offerings to support your point. I don't need to link to any of it because google does a fine job already. Those numbers are all fine and dandy but they don't yet reflect the most recent happenings at Clear. Out of all the 4G flavors you've mentioned the ONLY one that can even be remotely considered a success is Sprint...ironically they stand the most to lose (or gain depending on how you look at it) if Clear as an entity fails.
Your argument keeps morphing and I suspect it's because your desire is once again to deflect attention away from the obvious....Clear as you know it, as I know it and as the consumer sees it now and in the very near future is DONE. I suspect there will be an announcement soon enough that confirms this. The network and the technology will still be here but Clear as a brand and company will be no more and that's a good thing. Shedding that albatross will be the smartest thing that management team has done so far (well thats not exactly fair...all the idiots finally resigned) so for all intents it's a new team.
They cannot however resurrect the Clear name (well they would be fools to attempt it given their debt situation) if they intend to remain viable. All consumer confidence was lost in Clear long ago and they don't have enough money to earn that back and it's doubtful anyone will give them any more in this economy.
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
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| | | | | | criggs
join:2000-07-14
New York, NY Reviews:
·Sprint Mobile Br..
| said by espaeth:Having some dissatisfied customers is interesting, and unfortunate, but rarely tells the whole story of a company. As I have pointed out previously, the fact is that if you go to the Clear forums you will see a lot of evidence of massive unhappiness. Granted those are anecdotal, and do not pass the statistical validity test necessarily. However if you compare the general mood, tenor and tone of the participants, it is a very far cry from that you see among posters from other wireless providers (well, always excepting Cricket!...).
No, that's not 'evidence' exactly. But it certainly begs the question as to why the small minority of unhappy Clear customers are so vocal and energized while one rarely hears from such an unhappy supposedly small minority of unhappy customers with the other providers.
Yes, I am aware that you have pointed out that you believe the numbers are significantly different in terms of subscribers, i.e. there are far more Clear 4G customers crowding individual towers than there are Sprint 4G customers crowding individual towers. IF that is correct, and IF similar crowding on a 4G tower used by a gazillion Sprint customers would cause the same problems being reported by Clear customers (which your logic would seem to indicate), then one could argue that sporadic unhappiness among a small minority of Clear customers is not an indication of a markedly inferior customer experience.
But that too is speculation. Until we see clear evidence that excessive crowding of Sprint 4G customers has occurred, and that that crowding has generated the same sort of unhappiness among a 'small minority' of Sprint customers that we are seeing today among a 'small minority' of Clear customers, it would be, I submit, just as speculative to claim that the Clear customer experience is no worse than that of most other wireless providers as it is to claim that that we know definitively that Clear's customers experience far worse service than those with other providers.
For now, absent hard statistical evidence, about all we have are the postings of customers on forums around the Internet. Certainly those postings tell a clear (npi!) story. Whether we're just looking at the tail of the elephant, of course, is as yet, I submit, to be determined. But the direction of that tail is sure very clear (couldn't resist!) and unmistakable.
One final point: I'm aware that you have indicated unhappiness among Clear subscribers can also be laid at the feet of Clear's marketing, which sold many a bill of goods that their 4G was fully comparable to a home wired connection, whereas you have pointed out that Sprint has never made such extravagant claims, and has not sold their product on that basis. To be blunt, after following this subject with downright obsessive closeness for several months, I don't see how what I perceive as a relatively subtle difference in marketing can be adduced as the reason for an apparently significant difference in satisfaction level between the two groups of subscribers.
Of course, you may take issue with my "relatively subtle" characterization, and I readily concede that that perception may be open to debate. | |
| | | | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| said by espaeth:said by BHNtechXpert:That's even funnier than your first statment. So you're basing your "facts" on data from the company itself. The very company on the precipice of potential bankruptcy much in part due to the gross mismanagement of the previous management team....that's funny and very misguided. To be fair, since the Enron and Worldcom implosions a number of laws were enacted (ie, Sarbanes Oxley) that call for independent auditing of SEC-filed financial reports. I think that makes the churn data at least reasonably reliable, unless you think Deloitte & Touche LLP is willing to put their reputation on the line and face government action / imprisonment of key stakeholders to cook the books for Clearwire to fudge churn numbers? said by BHNtechXpert:There are bunch of unhappy users here and elsewhere that would tell you what you can do with those "facts". There are unhappy customers of every company that has ever existed since the beginning of time. Having some dissatisfied customers is interesting, and unfortunate, but rarely tells the whole story of a company. Before you hide behind that SEC report you better take a gander at this... hot off the presses!
