Clearwire: Clearly NOT Worth It?

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Speakeasy and qwest dsl (and all the cell phone companies) all have early termination fees if you break your contract, and more of them don’t do the pro-rating that clearwire does…

Also, I believe you could have cancelled your clearwire in the first 30 days with no termination fee though.

It sucks, but is pretty standard.

I signed up for just a one year contract, with the knowledge that cancellation would be onerous. I canceled exactly at the one year mark, no problem. BUT, they billed me again AFTER I had canceled, which required a phone call to get a refund. You really have to stay on top of these guys.

hey chris.

yeah, had the exact same nightmare when i subscribed at my mother-in-law’s place down in the california central valley. service was spotty at best, and customer service pretty much non-existent. even though they were unable to provide consistent signal they still socked me for the disconnect fee. live and learn.

I always ask before getting any service if there is a cancellation fee, or any hidden fees. I keep track of all these conversations in a little notebook, being sure to write down names and employee numbers. Though I am not overly happy with Comcast, I have had no fees from canceling services, and they have made right with me when *they* have screwed up.

Though I am not overly happy with Comcast..

Chris where have you been…. Cell companies have two year contracts. Clearwire has a big job ahead of them to build out wimax. Who is going to fund it… the early adopters with two year contracts…and by the way i have been researching all about clearwire and alot of people are giving them a bad rap. I just got their service and i think its better that evdo rev a . My evdo is always erratic and i use it with a kyocera kr-1 router. Its good but does not work that great with downloading. I as a customer I realize that these are first and second generations of wireless and will get a whole lot better in the future. Wireless is more difficult to get stable with a high throughput than wired systems. I know i am a radio tech and have setup a system of mobile data with laptops when it first came out. I think people will like wireless more in the future when it is more on a performance par with wired networks. Till then enjoy what you have and understand it will only get better.

I just finished cancelling with Clearwire after 14 months of service. The Clearwire rep told me upfront that there was a $180 early cancellation fee, unless you cancelled because of a move to an area not served by Clearwire. Where we were moving was not served by Clearwire, so I cancelled. I had to fax “proof” of the address change, and the $180 charge was waived. However, I still had to pay a $30 “disconnect fee” which I was never told about. As far as my experience with the service: it was acceptable, especially since I was in an area where DSL and cable broadband were not an option. The portability of the service was a fantastic benefit, and could prove to be WiMax’s edge.

I still have a Clearwire account, unfortunately. My family and I moved to another state for job reasons and had renewed a one-year contract prior to ever knowing about our need to move. Clearwire will not let us out of the contract even though due to Clearwire’s lack of coverage, we can not get any coverage where we live now. I spoke to a customer service supervisor for at least 30 minutes about the issue and he could have cared less. I would never do business with them again.

I took on a one year contract with Clearwire without my usual caution about something new like this service. The upload speeds were frequently worse than dial up. And the download speed was intermittently slow. I lost out with the cost of the modem and termination fee of $180. They told there was no guarantee about speeds in my contract. That means they have no obligation to deliver consistent service. Not ready for prime time.

I am very very upset with Clearwire. I signed up with them in Oct ‘05 but they are saying that I signed up in Feb ‘05 and I know that it is not true because I never heard of clearwire until a friend from work signed up then he told me about. So, how could I have signed up in Feb when he signed up in Sept and then told me. My other complaint is that I am getting married this November and he needed a different internet provider who will support a program which he needs to repair computers, so we switch but now clearwire has TRAPPED me in my contract until Feb of ‘09 and now they are saying that they don’t even have my contract. Lets review here……..they say Feb, I know it was Oct and they say that they can’t locate my contract anywhere. Doesn’t that sound fishy to you because it sure does sound fishy to me. If and when I do find my contract………….I am going to give them a little surprise and scare them with a lawyer since I have plenty of them who are good friends of mine. One has told me that it would be $200 plus 35 to break it but another one just the other day told me $180 including the 35 to break it. This is just BS and I am tried of it. So, if anyone is thinking about clearwire……..please do yourself a big favor and don’t. If you are in Abilene, TX……..try Xanadoo if you can or just find someone else whether or not you are in Abilene but just don’t end up like me in clearwire. Like someone else said on here which I agree with them that CLEARWIRE IS CLEARLY NOT WORTH IT.

Collie, because you are trying to get out of your contract, you should probably think it’s a blessing they believe you signed up in Feb of ‘05 rather than Oct of ‘05. I see no down side. The contract ends earlier.

