Clearwire's Non-WiMax Now Non-Useful: Blocks VoIP, Streaming Media
from the wonderful dept
Craig McCaw’s Clearwire wireless outfit has received plenty of attention — mainly for being run by Craig McCaw. Late last year, Intel had to pay Clearwire to convince them to use WiMax (which, still doesn’t actually exist) as the core of their wireless offering, as WiMax was proving to be increasingly less than the hype would have you believe. Earlier this month, Bell Canada made a surprise announcement, saying they would provide VoIP for Clearwire in the US — giving the Canadian telco a way to enter the US market. Still, it appears the folks at Clearwire haven’t been paying attention to the whole “network neutrality” debate or the fact that an ISP has been fined for blocking Vonage. Instead, Clearwire proudly states that they will block any application they don’t like — including non-Bell Canada VoIP and any streaming audio or video offering. In other words, Clearwire’s wireless broadband is becoming close to useless, because they want to control what you can and can’t do over it. They claim they need to do this “to ensure network performance reliability,” but can’t explain how it’s okay for them to offer VoIP, but Vonage must be blocked. More importantly, if Clearwire is saying they can’t have a stable network when people are doing VoIP or streaming media, it certainly raises a lot of questions about the quality of WiMax.
Comments on “Clearwire's Non-WiMax Now Non-Useful: Blocks VoIP, Streaming Media”
Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
OK, let me start this by saying I worked for this pittiful organization and I can tell you how they think(or don’t for that matter) and all thier little dirty tricks.
First I must disclose my reasoning behind this. 1. everyone deserves to know the truth. 2. I work for them between 60-80 hours a week in thier NIC, which was responsable for building(and I was responseable for comissioning all thier equipment too) all the cabinets the sit at the base of cell cites. After breaking my back I was graciously handed a pink slip from two unknowledable individuals who know little to nothing about this industry, yet the fate of the company lay within thier hands…
They block all ports! Except the basic email and web ports, they block the rest. They serve to the customers on licencsed 2.6G wireless spectrum and then do wireless backhaul using unlicensed spectrum! That is problem number 1. Then, then also plan to have approx 50+ customers per sector, with a 20/50/or 100 Mbps backhaul. Most people would say that is fantastic. But in truth, is is miserable. Even though the backhaul from the wireless site to the pop at “high speeds” thier connection to the Inet is usualy only 1.5 Mbps(1 T1) or even two or three. When you have 50-200 customers on a link, trying to share that little bandwidth, you’d be lucky to get the 64k I see referred to on this sites posts.
Furthermore, these cabinets are not built to any type of standard(which is the reason for the NIC, to standardize them). For example, they do not heat shrink thier power connections, and all equipment is hooked to a set of power relays for remote monitoring and power cycling abailities.
If I were to give anyone any advice about this company, STAY AWAY FROM THEM! Why would you want to support a company that insists on maintaining ignorance? Furthermore, why would you want to pay a company for a service that is far less quality than many other established providers out there.
PS, thier “Lead Engineer” at the NIC, does not even know the difference between a torque head screwdriver and a precision screw driver…
Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
Jared,
I am planning to deploy a network similar to Clearwire. Based upon your comments it appears that you have some insite into their network, as such, I would be interested in hearing more about their network.
Please give me a call to discuss if you get a chance. 866-686-2832 (toll free)
Reagards,
Mark Hedstrom
Re: Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
how long before the 25th did you get fired?
Seems you were willing to work for them, but when you got caned, whoa ,”now they stink.”
sounds like sour grapes.
64K? I am running more like 1.8M.
Happy Thanksgiving!!!
Re: Re: Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
WOW! where do you live?! because here, in the states where I live, we dont always have a choice to work for a company we support 100%. actually, I dont personally think there are many companies I can support all the way. I personally don’t really agree with a lot of stuff my company does, and if they gave me the shaft like they did to him, I’d be pissed too.
I appreciate the information you provided, but I am unclear on which ports are blocked. Some people here say only VOIP and certain applications are blocked, but I have tried several different ports and none seem to be going through. So which is it?? and which port could I use my voip with?
Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
They ripped me off… Numerous complaints to the BBB and the AG has not helped. I think a class action lawsuit is needed. There are no happy customers to be found…ANYWHERE
Re: Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wima
I hope that if anyone knows of people getting up a class action suit against Clearwire they will post the information here. I am a business person and I have been trying to use their service to build a website. When I started, Clearwire was a bit slow, but workable. About 3 weeks ago it suddenly went totally SNAFU. I couldn’t do any work with it for a week, between glacially slow speeds and constant disconnects. It’s gotten sporadically better since but usually works poorly at best. I have called their support repeatedly and done all of the things they have asked me to do–to absolutely no avail. I have gotten several contradictory stories from their tech staff, the only honest one telling me he didn’t know what was going on. This is causing me serious delays with my business and is loosing me noney. Post it here if anyone is getting up a class action suit against Clearwire!
Marc
Re: Re: Re: Clearwire is the problem, not so much
Still no one getting up a class action suit? It’s been so bad that it’s hard to understand. Ran a series of download tests on different sites this AM and got speeds as low as 0 and 92k with an occasional though rare run at around 1100k. Mostly between 420k and 850k–when it would even make the connection. Lots of clicking on things with nothing happening. Guess I’ll have to troll some other forums looking for that CAS.
clearwire not bad wolf
clearwire doesnt block VOIP it just blocks ONE VOIP port, which if you call your VOIP provider they will change the port they send through and everything will work fine.
Clearwire does not block streaming media, but bearshare and kazaa which you can also change the ports for, or just use slsk since it is better anyhow..
silly net rumors.
Re: clearwire not bad wolf
Heh. Yes, so they did a *bad job* of blocking these things. Doesn’t change the fact that they are trying to block VoIP and streaming media.
Re: clearwire not bad wolf
Clearwire is garbage. The choking out of the network and obvious regulation of you r bandwith does not matter what speed you order, you get limited right back down, and fast. All available ports to my VOIP have been blocked and clearwire tells me that they only block 5065 whe in fact the entire range of ports usable by my voice router are blaclisted. So good game clearwire good game.
Re: Re: clearwire not bad wolf
You wrote:
All available ports to my VOIP have been blocked and clearwire tells me that they only block 5065 whe in fact the entire range of ports usable by my voice router are blaclisted. So good game clearwire good game.
My response:
Couldn’t you just put a firewall in front of the voice router and forward the ports you want to the ports your VoIP router can handle?
Re: clearwire not bad wolf
We’ve called several times, and they absolutely refuse to unblock the port. The internet we got to host our own site is now useless. I don’t know what you said to them to unblock anything, but they absolutely refuse to unblock ours, and many others. You can’t count on them to do that.