Clearwire faces allegations of artificially inflating subscriber numbers
»www.bizjournals.com/kansascity/n···of.html?
Apparently your trust in Clears subscriber numbers may have been misguided...
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
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| | | | | I have never seen anyone who has Clearwire's 4g service through any of its MNVO complain about throttling..
I have Sprint's 4g service and consume enough data monthly that would make you faint and never have been throttled. | |
| | | | |  dvd536as Mr. Pink as they comePremium
join:2001-04-27
Phoenix, AZ
kudos:4 | Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by eieiomax:I have never seen anyone who has Clearwire's 4g service through any of its MNVO complain about throttling. Maybe because they never got above 256kbps out the door?
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The early bird gets the worm but the second mouse gets the cheese | |
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| | | | said by espaeth:said by Camelot One:With the pending lawsuit over "unlimited" being in fact, very limited, I can't believe Best Buy would slap their name on this product! The service works fine for 9 out of 10 folks. The 1 out of the 10 who run into issues due to traffic volume are just unusually well represented here. Even assuming what you say is true, 9 out of 10 people not reaching the limit doesn't change the fact that they are falsely advertising a limited service as "unlimited". | |
| | | | espaethDigital PlumberPremium,MVM
join:2001-04-21
Minneapolis, MN
kudos:2 Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by Camelot One:Even assuming what you say is true, 9 out of 10 people not reaching the limit doesn't change the fact that they are falsely advertising a limited service as "unlimited". They advertise unlimited and they put an asterisk by it and link it to their terms of service, the same way late night infomercials promising to make you a bazillionaire have tiny text they hide behind stating "results not typical."
It's a skeezy tactic to be sure, but it's universally applied across all businesses in the sector. Like in team sports, if you follow all the rules while your competition ignores them, you put yourself at an unreasonable disadvantage. | |
| | | |  redxiiPremium,Mod
join:2001-02-26
Sherwood, MI | 9 out of 10 probably couldn't tell the difference just checking e-mail. | |
| | | | | BHNtechXpertBHN StaffPremium,VIP
join:2006-02-16
Saint Petersburg, FL
kudos:32 Reviews:
·Clearwire Wireless
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... said by redxii:9 out of 10 probably couldn't tell the difference just checking e-mail.
LOL!! Depends on the size of your emails and attachments. It is possible for you to have crossed the magic line with nothing more than email and you would never even know it because THEY don't disclose what the magic number is
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"I can’t give you a surefire formula for success, but I can give you a formula for failure: try to please everybody all the time."
~ Herbert Bayard Swope | |
| | | | | | redxiiPremium,Mod
join:2001-02-26
Sherwood, MI Reviews:
·Clear Wireless
·Suddenlink
Host:
Broadband Tweaks
Suddenlink
ISDN
Fiber Optic
AOL Broadband
| Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... I could try not streaming anything for a day and for some reason my usage for the day would always be 666MB.
They advertised unlimited but they also did state that they wouldn't throttle no matter how much you downloaded. I am a 1/2 mile from the tower with a clear LOS and got bursts up to 17Mbps and sometimes 10 sustained.
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Moe, I need your advice… See I've got this friend named Joey Joe-Joe... Junior... Shabadoo? | |
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| | | | well but the best buy sales men and geek squad will sell it as unlimited and make it seem like you can do high bandwidth stuff with it and some will lie to keep there numbers up. | |
| | | | | | Re: I can't believe Best Buy is putting it's name on it..... My dad has a Clear home modem and 4g hotspot through them $60 a month for both. My dad does use Netflix at home here and there and its in the 3-5mbps range. Overall he's pretty happy with it and I would be too for $60 a month considering what ATT and Verizon charge | |
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Reviews:
·Optimum Online
 ·Verizon FiOS
| branding clearwire can't GIVE the serivice away under their brand name and the numbers dont' lie.. even with devices as cheap as $50 (usb, mifi) they are having problems keeping customers and signing up new ones for the 4g network. also, the 3g pricing is expensive in comparison to other carriers. | |
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