Uh… Duh???

Hello there!
I’m glad I came across your site/comments area… I am new to Visalia, CA and was looking for reliable internet providers here in the 93291 zip code when I came across your site. Wow! Reading what I have read about ClearWire, I most definitely will steer “clear” away from them. The posts here a fear year old. Do you think they have changed for the better? I’m still weary. I wish SureWest provided its services here. I’m from Sacramento and SureWest Rocks!
Ok, since they don’t and ClearWire sucks, then who is a good reliable provider in the 93291 zip code? Please feel free to write me – imsoquazy@yahoo.com
Paul

You took that thought right out of my head!

Don’t get Clearwire. We got it when we lived in Boise, wroked great. Moved to another town it really sucks very slow almost to the point its not worth using. The deal they said was “you can take it with you, if it doesn’t work at your new location you can cancel” that too is BS!!! They won’t let you out of your contract without hugh fees. I think they also change contract dates. I tell everyone I know not to go with them.

STAY AWAY FROM CLEARWIRE!!!

Clearwire started in Winston-Salem, NC about a yera ago. I blindly jumped on the band wagon without fully investigating. Did I make a mistake! Service was as good as the wired competors for the first 6 months or so; after that it became totally unusable! Upon further investigation I determined that I am 2 miles out of their service area. That does not matter to them! I am stuck with a $40.00 a month bill for something I am unable to use and can’t get out of my 2 year contract! Go ahead call me STUPID for leaping without investigating!

I put up with Clearwire through my 2 years of my contract. I called today to cancel my service and they told me that 2 weeks ago my contract automatically renewed for another 2 years. I said, well now I want to cancel. They told me I could cancel, but that I would have to pay the cancellation fee. I never signed up for another 2 years. They renewed without warning me. In the contract it says that I will be “prompted” prior to renewal. I never received anything and now they say I am locked into 2 more years. This company has poor customer service. They won’t let my sister out of a contract even though she does not get service where she lives. Ridiculous. I would take dial up over dealing with this crap.

I can tell you at least that Clearwire Belgium sucks. The connection is lagging every now and then – bad for online gaming and telephony.

If you ever get Clearwire, make sure you are not ripped off when you cancel the contract. Because I was, and I hate to learn such lessons. Now they keep two more mothly fees longer than the contract lasted.

They keep saying “as long as you keep the modem you get invoices”. What a crap! As if they were unable to shutdown your connection. Don’t believe it. Don’t go there. Choose a good local DSL ISP, it’s cheaper and faster.

Ah I forgot: they are even blocking VoIP ports. Only not to lose customers because they would eventually figure out. But it’s not mentioned anywhere.

I was glad Skype did work (they are not using VoIP but their own protocol). But before that I tried VoIP and it did not work.

Again: avoid Clearwire if you can.

I have Clearwire and I don’t think I have ever heard a better way of describing my experience with them than what I read here: “Clearwire, Clearly NOT worth it” and “Steer CLEAR of Clearwire”!! I pay $40 USD for my 1.5mbps connection every month, But if I even come close to using my alloted 1.5mbps, Clearwire does something that they call “Slacking” my modem, Which means that they all but cut off my speed making web pages load time take around 2 or 3 mins. In an age where people can buy/rent by paying for and LEGALLY downloading movies (NetFlix, Movielink, etc) Instead of going to the video/retail store and renting/buying them or pay for and download computer games (Direct2drive, Gamespot, etc). Uploading speeds are lackluster at BEST and I only live 7 1/2 blocks or so from the signal tower.

The other day I called Clearwire about this “slacking” deal and was on hold for, get this, 3 hours 37 mins before I hung up and called them back. I know some people are wondering why I would stay on that long, and I tell you it was not my first time being on hold for a long time, so I wanted to see how long they would keep me there this time, and the only reason I hung up was that my phone was going to die.

I wish I had never signed up for this and I would consider this to be among the biggest mistakes I have EVER made. PLEASE PLEASE do yourself a favor, If you are considering Clearwire as your ISP, I STRONGLY urge you to look at the other options. I know Clearwire has a lot of little deals to Draw you in, but like a warning to a fish, there is a hook under that worm. This is what Clearwire reminds me of: Fatal Attraction: Antifreeze is a Sweet But Deadly Poison for Pets as Clearwire is to People.