Re: Re: hosting on wireless connection
Wouldn’t you be better off hosting a website at a cheap, shared web hosting company? $5/mo…
The internet they sell you is NOT the internet you
We just switched to clearwire. Everything is great except….they block port 80. Yep, if you get internet service, you can’t host yoru own website. THEY DON’T TELL YOU THIS!!! We have called multiple times and each time they say yes, they are blocking that port, and NO they WILL NOT unblock it. Then they happily send you an email saying that your complaint ticket is resolved. How nice.
That’s just the beginning. They also squeeze down FTP ports as well as bittorrents. I know i DID NOT agree to this! We’re going back to clearwire to get out of my TWO YEAR agreement with them…..mainly because nothing in any paperwork I signed says anything about blocking ports. That’s why we got the internet was to host our own business site!
Beware…..find something else if you can. Clearwire is NOT HONEST.
Re: The internet they sell you is NOT the internet
What do you mean by Clearwire “squeezing down FTP ports”? I am not a techie, but have to access FTP ports of customers, so this concersn me. Also, do you know anything about Verizon Wireless that I should watch out for? I’m thinking of going with Verizon Wireless given Clearwire’s problems (there is no DSL in my area), rather than cable. Thanks
clearwire not bad wolf
I cancelled Clearwire after their connection went downhill. They did not charge an early termination fee. I took the modem back to the local office. Now, they continue to debit my account and state I never cancelled!
Never sign a contract with them
NEVER SIGN A CONTRACT WITH THEM ! I did …. I used this crap for couple months in a European city but I haven’t seen such a crap before. Really like a 64kbps speed or even worse. Stoppage for hours. Only worked in the night but only with very low fraction of the nominal speed. Have you tried to wait hours to send and e-mail? I did. Although they acknowledge the technical problems on their side they insisit to charge normal cancellation fee on me. Now I reported them to the telecommunication ombudsman because what they do is ridicule. They really give a shit about customers. If you want good to yourselft stay away from this company.
Glad I read this
I currently have dial up. A friend told me about Clearwire & I almost got it!
So glad I read these comments.
Thanks to all of you for saving me such a hassle!
Clearwire not honest
When the local cable company (Cox) decided to not carry NBC because they did not want to pay the local affiliate for their programming, I immediately dumped them in favor of anyone else. I went and looked at DSL and clearwire. DSL had a 1 year contract with no outs, and with me planning on leaving the town in 6 months, Ii couldnt do that.
I went over to clearwire, and the salesman told me that if I moved out of Abilene, my contract was null and void, and he recommended that i sign a 2 year contract to get free equipment. Once I got it home I had hell with the service not staying connected, as well as the latency on the connection was horrid. once i connected to the site it was ok, but it would take 45 seconds to a minute just to connect to google.
I graduated college and moved out of Abilene. (Bless my soul I can finally dump Clearwire) Remember earlier my salesman telling me I could cancel with no penalty once i moved out of Abilene? Well I happened to move to another clearwire service area, so they attempted to hold me to my contract. When my lawyer informed them I had a witness to my verbal agreement with the salesman they eventually let me out of the contract, but it’s rediculous that the salesman took advantage of me as a college student to get his commission. STAY AWAY FROM THIS COMPANY, you will probably have to threaten a lawsuit in order to get out of their crappy service.
Re: Clearwire not honest
they told me i would have premiere service but all I get is dropped signals, I called customer service and they suggested i stand on one leg with the modem on my head and hop around until i find a signal and when i do hold it there. I also tried to connect to Xbox 360 live and clearwire makes the gameplay horrible. I wouldnt wish clearwire on my worst enemy
Re: Clearwire not honest
they told me i would have premiere service but all I get is dropped signals, I called customer service and they suggested i stand on one leg with the modem on my head and hop around until i find a signal and when i do hold it there. I also tried to connect to Xbox 360 live and clearwire makes the gameplay horrible. I wouldnt wish clearwire on my worst enemy
Same Story Here
I have the same story, horrible speeds, hidden crap in the contract, almost all ports blocked (I can’t play games online either, my ping starts out ok, then goes to around 700), packet shaping galore, and now I’m stuck with a 2 year contract.
I complained so much to them and nothing ever got done, a guy did finally come to my house to “test” my connection, but the testing was only on the web surfing port. I told him everything else sucked and he said that my speed was fine and left.
Whatever you do, DO NOT GET CLEARWIRE!
I have been unable to set up a wireless network
since I got Clearwire, haven’t had it for a month yet. I hope they let me out of the contract. If they don’t, I will be reporting them to the Attorney General.
Do any of you have a clue?
If you read section 18a of the contract you sign when you got the service, it’s titled…
18. Third Party Services, Content and Materials Accessible on the Internet; Disclaimers, Cautions and Restrictions.
(a) We do not control, nor are we responsible or liable for, data, content, services, or products (including software) that you access, download, receive or buy via the Service. We may, but do not have to, block information, transmissions or access to certain information, services, products or domains to protect us, our network, the public or our users
You’ll see that Clearwire, “Clearly” informed you before hand that 3rd party products and services may not work with their internet service.
So please stop whining about ports being blocked, when they told you up front that some might be.
TIm, you also must be a bit slow on the uptake. As per your contract you would have to pay the $180 early termination fee, regardless of the fact your moving. They were cutting you a break by letting you opt out if you were moving to an area that did’nt have service.
But beyond that you agreed that the level of service was to your liking when you signed up. So if the internet was sooo slow that you could’nt use it, why did you give the sales rep your credit card?
As for “Jared” you are obviously a bitter x-employee, that not withstanding you could be sued by Clearwire for letting confidential company information out to the public. Cause as you know, unless your as dumb as I think you are, you signed a non-disclosure agreement when you got hired.
I will agree with you on one thing Jared, the Clearwire tech staff isn’t always the brightest bulb on the Chirstmas tree.
Lastly “john” commented about not being able to use Clearwire for online computer gaming, that is partially true, I have tried it on everything from xBox to Playstation and PC games. It works good most of the time if you pick a nearby server, but experiences some large pings spikes when playing farther away.
To make a long story short, Clearwire isn’t perfect, but what ISP is? They are a new company and have their kinks to work out. Give it some time and go at it with an open mind, and maybe you’ll have more luck than some of these posters.
Thanks, and good night….
I agree entirely with Brian’s comments on this thread.
