I recommend most strongly that if you get involved with Clear-wire you have a good escape plan…
when you close your account:
1. stop all direct debits to the company (if this is possible with your bank!).
2. ensure you received the necessary forms to send your equipment back in a REASONABLE time period. My form to post back my modem didn’t arrive until just before they debitted the next months invoice from my account.
I accept the company must endure people not returning the modems, fine, but I don’t appreciate not being given the option. I don’t appreciate being held to ransom.
Clear-wire -I enjoyed reasonable web access from you for just over a year – and paid you 40euro a month for the privilage….why treat me like a criminal now?
Such a shame they damaged their reputation with this at the end.
Yes. they have a great customer service reputation, to be undone (in my eyes at least) with this sneaky cynical policy… shame indeed.
I will not recommend ClearWire and I am seeking legal advice concerning a possible legal action against ClearWire.
We have a small business and a business account for our website on RR, which has great speed and service but costs $300.00/month. ClearWire, at $49.00/Month seemed a cheaper option. After the salesperson stated clearly that my website could be moved from a cable account to ClearWire, we signed up. The modem arrived quickly and I attached my laptop to it for a week to verify connection, reliability and speed. Not great, but OK.
I then scheduled IT to switch our website to clearwire. After several attempts over three months, no luck. It seems that ClearWire does not support websites, despite continuing sales claims that they do.
I then had an interesting encounter with ClearWire when I requested a refund. I called ClearWire requesting a refund and was told that websites were not supported and we should not have expected them to be. I tend to record telephone transactions, so I mentioned that I have a recording from their sales person that clearly stated that websites were supported. Further, I had explained in detail my current setup with RR and what I wanted to switch it unchanged to ClearWire. I had been assured that there were no technical limitations and that my specific needs were no problem.
Upon hearing that I had a recording, I was asked if the current conversation was being recorded. I said it was, She replied she could not continue if the conversation was being recorded. I reminded her that ClearWire’s announcement stated that the conversation was being recorded. To paraphrase, she said that ClearWire’s recording was OK, but she could not continue if the customer was recording. I did shut off the recording as per her request. However, she just repeated her offer of a $180.00 fee to discontinue service.
We are considering legal action against ClearWire to recoup fees, IT expenses and other costs. We are soliciting input from anyone interested in joining a legal action against ClearWire email: “Clearwire.Action@gmail.com”.
Lee Dilley
We’ve had Clearwire for about four years and we’ve finally had it with them. Switching over to Gmail is the last straw. The Gmail is a total mess and frankly I don’t care to learn to live with it. Clearwire has gotten slower and slower over the last year or so, and next week, we’re getting a new server.
Suck it Clearwire!
I would not recommend Clearwire to anyone except those who don’t have any other options for broadband in their area — and in most of those cases you will be out of range anyway.
Clearwire uses radio, they don’t use your phone line or install a cable line. So they make it very enticing by not having to go through any install procedure. Unless your house is next to the transmitter you probably won’t get a great reception.
Paid for a 1.5M/512KB connection but on the best days it was around 700KB/100KB. On average the download would be around 500 though. Clouds and fog would bring the download speed to around 100.
Getting out of the contract is easy if you’re willing to pay the cancellation fee: $170 for internet and an additional $50 if you’re using their phone service.
Stay away.
Wish I had been smart enough to Google complaints against clearwire prior to sign up with them. My story in brief:
Here’s is my brief history clearwire:
Signed up and received equipment within a few days.
10 minutes to setup and sign on.
1 hour of connection before needing to call to find out why I don’t seem to be able to watch a simple rerun.
Tech shows me how to do a speed test and reset the modem.
Spend the next few days running speed tests and reseting the modem.
Next call gets me a tech who says my modem must be the problem and ships me a new one.
New modem arrives and works for approximately 1 hour.
I call- service tech doesn’t seem to understand why I was given a new modem and connects me with a different level tech who assures me that my problem is being looked at.
My next call I threaten to end my contract with clearewire- which gets me some attention- techs at this level say that there’s a problem with the tower I’m on and change the tower and apparently send someone out to reset the towers in my area. I get relatively good speeds for about a day.
Then the same old issue- good speed for an hour +/- 1100-1500+ kbps followed by 200′s, and not even resting the modem is working at this point.
Another call to tech and- oh, it looks like someone is exceeding their bandwidth and they’re on it… I start getting phone and e-mail messages that I’m in violation of my agreement clearwire! … I’m not the problem!!!!
Next call- sorry they’re mistake, just ignore the messages.
Another day of relatively good speeds followed by the last two days…. can barely check my e-mail at these speeds. My 56k modem landline is faster than this and I think I’m ready to go back to it.
So I call this evening and get the “level 2″ tech who says basically that these are the speeds I can expect.?…
All I want is to be able to connect and share files at a reasonable rate and watch a little TV. I’m not playing online games or loading up the bandwidth with anything more than average use, so if this is the best clearwire can offer me, I’ve had enough and need to end my contract.
I’ve been a clearwire customer for less than three weeks. Since signing up with clearwire I have had not a single day without trouble or issue. I’ve been an internet user for well over a decade, nearly 10 years with Earthlink as my ISP, without any significant issues except connect speeds. It is no wonder then that having spent the last two plus weeks on the phone with clearwire service techs- who are very polite while telling me that my problems are fixed- that I’m more than a little pissed off.
Earlier this evening I was again on the phone with a “level 2″ tech who had the gall to tell me that first, my problem had been fixed, then that my connect speed is automatically decreased by prodigal after I’ve been online for a certain number of minutes in order to spread the user load over the largest number of users.
If that’s indeed the case, and I can expect no better than 230kbps after 30 minutes or so of use then what is the advantage of using clearwire? And where, exactly, in my contract with clearwire does it state that after a certain amount of time my bandwidth will be automatically decreased by a factor of six?
My next stop is the state’s attorney general to file a complaint- will cost me $35, then on Monday I’ll go to small claims court and file a complaint to get my cancelation and monthly fees returned. They have not delivered the product they said and in this country I have legal recourse against a business that takes my money and does not deliver. In the end it will cost me more time than it is worth, but I suspect that what this joke of ISP is counting on.
If you’re reading this and are considering signing up for clearwire- don’t! I live in Seattle, less than 10 blocks from two towers with no interfering hills, buildings or anything, and my service sucks.
Are any of you in Portland?
Clearwire is saying they have Wi-Max 4g out hear. I am curious.
thanks,