EDIT: “In an age where people can buy/rent by paying for and LEGALLY downloading movies (NetFlix, Movielink, etc) Instead of going to the video/retail store and renting/buying them or pay for and download computer games (Direct2drive, Gamespot, etc).”

Id like to finish this sentence, :-P
…..games (Direct2drive, Gamespot, etc) I believe that they are Clearly screwing people over.

STAY CLEAR OF CLEARWIRE is the best advice one can give! I have been double billed for 6 months and have spent hours trying to get this resolved. I did get 3 months credited back to my card, but it has been a fight for the balance owed me. Our fight has now gone to the Better Business Bureau. I have never seen such RUDE customer service personnel. It seems as if no one in that company has a clue to what their own error codes are. They never admit when they are wrong. Such a nightmare! I really wish I had researched this company before I signed that contract! Please do yourself a favor if you have not signed on the dotted line——-don’t sign on with Clearwire! You are guaranteed to be treated rudely, ripped off by double billing, threatened by their service persons, and not recieve the service and speed which they claim to sell you!

Gee Whizz, My neighbor has clearwire and I am thinking about it. I dont think that they have had a problem yet? I guess I had better investigate thoroughly before committing to anything. We live in the country and this seems to be the answer. Clearwire is offering phone service also. A bundle for about 75.00 per month. Any complaints about the phone service? I dont understand how they can offer phone service along with 1.5 mps and not have problems according to the reports I have read? We are outside of Waco. I guess we are doomed

Mixed experience with Clearwire.
On the positive side: Very convenient to connect home network. No billing problems so far for 2 yrs. Once the “modem” gave out; local Clearwire store replaced it on the spot. Forget uploading or emailing large files; takes too long and rarely clean transmission on first try. Their “free” email feature worthless; often inoperative. I pay Earthlink but much more reliable.

If I ever get need to send large files, will switch to cable.

CLearwire sucks because they want to. Clearwire would provide top notch service if it werent for the fact that they want to make wireless look bad.. its a multi million dollar advertising campaign to promote different services as they roll out later.

Fixed wireless providers (not clearwire) have been for the most part very good and have quite a faithful audience. so fixed wireless can be done correctly and thats what scares the hell out of the RBOC and LEC’s

I am stuck in a 2 year contract with Clearwire. I lived in a major city and got it then. It was ok, but fairly unreliable. I moved to take care of a sick parent and they live out in the country. Clearwire doesn’t even service the area yet I’m expected to pay 45.00 a month to not be able to even use their services? It seems to be extremely unethical to me to hold someone to a contract where the product doesn’t even work for them. It is extremely stressful. Apparently they used to oblige people last year that moved and couldn’t use the service but have since decided to no longer offer that. Clearly they have put bottom-line and profits over customer service. I understand they need to make a profit but this is so shady.

Treating customers this bad and not caring about customer service in the “internet age” where every blogger is a product reviewer doesn’t seem to smart. Ironic they are in the internet biz. I will now be flooding the internet with anti-clearwire free speech.

Here’s our story with the absolute worst company we’ve ever experienced…please avoid Clearwire at all costs and tell everyone you know to do the same!

November 14, 2007

To Whom It May Concern:

I have never had such a frustrating customer service experience as the one I’m currently having with Clearwire. Please let me share this painful experience with you…

I can assure you, that we were VERY excited about your product and service. It was recommended by a few of my husband’s co-workers at Starbucks corporate office, and he was very eager to try it out. Prior to getting the service, we had been talking about it with all our friends and neighbors about its potential versus the cable and DSL options out there today. We ordered our Clearwire system on October 26th and had it delivered very quickly to us (great feature and prompt service)! It was easy to set up, but we immediately realized it wasn’t very useable from the minute we plugged it in. It was hit and miss in terms of speed, and had trouble staying connected to the signal. My husband spoke with your customer service and tech support that very first night because it just didn’t seem to be working right.

For the next week or so, if it was foggy, no luck…in the middle of the day, no luck. I watched my husband walk around the house for 2 nights trying every plug and window set up, no luck…we still could only get 1 bar! ONE day I did get 2 bars for about half an hour. We have trouble logging on at night, and only with the window shades up and the window cracked open (apparently the signal doesn’t travel well through double pane windows…wow, surprising defect given that most houses in the northwest have these windows!). One bar is all we can get 99% of the time.