With regard to streaming media, Clearwire regulates usage based on the number of users on a sector and their data throughput. Under ideal conditions (ie: you aren’t running LimeWire on your computer and you are free of spyware), it is highly unlikely that you should ever see a slowdown. If you notice any significant slowdown below a peak speed of 1.5meg or 768k (depending on your package), you need to contact your local office RIGHT THEN and inform them of the problem immediately. They depend on those complaints from you to justify the expense of turning up a sector. Before you call them, verify that you are getting a strong signal (3 bars or more on the wireless modem.) If you are getting fewer than 3 bars on your modem at any time, your signal strength is less than adequate and you can remedy this by moving the equipment.
With all this hype regarding VOiP, there are 2 things you can do so it works.
1) Call clearwire and inform them you need your ports open for 3rd party VOiP.
2) If you have Vonage, call them & tell them your ISP is Clearwire and they can make adjustments to improve compatibility.
CWire
I got my service in Feb. and they really pushed the 2 year contract [but I didn’t take it, since I believe good sevice will sell itself].
Since then my service started out much slower than advertised and has now slowed to under dial-up.
I have replaced their modem, my router, adjusted all of the windows settings [like they requested] and still my speed fluctuates from slow to almost stopped according to network useage.
Their contract also has another 1 year rollover if you don’t cancel 2 months ahead of the anniversary [which I have].
JR in Jax fl.
CWire
I got my service in Feb. and they really pushed the 2 year contract [but I didn’t take it, since I believe good sevice will sell itself].
Since then my service started out much slower than advertised and has now slowed to under dial-up.
I have replaced their modem, my router, adjusted all of the windows settings [like they requested] and still my speed fluctuates from slow to almost stopped according to network useage.
Their contract also has another 1 year rollover if you don’t cancel 2 months ahead of the anniversary [which I have].
JR in Jax fl.
CWire
I got my service in Feb. and they really pushed the 2 year contract [but I didn’t take it, since I believe good sevice will sell itself].
Since then my service started out much slower than advertised and has now slowed to under dial-up.
I have replaced their modem, my router, adjusted all of the windows settings [like they requested] and still my speed fluctuates from slow to almost stopped according to network useage.
Their contract also has another 1 year rollover if you don’t cancel 2 months ahead of the anniversary [which I have].
JR in Jax fl.
Re: CWire
Posting the same thing 3 times isn’t going to make it come true… This isn’t the Wizard of Oz. But let me guess… you are outside the service area and can only get dial-up. You begged the sales rep to sell you the service and now your unhappy?
Clearwire too slow
I signed up for Clearwire in June of 06, and I am so glad I only took the one year contract. Sometimes it’s slower than dial up, and it’s never been even half the speed they advertise. I’ll be gone the day my contract ends, and I recommend others avoid Clearwire.
Complaint and response to clearwire
This man personally set everything up in my house THE DAY i signed up, and cheerfully promoted how fast video off websites loads (including Msn.com) and how fast everything works. We had exccelent reception the day we installed it, but a few weeks later, it tapered off to 4 and then 3 (sometimes it’ll just drop to 1).
He lacked to tell me about how all these ports are blocked; I play Battlefield 2142 on a daily basis, but only for about 20 minutes since I’m disconnected so frequently.
Do NOT get the Clearwire service unless you’re only on the internet for minor things, like looking at plain websites or checking your email. If you plan on doing anything that involves voice chat, watching videos on websites, playing games, or anything similar (which pretty much is what everyone does nowadays), go with someone else.
They weasel you into a contract that they charge a hefty fee if you try to break it; if you’re fine with losing some money while breaking away, do it and leave as soon as possible. You’ll probably save money avoiding the frustration of broken things and/or anger management classes when you finally leave.
From: Howard Feinstein
Date: Dec 22, 2006 11:53 PM
Subject: RE: unsatisfied with Clearwire service provided
To: Psilon Hierlore
I am sorry to hear you are having problems… I do not recognize your name from your email (Psilon Hielore?) so please forgive me for asking your name and phone number.
Have you contacted tech support to see if there is a problem with your modem?
Where did you get your service, did I install it for you? If so, I’ll be happy to see if I can get a better signal for you…what is your address?
Youtube and myspace are notoriously slow on any service due to the overwhelming hits they take. Also, we get our service from GCI as they have the backbone to the lower 48. If you want to check your speed, go to
http://speedtest.gci.net or speakeasy.net You will see your download speed there accurately. If it’s slow, then we can work on seeing why. If it’s near 1.3-1.5 then it’s the feed from the server that’s not great and not due to
clearwire’s part.
The Terms of service address ports blocking. You can see the Terms of Service on the bottom of the front page.
Thanks for sending me your contact info so I can talk with you about your problems. You are also welcome to call our office if you do not want to talk to me. The number is 550-7800.
A few questions…what speed is your computer? Is it a desktop or a laptop?
What games are you trying to play?
Thank you for the chance to deal with this. Hope to hear from you as soon as
tomorrow.
Regards,
Howard Feinstein
Sales Manager, High Frequency Wireless
907.360.7562
Bringing you Dish Network, Clearwire and Alaska Digitel with personal service unlike any other!
—–Original Message—–
From: Psilon Hierlore [mailto ***@gmail.com
Sent: Friday, December 22, 2006 10:43 PM
To: howard@highfrequencywireless.com
Subject: unsatisfied with clearwire service provided
I currently live in Eagle River, and I am having severe issues using the Clearwire service you have provided. For months I have tried to talk to family over various programs, trying to share video at speeds you claimed were fast, but I have many issues keeping a consistent connection, let alone the speeds were poor.
For a 1.5 MB connection, even at “3 dots” of reception on the recieving device, pages still take more than 30 seconds to load- and they are mostly text. Video from sites such as youtube.com and myspace will take over 10 minutes to load a 30 second clip. I have also done research, learning that Clearwire filters many ports, which you failed to advertise; I cannot properly use the bandwitdh that is provided for any of the games I play online.
I fail to remember reading or hearing of these issues when I signed the contract. Nowhere on Clearwire’s website does it state such things either. I do not know how you will deal with such an issue, but henceforth I will be notifying anyone who also has this service of
what really is going on, unless the problem is fixed soon.
Re: Complaint and response to clearwire
You live out in the boondock’s from Ankorage, Alaska? What other internet services are provided there? Does a DSL or Cable service come out to your igloo there? I highly doubt it. Just something to ponder….
Re: Complaint and response to clearwire
Nice if you to post this on the internet, too bad you didn’t bother to contact me to look into your issues.
I offered to help you work out your issues and instead, you try to make me and Clearwire look stupid.
I take issue with you contacting me and posting my message to you on the internet, but you fail to tell me who you are. Why won’t you be honest and post your real name and phone number here?