HOWEVER, we were still big believers in Clearwire, and were not discouraged. We are having a house built, and guess what, we can see your towers in Poulsbo from anywhere on our lot! We were excited because we just knew the signal would be stronger at our new house. We took the unit to the model home in our new neighborhood, plugged it in and got 4 bars and high speed! Awesome…we had renewed excitement about Clearwire! We were still excited (even more so), because we knew it would work as expected once we moved. We told the community sales manager (of the new home development) about how cool Clearwire was, and she was excited to get all the info to share with the other home buyers who are looking for internet options other than cable, etc. There are 185 homes being built in this development! That’s a lot of potential customers for you!

However, after a week and a half (and several long phone calls to your company, one being the very first night) our love affair with your product and company has been destroyed. We do not get the speed, or the consistent connectivity that we need. My husband cannot log on and download the things he needs to from work. I cannot send pictures to friends or family. I cannot even download pictures to snapfish.com or Costco to get digital pictures printed. It’s too slow and does not meet our needs…its definitely not “high speed” internet. When it was foggy last week, forget trying to log on and read/use the Internet during the day…the router could not lock in on a signal!

So, after deciding that this very cool technology is not going to work for us right now, (while we live in a rental house while our new house is being built), we have no choice but to cancel Clearwire until a later date. Unfortunately, when we tried to cancel and tried to explain the problems we were experiencing with the service, we got nothing but a very uncompromising response, unrealistic solutions, countless holds, and transfers to 3 different people… unbelievably bad customer service!!!

The bottom line is this…It DOESN’T work for us! It doesn’t meet our needs and is too inconsistent! We should NOT have to pay a cancellation fee of $220 after only 2 weeks of horrendous service because your product does NOT work as advertised? How is that even close to fair and reasonable, let alone good customer service???? We called to complain about the service on the very first day we had it, and allowed the tech person to talk us into trying the service for a couple more weeks to be sure it wasn’t just a one time thing. Had we known there was a 7 day trial period, we would have cancelled within that time frame. How we wish we would have just canceled that very first night so we could have avoided the very bad experience we are going through now.

So, upon our trying to cancel, you sent out a field technician, who arrived with a 5 minute warning a day earlier than scheduled, thus interrupting my personal plans with my child (but that’s another customer service issue all together). And guess what, he stuck the router in a window (the same window we’ve tried many times) and got 2-3 bars and a fast connection speed. How does that happen? Of course, it was the clearest, non-foggiest, non-rainiest day we’ve had here in 2 weeks, so maybe that makes a difference. I can only guess that it helps to highlight how inconsistent your service really is. He couldn’t get more than 1 bar anywhere else in the house. And, of course, this one and only good spot was nowhere near the computer.

Perhaps if he comes back at 8pm some night, he’ll get the same frustrating, slow or non-existent speed that we get all the time? Because guess what? It’s not working again and he even taped exactly where and what angle to place the router. Go figure! Not to mention the fact that the one and only place that it works in our house is in the middle of a window sill in the middle of the kid’s play area, and only when the curtain is open. I have a 4 and 6 year old boys, and cannot have wires and routers dangerously hanging off the edge of a window sill in their play area. And do you know what the solution was for this, per your customer service rep? A wireless router!!! Hmm, so if I add yet another device (and pay more to get this setup working), I can have 2 things sitting in the window sill? Wow, would anyone with common sense think that is a legitimate solution, not to mention a safe thing to do? Why can’t we put the router in the office where we want it? Why does Clearwire think getting a signal somewhere in the house, whether or not it works out well for the customer, is perfectly acceptable and deemed as ‘meeting’ the contract? Are you willing to pay millions of dollars in lawsuits if my son dies because he trips over all those wires and strangles himself on the setup your customer service team is offering? Is that really a wise suggestion? I sure hope not everyone at Clearwire thinks this way. I’ll be sure to avoid any stock investments in Clearwire if that’s the case, because I see lots of liability in statements like that!

So, back to my thoughts and the frustration I’m feeling right this minute. Something that we were so excited about and had talked up to everybody, including the sales manager at our new home site, (where we had perfect vision of the towers and 4 bars when we tested it) will now get nothing but bad publicity from us. I can’t wait to call Lindsey and tell her NOT to recommend this service to anybody in our new development. In fact, I’ll be sure she tells them all about your terrible customer service and how you would not work with us on such a simple request. I’m sorry to say this, but we will do all we can to make sure everybody we know is aware of how poorly you have handled this situation, and also how bad your product and service is. I have never felt this way before, and have never thought I would have to act this way, but this experience has been overwhelmingly negative and is truly ruining my day. I can only hope that you find it more important to have positive word of mouth advertising then to steal $220 from a 2 week old customer with legitimate complaints. I’ve heard it said that it takes 7 good word of mouth recommendations to earn a new customer, and only 1 bad one to lose 20.