I am proud of what I do and I truly am sorry if the service is not what you expected. Regardless, I never lied to you or misrepresented the product. You also had 7 days try the service out and I never heard from you that you were upset.
Please do not post my information on the internet without my permission. I will be looking into this from a legal standpoint.
Howard F.
Re: Re: Complaint and response to clearwire
Hi Howard………ive been signed up for this “Internet” service you call Clearwire for about a year and a half now, and I assure you that your product worked satisfactory…….for 1 MONTH, POSSIBLY LESS! That 7 day free trial is just to sucker you into the full contract, and then poof youre stuck with it and the service becomes SHIT. Im sorry to resort to such crude language to describe your product, but It is truly what i said, and your customer support is a joke.
I speak for the hundreds of other unsatisfied and angry customers that rue the day they ever signed up for this lousy and unreliable service.
(p.s. im not giving you my email or phone number, because as i already said you giving me so called “support” is worthless. already tried it, worthless.
Clearwire a hoax?
May 2006 we signed up at the occasion of an Airline”Companion Ticket” promotion which promised a free airline ticket within the USA. It now turns out that this seems to be a bogus thing: When claiming the ticket, Clearwire simply referred us to another company where either no one can be reached, no one knows anything, or they switch you back and forth until the connection is cut. Asking Clearwire is of no use: They do not feel responsible. Actually, to us this is a scam. Is anyone here who has experience with this Airline ticket promotion? Apart of this, we are totally fed up with the Clearwire Internet service: Connections are unstable and slow. At times, nothing works at all. They charge the same price as true highspeed providers. It is ridiculous. We can’t wait to get back with our previous cable provider.
Re: Clearwire a hoax?
Tell Clearwire all about your experience with their service, I did! Past and present customers.
customertestimonial@clearwire.com
Re: Clearwire a hoax?
A total SCAM….
I have been a reasonably satisfied customer until I tried to redeem my companion tickets… Do not expect to get these tickets without a fight… I am into week two of calling and holding and am looking to end contract soon… any help out there in breaking contract due to promotional hoax?
Getting worse and worse
This is but a brief sample of what we are presently going through:
12/1/06:
No connection possible starting from shortly after 12 AM until midnight.
12/26/06:
Connection speed very low (77kb/sec). Impossible to do picture or ftp-uploads.
12/8/06
Mail to Clearwire through their support Website:
“This is to inform you that we are very dissatisfied with our Clearwire Internet. Frequently, the speed is unacceptably low (less than 500kbit/s), at times, even slower than dial-up, in reality, it is unusable then. Usually on week-ends, performance and signal strength goes down, we get only 2 or 1 lights on the modem).
I just measured the speed (Friday afternoon), I got 403 kbit/s. This is not really the promised “high-speed” internet connection we are paying for. There are days the internet does not work at all (like last Friday Dec. 1 and other previous days). Usually, it is then when we need it the most; in several instances, we had to ask friends who have another ISP to help us out.
Looking on your coverage maps, I found out that we actually live in a spot that is not covered by Clearwire, it is right in between the dark green areas around … and …, so, in reality – acc. to this map – we are not “covered” by the transmitters. This might explain the unacceptably low quality of the service.
Brief: We feel we are paying for a service we actually do not have.”
As usual, no reaction nor response from Clearwire.
12/22/2006
Today – again – extremely low speed. I just measured 77 kilobits (not kilobytes!) per sec. – it is getting worse and worse. This is dial-up phone-modem speed. Obviously, bec. many people were at home during the X-mas brake, Clearwire’s towers were getting crammed. This is really annoying! We are paying for a service we actually do not have.
12/26/2006
yesterday again, nothing but Clearwire Internet connection problems. Right in the middle of upload-procedures, there occurred internet connection interruptions that caused faulty upload results. When pinging servers in the Internet (Clearwire and other servers, DNS etc.), there was no response. We had to re-initiate the upload several times until it was finally possible to get our uploads done. Steady Internet connections for uploads are only possible when running permanent pings to the Clearwire-Gateway and DNS servers, for otherwise, Clearwire will disconnect the connection right in the middle of an operation. All of this is absolutely deplorable and annoying.
1/5/07
Today again: VERY slow speed (less than 100 kilobits/sec.) and frequent interruptions.
Evening: No connection anymore, no ping possible.
1/6/06
Slow speed (94 kbit/s.) Called Clearwire again, talked to a guy. Measured speed: 375 kbit/sec. Locating were we are, the guy admitted we are “at the edge – MAYBE outside – of coverage area.” But he advised us that if we were going to quit the contract, we would be “penalized” ($300 modem fee), although – based on their own “coverage maps”, Clearwire should never have sold us their product, knowing we are not covered. Re-opened a ticket which already was in the system for us from former calls, but which had been closed, although the issue had never been solved. Will contact local office, but told us to call there as well. We informed him we tried to contact someone over there countless times, without result so far.
This was but a brief excerpt of what really is going on. By now, we are convinced this Clearwire thing is a big hoax – getting people into “gag contracts”, then slowly but surely stalling their service while threatening them with an exorbitant quitting fee.
Clearwire is CRAP for all online games
Ive been stuck with clearwire for about a little over a year now, and i regret with my entire soul the day i signed that horrid contract. They make it seem like a good deal, and in retrospect it is, except for the fact the service they provide is AMAZINGLY FREAKINGLY SLOW. I mainly use the internet for online gaming in games such as Battlefield 2, Counter-Strike:Source, and other first person online shooter games. And for the first month or two everything was running perfectly fine, no lag and smooth gameplay. but then….it turned to hell. My ping in Battlefield averaged at about 120 in EVERY SINGLE SERVER, EVEN EMPTY ONES. MY LATENCY IN COUNTER-STRIKE SPIKES UP TO 180 AND STAYS THERE. GAMEPLAY IS SO HORRIBLY LAGGY THAT IT MAKES ME ALMOST NOT WANT TO PLAY ANYMORE.
***DONT EVEN THINK ABOUT SIGNING UP FOR THOSE BLOODSUCKING MONSTERS CALLED CLEARWIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!!***
Why bother writing me?
Chris, and the rest of you attacking me in this forum can get lost. I love how you all email for help to get fodder to complain and then try to attack me here.
Don’t even bother contacting me. If you are unhappy, pay the $180 fee and cancel. I have hundreds of customers that are satisfied with their service. Attacking me is a waste of time, I assure you. I am not an employee of Clearwire and I do not sell the service to gamers.
Find someone else to complain to, and I’d start with the local office or customer service for Clearwire. Unless you bought from me, I can’t help you.