I am not exaggerating when I am telling you that my husband was OVER the TOP excited about this because he could take it most anywhere and log in (coffee shops, friend’s houses, whatever). He was really, really pumped about the potential. Now, it’s not the case. And, I’m afraid, based on principal alone, you’ve lost a great advocate for your services. Please just let us drop our service without charging us a cancellation fee, because believe me (PLEASE believe me) if we could have made this work for our needs we would have. It’s just not fair and it’s bad business.

Too bad for all…

I am the new ANTI-EVANGELIST for Clearwire. I will post my story about CLEARWIRE all over the internet blogs and forums. I will make sure no one else signs up with this terrible company. Also, Clearwire needs to fire Jeta (extension #5276) who has no idea about what customer service is. I signed up with clearwire 6 months ago. When I signed up, I was getting 3 bars on my modem, which is just descent. However, I noticed the signal is intermittent and would drop to 2 and 1 on rainy and windy days. So, I called clearwire trying to solve this issue. I left many messages to have someone call back to schedule a on-site service, however, after 3 attempts, no one calls back. Now, after more than 20 phone calls to clearwire, I’m still stuck with the terrible company and they would not let me go without paying $200 early termination fee, which I think is absurd. Afterall, it is not my fault their service is not stable. How was I suppose to know the signal would drop by so much? I’ve speaking to this ignorant supervisor named “Jeta” ext. 5276 who has no idea how to handle a customer dispute. All she wants to do is keep sending a idiotic contractor named “Fad” over to my house to check out the signal and Fad would tell Jeta “there’s no problem,” and that’s because he came on a perfect sunny day. So, I am sitting here with a situation where I cannot get out of this terrible company without paying $200.00 out of my pocket. So, the conclusion is, clearwire may be little bit cheaper than other broadband companies, but “DO NOT USE CLEARWIRE..PERIOD” I would rather pay about $10.00 more and sign up with VERIZON Fiber Optics, which is MUCH MUCH more stable and knows how to handle a customer.
PLEASE EVERYONE, DON’T USE CLEARWIRE!!!!! THEY HAVE THE WORST CUSTOMER SERVICE ON THE PLANET…AND DON’T FALL FOR THEIR 2 YEAR CONTRACT, IT’S A MOUSETRAP. WHO CARES IF THEY GIVE YOU A FREE PRINTER OR $100 CASH BACK. THIS ALL MEANS NOTHING WHEN YOU’RE STUCK WITH AN UNSTABLE CONNECTION FOR 2 YRS

Clearwire sucks! The representatives are rude and useless! The sales person at Best Buy sold us on Clearwire a yeat ago by telling us that if we were to move out of their service area; there would not be a balance of contract fee. Today, I called to cancel and sure enough, I was hit with $180 termination fee. Take my advice, don’t ever do business with a company like Clearwire who makes millions off of termination fees and treats their customers like crap! They will gab your balls and yank them out if you try to terminate your service! Clearwire sucks!

Clearwire is trying to charge me $180, because I moved to an area that has no service. When I was told when I purchased the modem and the service, that I wuldnt be held liable. F*** CLEARWIRE, DONT GET IT!!!

Tell them to stick it. I did, told my credit history people what a bunch of thieves Clearwire is and I has not hurt my credit. They had my contract date incorrect by a month and would not change it to the original date.
When they did that, I canceled the CC I had on file with them as I have 5 others so they didnt get the chance to false bill me. F em..they are a bunch of losers

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

In August of 06, I signed up for clearwire’s service. I’m renting a home which is not compatible with cable (yeah I know). I am also outside of the Comcast service area anyway. I talked with the clearwire guys about how I enjoyed gaming online. The people at Best Buy representing Clearwire were “very helpful.” They told me that they had personally been playing games like Halo 2, PDZ, WoW, and other online games with greater success than with Charter or Comcast. So here I am thinking “so it’s this or dial-up…” I sign up for a two-year contract. Then I get the VoIP phone to save money. While here is the problem. Clearwire is about as flaky as a squirrel on meth. Sometimes it’s o.k. then other times it is utter crap. Oh, and don’t pay attention to the bars; they mean nothing. I have a consistent 4 bars of 5, but the speed is completely random. Also, with the wonderful *cough* quality of VoIP, I can barely make out what people are saying half of the time. And to top it off, whenever I get a phone call or make one, I get signed out of whatever game I might be playing (This includes attempting to use a headset in-game).

One more thing…I used to enjoy torrenting files. Downloads are definitely limited. I will guarantee that, server-side, Clearwire limits bandwidth to those using P2P or torrents.

I would not recommend this service to anyone at all. They are nowhere near cheap enough to match the “value” of their service.

I signed up for Clearwire in March 07. I did not want to pay the $50 activation fee for the 1 year contract so the sales guy at the Clearwire store told me that if I signed the 2 year contract the cancellation fee was only $50 anyway so I might as well sign the 2 year contract. So now I have another year left on my contract and I am sick of this service. I went down to cancel and the rep at the office that day told me it would be $220 to cancel. I told her what the previous rep had said and asked her if there was anything I could do and she said no. I told her that when I signed up I wasn’t given anything to review. The piece of paper I signed had nothing on it indicating the cancellation fee.

I told her that I was moving to a house about a mile away, well within their coverage map and I cannot get a signal anywhere in the house. She told me that I could cancel and pay the fee or keep the service and pay $42/month and not use it. Thanks!

My friend recently called to cancel his service after his renewal only to find that they auto renewed his contract. They told him that he could give the service to a friend instead. He said no way he would ever do that to a friend… lol. I agree. I am spreading the word about how horrible Clearwire is. Activation fees and contracts are BS. They should be able to sustain without either by providing a quality service.

I would like to formally voice my complain on this site since the Clearwire people don’t have any sense of accountability and responsability. They think that by just being corteous and polite they can just be absolved so you go away and not pursue or demand better service.
My guess is that they buy time to make you ride the poor service so that the longer you stay with them the more reason they feel they have to force you to stay on regardless of how long and often you have called and complained.
What we need here is a class action suit and make them get off their high horse and stand and deliver or get off the pot.

I guess that I get to be one of the lone voices of dissent here. I signed up for Clearwire about three weeks ago and am very happy with it. I switched from Time Warner cable (Roadrunner) due to reliability/outage issues, inability to reach their tech support (busy signals over multiple days), and a service tech who couldn’t give a s*** about helping to resolve the problems I was experiencing with dropped packets and latency.

I ordered Clearwire from their web site on a Thursday night, received the box on Saturday and got it all setup in less than 10 minutes. I consistently get 5 lights for signal strength and have experienced rock solid service.

Yes, it’s not as fast as my cable service, but it’s been more reliable. It meets my needs for both my personal usage, as well as my work usage as I work from home and connect to work using VPN.

My only complaint is that the upload speed is slow – 256Kbps. But I find that the majority of the time that it’s OK.

I’m excited about Clearwire, and am looking forward to them migrating over to WiMAX with hopefully increased speeds.

I am in Europe right now, I signed a deal with clearwire here. This is all I have to say – download speed: 60kbps, upload speed: 7kbps, restricted access to services like utube, skipe, yahoo, generally any kind of online game or internet phone, or webcam, or anything that is more than browsing or checking your email. I was billed 3 times in February but I cannot access my account to see what for, since they didn’t give me an account in the first place. On Monday I am going to check it out at their HQ and see what I can do about it. I should block their access to my account and pay cash from now on, I cannot terminate the contract because of the canceling fee. However, I am leaving the country in June and they said that I wont have to pay any fee if this is the case. I will ask them again to see if they stick to their story, from what I have read here, I am worried about all this. A word of advice for all people: do not sign up for clearwire if you are a foreigner, they treat like s*** the people who are citizens in that country, imagine how they’d rip off a foreigner.

After signing up for Clearwire I cancled it within hours
two weeks later my phone was turned off.
Clearwire had taken my phone number and would not release
it back.

I also was screwed by Clearwire. As other users have said, there service is really only useful if you do nothing other than surfing the web. I’ve had the service just over a month and can’t even express how much I regret it. They capped my bandwidth and are still charging me the same price ($25 month promotional 3 months, and when that’s up it’s $50). They refuse to let me out of my contract unless I pay an Early Termination Fee of $215.