I agree with all you unhappy people out there…clearwire clearly has NOT delivered on it’s speed promises and I have repeatedly called and complained to no avail….they simply flush my dns cache and tell me to call back if it doesn’t improve- which of course it doesn’t!
this is a SHITTY service and I would warn anyone away from it, period.
clearwire works for what it's intended for
I have never heard so many whiners in my life but here in this forum.
I had a week to test my servic e when i bought it and even though I dont’ use it for gaming, where else can you take your internet out of your house for $40 bux a month?
I use it with XBOX live and have never had a problem.
If you are surfing, doing email, downloading patches and other stuff it works great.
Some of their salespeople may be stupid, but they told me not to use it for illegal file sharing (Ie kazaa etc) and high speed gaming and I’ll be fine. You know what? It’s true. It works fine for what it’s intended.
I don’ t need a home phone or cable tv which is what all the other services require. I just use my computer and it’s fine.
GROW UP WHINERS!
Clearwire is absolutely horrible. I have 5 bars and although my bandwidth test says I recieve 1.3mbps, the most data transfer speed I ger when loading webpages is 35kbps. ANd when DLing files from servers I know are 100% capable of transferring at 6MBPS (I know the owners of the servers) even at peak times, I’m still stuck at transferring at 100 kbps at most, depending on if my service feels peppy or not. Yet, on my friends computer, who has cable, is able to DL the same file right after me at 6mbps….all that wireless crap is good for is being able to bring it to a friends house and compare at how crappy the service really is.
Clearwire sucks, my contract is over and I’m switching to optic line as soon as they’re complete with it in my neighborhood….stray clear of this company….
clearwire
I ‘m gettin out while I’m still in my 7 day trial period, works like shit anyway!
so they got you too, lionel……that sucks. WELL MY CONTRACT ENDS IN 2 MONTHS!! yay!!
clearwire
clearwire are such a crappy service that when its bloody raining here in ireland that speed and signal drops then it comes back for a short while. this US service should have never have come to ireland but what would ya expect from a bunch dumb blond american assholes.
hmmm
I was going to say some things here but I have lost all interest in posting anything. I must say that I was quite entertained by Brian and the local sales rep from the wireless store. I agree with Jared being a dumb ass by revealing things like that, even though most of that is not confidential. Believe me I am also a former employee of clearwire, but I would not reveal confidential things in a negative light. I laugh at his stupidity, he’s as bad as “the lead engineer at the NIC” apparently is. i would not know, as I worked at the 24/7 tech support call center, and I do agree that with any support center, they do not all know a lot, but there are a lot who know what they are talking about. Anyways, about Jared, he does not appear to know as much as he says, especially since clearwire runs off of a 2.5Ghz frequency, not 2.6Ghz. I just think it’s funny how right as I pull up the terms and agreements i find in the next post Brian has already done it! anyways yeah I’m not going to try to argue with anyone else as anything or say bad things about clearwire or try to defend it, I just like to say that this has really entertained me.
No problems here.
I ama photographer and Graphic Designer in Amarillo, TX. I regularly upload hundreds of .tif images to my web site for customers to proof. I have no problems with speed or service. I even got a $100.00 Best buy gift card for signing up. While some may have problems, I have not.
I also spend alot of time on youtube, and never have problems loading videos.
Clearwire
I live in a small rural area and had no choice before Clearwire. It was dial-up or nothing and phone lines are not good here.
It is true that Clearwire blocks port 80 but that is not hard to get around. I use Zoneedit for my DNS and I can do port forwarding. When looking at my websites, users never know, nor would they care, that they are not on port 80. I have been able to use Clearwire for everything that I want and am very happy with it. It is so much better than dial-up. I would hate to lose Clearwire.
MurkyWire Because its not clear anymore
I signed up for Clearwire 20 months ago before the Jan 1 2006 port and packet throttling issue I will say before Jan 2006 the service was great, I gamed good pings, P2P had good speeds (and no i dont download illegal crap off it) i use it for game demos that are over 500mb and large updates there is a lot of LEGAL things you can share on P2P!
Then all of a sudden early january 2006 my connections goes to crap my speeds cut in half my P2P is zero, my pings spike to the point you cant even play games.
I would say clearwire is one peg above ISDN (very rare now days) which is one peg over dialup. It is without a doubt slower ping rates then any broadband service I have used.
Now Clearwire is a no other alternative service provider, as in do not waste time with clearwire if DSL or cable is an option and its not like its some highly mobile service anyway you still need a outlet to plug the modem in! I hate thier stupid ads that play on how mobile it is. but I did meet a contractor that loves it since he has a huge truck with 110 volt outlets in it. so for him its great he just needs to be able to check email and send invoices to people.
So what I am getting at after 20 months I have very little good to say about Clearwire. so this is the good stuff clearwire webmail has been a mess and changed twice since i signed up (very annoying) customer service is about as good as a hot poker in the eye. ohh here you go, go to clearwire.com and look for the link that takes you to the webmail! yeah keep looking, yeah its not there. go to any other ISP and its right on the front page!
I do not like giving my money to a company that thinks it okay to do such a drastic change to their service and still want to charge me 180 bucks to cancel. Service was fine when i signed up but it has changed so much that it is NOT CLEAR anymore.
So if you read that whole thing and still are going to get it I can only hope it gets better for you. As i would not recommend this service to my worst enemy.
Inherently Incompatible
In case any of you had managed to get VOIP (Vonage in my case) to work with clearwire, but not very well, here’s the reason. The dirty little secret that everone in the wireless internet community seems to know (at least Clearwire and Xanadoo)is that VOIP and Clearwire are inherently incompatible. Since clearwire is based off of a cell tower, they are using some sort of CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) based technology to transmit data. CDMA means that there is a code indentifying your phone call or in this case internet data attached to every packet sent or received. This means that out of 100 packets, if 5 of them are yours, they might be number 2,12,97,98, and 99. VOIP, like mosst phone service relies on time divided data signals. Data is broken into regulary broadcast packets, and you are always 5th in the queue every time. Clearwire might behave normally at times with VOIP, but watch out, the packets are not sceduled regualrly, so choppy audio is what you get.
On the other hand, considering all limitations, if you are in decent range to the tower and don’t want to use Clearwire for VOIP, then it could meet your needs just fine. I still hate them though.
Customer Testimonial email address
Tell Clearwire all about your experience with their service, I did! Past and present customers.
customertestimonial@clearwire.com
Tired of the run-around
We signed up for Clearwire as soon as it was available in our area, about a year ago. They came to the house, set everything up, we were getting a 5-bar connection – and did for about 6 months.
However, in the past 6 months, the quality of our connection has deteriorated to one bar that is constantly resetting (searching for connection). We can’t even load simple web pages most days.
Every call to Clearwire has been the same. There’s something wrong with our router, or our computer, or where we have the modem placed. After a call, service connection will pick up for a day or two, and then we’re back to square one.
Last night, after getting dropped for the umpteenth time, I called Clearwire and insisted that someone come out to look at our setup – and the tech guy argued with me and tried to talk me out of it! They’re supposed to contact us in a couple of days – we’ll see.
In the meantime, in going back out to Clearwire’s site, it appears that we no longer live in a coverage area. The maps they showed us when setting up the service clearly showed us in their area, but the maps online show us well outside their coverage area. WTH?
Thanks for the vent time!
Re: Tired of the run-around
I also have Clearwire, worked fine the first few months, and now I only have 1 bar which keeps checking for a signal, and only have a signal in one room of my house, when I was told we were right in the middle of the coverage area. My contract isn’t up til next April, so i guess I;m stuck with it til then.
This internet connection is increably laggy, Im covered by 3 towers, according to the sells rep. I asked him when I was purchesing my internet connection, “is there any software that I need to fully unblock all my ports”. He replyed by saying “oh no, this is all hands free and simple I will do that for you”. WTF is that “I’ll do it for you”. He never did anything and I still have blocked ports.
My internet connection doesn’t hold a connection in DX or open GL games. Watching streaming video is hored. The internet HTTP download speeds drops down to 60-70kps when trying to download a file (Didn’t have this issue with my old ISP SBC WICH I LOVED COMAPRED TO THIS,and no I don’t work for them there all a bunch of dumbshits like clearwire, thier product just works). If the file is over 20 megs its stalls and quits loading. Apperently I am stuck in this 2 year contract and this product doesn’t work. I wish there was something I could do about this in taking legal auction.
STAY AWAY FROM CLEARWIRE OR GO TO DIAL-UP AND WTF IS THIS 40 BUCKS FOR 1.8meg connection even if it did work (WICH IT DOESN’T. I WANT TO KILL MYSELF, SERIOULY THOUGHT ABOUT AFTER I TAKE A SLUGE HAMMER TO THE MODEM) THIS WOULD BE A RIP OFF FOR THE PRICE.
Nobody has a good tech support.
CLEARWIRE SUCKS SO BAD!!
Clearwire is garbage
I used to sell Clearwire at the store I used to work at. I was also the FIRST non-employee customer in the area. The service worked fine for the first month and went downhill steadily after that. Gaming was miserable with even MMO servers booting me. File sharing? Forget it. This line has nothing for you if you area power user. NOTHING. Unless you are a mobile tech with an inverter in our car and a laptop hooked up to a clearwire modem, I can see no reason to pay $40 a month for a substandard 1.5m (for a small window between 3am and 5 am IME. The bottom line is that their customer treatment is horrible, I had the head of the local Clearwire store actually tell me to LIE to gamers and say that the latency is fine right after he admitted to me that high latency is one of their most common complaints. They want you as a customer at any cost, they will even lie to you, or ask the people who sell it for them to LIE to you. The last 3 months I had the service I never even bothered to keep the modem plugged in as it was completely useless.
Re: Clearwire is garbage
I signed up last spring. I was told that if I moved out of range, I could show Clearwire a utility bill from my new location and they would let me out of my contract. I recorded the sales conversation with a digital voice recorder. The first month of service was great. Very fast. Now, it’s at a crawl. Certain types of traffic would be faster on a 14.4 modem.
After being put on hold and hungup on several times, I decided to go into the store to try to cancel. I notified the salesperson (Andy) that I was moving out of range and that I had a utility bill from the new location. He said he could do nothing and that Clearwire wouldn’t let me out of the contract. When I told him that the sales person who sold me the service said that I could, he admitted that he knew who I was talking about and that the guy had been fired. I recorded that conversation as well and will be uploading the MP3 shortly for people to hear for themselves.
ClearWire and VOIP
At least in the Seattle area, clearWire is offering Vonage as a bundle. I have Lingo but have not been able to connect. My Lingo works fine on Comcast so I may have to go back to Comcast.
Clearwire is not for everybody nor everything.
I signed up for clearwire in late june…and ever since then gaming has been horribly bad. While clearwire may be reliable for websurfing and maybe even a few audio and video streams, its definately not for everything you can possibly do over the world wide web.
Tech support isnt very reliable, and I cant even host my own server because of blocked ports “briefly” mentioned in the TOS.
But, on a plus side I’m still able to host my own domains and my art portfolios on websites since Im a graphic designer…so at least they’re not totally in the ditch just yet. :3
Clearwire VOIP
I don’t agree with Internet providers shaping its users data but, i have learned clearwire actually offers voip on a seperate frequency to separate it from data. Im not sure if this actually works in reality but the idea is for data and voice to be independent from each other, so for instance a phone call will not use any of your available data bandwidth.
poor, poor performance & nasty company policies
My in house geek roommate already had clear wire and offered to share it with me. I’ve been using it for I don’t know maybe 6 months already.
It’s absolutely terrible. Course being computer illiterate I thought it was my computer, too many windows open, etc.
I called clear wire one day to find out how much it costs, what speed it’s supposed to be and other particulars such as installation, etc. I was horrified. I can’t believe anyone would agree to sign a 2 year contract without any trial period or escape clause – particularly with the high initial cost of installation.
I thought this kind of thing happened initially with the phone/pager companies and that the state attorney generals insisted on 30 day trials and escape clauses!!! Why not for ISP’S?? Then to read that at the end of a contract it AUTOMATICALLY rolls over for another year!!! AND you have to be savvy enough to know you MUST CANCEL TWO MONTHS IN ADVANCE. It sounds like some sort of horror movie based on George Orwell’s book.
The government needs to ban all automatic roll overs, credit card memberships, etc. Everything should be opt-in not opt-out!!!
And while we’re act it – what the hell is going on with all the spam??? Why can’t we just block ANY AND ALL ISP’S THAT have spammers sending out of their domain?? Bet this would stop it immediately.
I’m tired of feeling helpless and impotent in the face of spammers, ISP providers, magazine salesmen, credit card companies etc. What happened to personal integrity??
Clearwire inconsistant
Man this is an eyeopener.Ive had clearwire for 6 mos now.
My signal goes from 3-5 bars and Im in a 3 tower area in Klamath Falls Or. They just got it in last yr. Well I play halo online quit a bit and I’m having serious lag issues.So much so I can hardly play because of the way high ping. I contacted tech like alot of you and theyd say yeah its fine.