DO NOT EVEN THINK ABOUT GETTING CLEARWIRE

Just got ClearWire and it SUCKS!… Beware!!! UpLoad and DownLoad are very slow…. at times, it made it seem like dial-up was faster. I went ahead and paid the early termination fee… I fifured that it wil be cheaper for me in the long run and don’t have to deal with all the B.S. ClearWire? more like ScamWire!

Still going through this crap with clearwire. Now that I’ve finally got $200 to give them for no reason (cancellation fee), they seem to be trying to prevent me from returning my modem!!! WTF??? They have to send a UPS return label to an email address and the first one I gave them was my work, never got the UPS label, oddly I did get a email from clearwire stating there were changes to my account, funny I’d get one but not the one I need huh? 2nd email was sent to my gmail account, which has NEVER EVER missed any email I’ve had sent to it. Guess what? Never got a UPS label in my gmail account. I just called them again and told them to send it to my clearwire account. Can’t give me any excuses why it wouldn’t show up there can they? Well it’s been an hour now and I’ve still not seen an email from them. If I get billed for another month I will be contacting a lawyer since they are trying there hardest to make sure I can’t cancel my account.

I seriously urge anyone thinking about getting CW to reconsider, these people are absolute scum.

Well, I just learned that internet terrorism truly begins at home, with Clearwire. The fact that a company that provides such a poor quality of service can be so arrogant as to selectively slow down my connection even more, to punish my family for using the internet, and then threaten to disconnect us if we continue to violate their TOS is beyond belief.
After receiving a threatening email from them telling me I needed to call them IMMEDIATELY, I ended up being on hold for an hour and 45 minutes. Then, they can’t tell me specifically what web site(s) or what actions occurred to cause the so called infraction, but if it continues, they can disconnect me and charge an early termination fee. How am I supposed to control what they can’t define? I have 4 teenagers in the house. They are using the internet for all the same sites that every other teenager in America is using it for.
I also work for a major defense contractor and work from home three days a week. I frequently use email to support our field service representatives, supporting the US Army and Marines, stationed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other military installations world wide. Now I have to deal with threats from people acting like the Clearwire internet Nazis, for using a lousy service, that I’m paying for?
Well, I drive around my town a lot. I’m putting stickers on my car and van that Clearly reads http://WWW.CLEARWIRESUCKS.COM. I hope some of you will do the same.

I have alot of thoughts about all the comments. I have had Clearwire for a year, i originally talked myself into it because i was trying to get away from Comcast and the high bills, Clearwire sounded perfect, i have a 15 year old son who likes to play online games, not games like WOW< just simple ones, so i talked to the clearwire rep about the difference in the speed with Comcast and Clearwire, i was told downloads would be a bit slower, but i should barely be able to tell a difference just surfing the web.
of course i did not THINK about it when i bought it, that the modem has to be IN a Window, and that my office window is on the opposite wall of my computer, i have reasons i do not want my computer sitting right by the window… so we would have to pull and stretch to different locations just to get at most 2 bars, it was NOT awful, when surfing it usually was not really that much different than surfing with comcast, When you DO notice is when you are say.. watching a TV show online, streams are EXTREMELY slow and most often lock up finally, same with the online games.
Anyway, it STILL somewhat served my purpose so i kept it until we moved, now i can not get a signal, my office does not face the southeastern or whatever it is sky to even try. So of course i called Clearwire and told them i wanted to cancel, i was under the impression for some reason that i had a one year contract, Like everyone else, i was told i would have to pay the 180.00 fee, and i was like, EXCUSE ME? for a service i can not use? that is robbery, and should not be allowed, so she asked if i had a “friend” that would like clearwire service, i just laughed, not hardly.. so her next suggestion was for me to go to Craigslist and post on there that i have this one year left in a contract etc, etc.. and they would remove me and put on whoever wanted the service, oh.. they WOULD get ONE whole free month of service.. whatever, i thankfully have a great legal plan and am going to look into this on Tuesday, i was just billed yesterday for another month, of a service i do not use, i am back with Comcast, and though not thrilled with them either, at least i have service!

I have had clearwire in seattle also… and i’m trapped!!!

At first I was fine with the service. It was functional.
Here are the issues:

-ITS SLOWER… can barely handle youtube during the day.
-AT PEAK USAGE TIMES its very sluggish. This is consistently 6pm-9pm every day. When you most want to use the internet…
-IM TRAPPED and if I want to get out of the service, I have to pay the early termination fee.
-EXPENSIVE…

I’m not recommending clearwire to ANYONE.