Ive diddled with my comp,killed programs that might have caused it,help from experts ect,nothing helps. And now I find its all deception. Well I’m going to dump them in the trash where they belong and go to charter cable,they have issues too but nothing like this. I printed out this whole sting of complaints and I’m going to shove it in the salesmans face. To me this is out and out fraud and there should be a class action suit against them. Please E mail me if there is.
Clearwire: Deceptive Marketing Strategy
Here is my story:
I subscribed to Clearwire service couple months back because I was attracted by their advertisement of the broadband speed they claimed that they can achieve and their always on internet service. But since then I have received email letters of service termination from them complaining that I am over using their internet bandwidth. I spoke to their technical support and they finally told me that they do not expect people to download or upload more than a certain limit that they define. Problem is this limit is not at all stated clearly in their advertisement. They pointed me to the Terms and Contract which I signed, but it came with very vague meaning to me as it does not at all quantify the limit expectation that they defined. Anway, after the 3rd letter of service termination I recevied from them, they actually cancelled my service subscription and charge me $200 for the cancellation fee! The only resolution their tech support is willing to offer is to allow them to gain access to the data into my PC. I think this is a totally non-sense solution and I am not sure what kind of help it can offer to the situation. Obviously, their network infrastructure is not able to provide the amount of data and traffic that they claim in their advertisement, and they expect their customers to reduce their internet usage to meet their limit expectation which is not clearly stated in their contract. It just looks like to me this company is undergoing some deceptive marketing strategy and the little consumers are not at all protected in doing business with them. I am wondering if you people know of any class action law suit is going on against thiscompany, which I can participate as well to share my experience as a victim of them?
Re: Clearwire: Deceptive Marketing Strategy
YES! We need to start holding these people accountable for the crap that they pull on the average person. These people count on us being small and isolated we need to band together and stand up against these greedy execs and show them we’re not to be taken advantage of.
You sign a contract thats says you get the internet at 1.5 mbps at most but never do for some reason (kind of like buying the 100 gig HD and only getting 93.3). its rarely at half that which would be fine but then no p2p are you serious!? I thought I would get the INTERNET! Last I checked p2p is part of the internet.
E-MAIL ME WE’LL TAKE THESE BASTARDS DOWN!
P.S. Don’t take guff from these swine.
maybe thats something to pitch to comcast or dsl. That they don’t block p2p.
Clearwire Legal Action
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
Xbox live lags, but the internet is great
For some reason xbox live lags like no other, but my downloads on my pc are much faster now, at 1.75 mb/s on a 1.5 Megabit connection. I suspect it has something to do with the blocked ports I read about in above posts. I’m gonna call them tomorrow while regretting tossing comcast.
Clearwire for over 2 years now
I’ve had clearwire and am pretty satisfied. I have the black window box. You have to find the best place in the house(s). At one location it works best in the middle of the room (3 lights on top).
Customer service is clueless but they try to help unless you want to cancel etc…then its a long 10 min hold. Must work cause I am still a customer.
Blocking port 80 is a no-brainer as per the contract. To get around other port throttling you have to encrypt the data.
Nice service for the price and mobility. You won’t have any killer downstream and the upstream is noticebly slow. You can still watch a Netflix movie online bit youtube etc seem throttled or the servers are slow themselves.
It has been very reliable.
However consistent connection is not as good as dialup. With dialup and broadband/narrowband you are more firmly connected at the transport level and is noticeable.
Speed is better than dialup generally but can’t compare to a cable/DSL/T1. I would take it anyday over a 256K ISDN line although the upspeed is unpredictable.
Dont give up on wireless
Im planning on rolling out a wimax service in a clearwire service area.And it promises to be all that and then some Im truely sorry to hear my soon to be competition cant get it right. however we have some neat things to offer.Wimax will take us places we only dreamed,speed,low to no latency. However i understand the position on bandwidth.Operators have to buy the bw and it is costley.Clearwire could be spending 30k mo.for it so if your abusing it please try to understand there position.So i must ask dont give up on wireless yet cause Wimax is coming after five years of r&d and tens of billions.Its right i hope. But mean wile i have read all your post and i will listen and hopefully get it right.I will have multy services with most at no cost to consumers.Wimax also has as much as twice the range of comp services.This technology was meant to push the limit and thats just what i plan to do.Some times companies are to large just dont want to listen.When in reality they should.But thats where competition comes in,witch is always good for consumers. keeps the big boys in check.So peeps dont think were going to be the same. I listen and strive to be the best we can be. Thanks KW
Cry Babies
Clearwire does NOT promise 1.5Mpbs download speeds. If anyone bothered to read the contract you digitally sign, you will clearly see that they offer UP TO 1.5Mpbs. No ISP will promise speeds. You may have too much crap loaded in the background, spyware, porn sh!t in the background, etc. No, Clearwire is not for everyone and if you believe everything the sales person tells you without researching it in the first place, then you are the one at fault and not the company.
You have to remember that Clearwire is a startup and still pretty new and they still may be working out all the bugs. Hell, I remember launching the second RR system in the US when working for Time Warner and all the issues we had for the first few years and there are still issues with the service.
There is no perfect service and there never will be. If you have an unlimited amount of money, then go get a wide open fiber connection.
Quit your crying.
Dropped emails
I have been a Clearwire customer for two years. Generally I have been satisfied although I have not really needed to use Clearwire’s customer service. Recently, I have found that I have not been receiving all of my emails from other web sites. These are from multiple domains which if I redirect to my online Yahoo email – all are received properly. I directly use the Clearwire’s email website and so it had nothing to do with my local machine. Yet, after explaining at exhaution, their customer service through multiple people they blame the user and makes the user responsible for their clear defect. There is something wrong with this ISP provider lately. The have issues and are keeping them to themselves. Horrible service response and they don’t listen, particularly when customers are losing important data/emails.
Looking for other ISP options.
Howard Feinstein
Howard Feinstein busts his butt to keep his customers happy. I know because I am one. I’ve been thankful for his efforts. If I had a question or problem I would give him a call and usually get an immediate response. My service has only had one outage in a year because of very high winds we get here in Alaska, 125+ mph gusts. It was out for about 4 hours that one night, nearly expected Dorthy and Toto to fly by. Other than that I get 1.48 mb/s down and 768 up all day long.
I don’t use VOIP, or host a website, or play Counter Strike online so it is perfectly suited for me.
I’ll be renewing my contract because I have gotten good value for my money. If I had dial-up I would be wasting and losing money. My sister and I had 5 machines surfing at top speed with Clearwire over the summer, I was Ebaying stuff for her and she was buying sailboat equipment. The hours we saved was worth every penny.
Please read those contracts people. Do your homework and due diligence. The contract is what matters not what someone says. Simple, If it’s not in writing don’t sign it.
Hope everyone gets their problems solved.
Thanks again Howard for the Wireless Experience!!!
Ed
has gotten better
Been a customer for 3 years. Besides basic web stuff, I host a few sites (not local), and listen to streaming audio often. The speed and reliability has improved this past year, it feels like they upgraded their equipment. However, I also have clearwire email address — which is mostly reliable, but that’s not good enough when it comes to email. I have missed mail, some of it important. There does not seem to be any pattern to when or what mail just doesn’t come though, which is frustrating.
Money wise, clearwire works for me because I don[t want cable TV – which seems to be a requirement to cable internet, and clearwire is more reliable and faster than my local phone company’s land line. I use only a cell phone now, and pay 8 bucks a month for an internet fax number, so I facx via email.
Clearwire obviously bit off more than they can chew
Its quite obvious that Clearwire’s network is maxed out. I’m trying to play on xbox live and its awful unless I’m playing at 1AM when most customers are off to bed. I’ve been screencasting my speedtests on a daily basis for evidence if I need it for court. I can tell you all that I always have a 5 LED light signal. Clearwire tells me I am in close proximity to three towers.
From 5pm-1am I’m plagued by internet speeds ranging from 200-700 KB/s. The majority of the time its 200-400 KB/s (I’m currently suppost to be receiving 2MB/s download speeds). Thats roughly 1/5th to 1/10th of the service I’m paying for. Sound fair? Clearwire support even says that its unacceptable for a customer to not be receiving at least 75% of the service they pay for.
Sound fair?
Clearwire is subpar, not worth it.
I recently moved into an area of the Tricities, WA that didn’t support cable or dsl so I had to bite the bullet and order up clearwire. So far I’ve been rather dissapointed with my near or sometimes sub-56k downloads, and the far below 56k ping times in games (even at 5 bars). We found another local wireless isp through one of our neighbors that delivers a solid 4megs down AND upstream, with a solid 250ms latency in games, no restrictions on video, voip or monthly downloads. Goodbye Clearwire, hello Pocketinet.
No thanks
I don’t game.
I don’t do anything illegal.
I’m in the center of Seattle near a tower.
It doesn’t matter how many bars I have I rarely get over 500kbps download. Can’t watch most basic videos. Can’t even build my WordPress website. $40/ month and it takes an hour to upload a standard photo.
Clearwire sucks, plain and simple. It’s obvious from the majority of negative instances here.
UGH Clearwire is a PAIN
I got it because they schmoozed me into thinking it was all that. HA! I can’t watch my tv shows online, I can’t run my talk radio broadcast, I can’t even do Skype. When I called they claimed “oh it should be ok” but with Charter it works fine.
Unfortunately, they forced me into a contract because I needed it. now I’m stuck.
Blech.
clearwire
Well what can i say i moved back to cali from arizona never heard of clear wire i am a major WoW player always played on Cable Modem moved in with my parents went to play my game and found it very funny watching people on WoW run in place my Latency on Cable Modem was usually around 50-80’s now on this clear wire it’s at 2k to 5k latency on some days we get 4 bars but very rare most of the time its 3 bars or 2 im also a person who likes to surf the web and for me surfing is more like your pulling dead weight i already convinced my parents to change back to cable modem and ill pay the extra cost so who ever is not satisfied just switch back to your dsl or cable internet other than that GooD luck to all and Peace and Hair Grease !!
SuPeRDavE
Clearwire contracts
Clearwire customers be warned-
If you’re hoping to just stick out your service until it ends (like most customers probably do when you’re bound by contract)- don’t just forget about it. Make sure you END the contract within 60 days, or they will simply renew your contract for another 12 months.
Its easy to forget about this when you have a busy schedule, but ensure you do, or you’ll be stuck like chuck, for another full year. I learned this the hard way, unfortunately.
not-wireless, slow as death clearwire
Had clearwire for a year and a half, and have had to call tech service on average once a month to complain about loss of signal, or deadly slow service.
It seems it is always the customers fault that they have not placed the non-wireless(advertised)modem in the (maybe it exists)sweet spot.
My average speeds are 200 kbs down, and 120 kbs up, and well, this is less than a third of the “up to” speeds promised (but never delivered). I even have with speedtest, because it states the average speeds are much greater than have ever been achieved. Routinely I can not even stream music, because of the burps and farts, and lost signal.
The Customer Service and Tech help is a joke, as they repeatedly try to explain to me “How” the internet works, (as if I do not know) and stress that the contract states “speeds up to” and that a tech must be dispatched inside my home to “better place” the modem (good luck with that 4 ft. cord they provided).
Bottom line is> CLEARWIRE SUCKS” and will be going bankrupt soon due to loss of customers, and I will be one of them!
It is a shame that most of the “Positive” posts are obviously contractors/employees of CW, and either have a preferential connection, or have not a clue of what the public uses or expects of their ISP. If your service will not support VIOP, STREAMING AUDIO & VIDEO, P2P, and GAMING,
then it will be left by the wayside of failed business models that were “great>if it had only…”. Those of them that limit bandwidth, lock out ports, restrict service apps, and in general give crappy service, are leaving the door wide open for others to take their customers by the wide bandwidth download.
CW>CRAP PS:
PS: I use YAHOO for my e-mail and it works flawlessly….
MS…Keep your greedy hands off my YAHOO!
Single upstream on Clearwire
Looking for advice here. I have an internet radio talk show that I stream live right now 1 night a week, and do a podcast daily. I’m planning on doing the live show from “out and about” using a Clearwire PCcard on a laptop. In order to stream my live show, I use a company called “Abacast”. Unlike Shoutcasting or other similar streamming apps where the number of simultaneous listeners you can have is defined by the size of your pipe and stream, Abaacast employs a p2p technology with their player to enable an unlimited number or users. What all this means is that when I broadcast my show, I need to only stream a single 96k stream (on whatever port I want) to the Abacast server….and the Abacast server sends it out to the cloud. I was thinking I could use Clearwire for this purpose…i.e. the 96k stream to the Abacast server. This would only happen on Tuesday nights for about 4 hours from a metropolitan area in the middle of where Clearwire says they have strong service. Thoughts?
I have Clearwire and they said it would be great for xbox 360! now it sucks like i lag all the time
The clearwire saga....
We have been with Clearwire through out our entire contract, and from the start it was a hassle, they said we got the first month free then they charged us 47.93 on our credit card two days later. Our speed gets down to 0.13, We get disconnected a lot, it just stops working for no reason, and when call to find out what is up they say “Oh well our system shows no problems in your area” and yet we still sit for ages waiting for it to work again. They have charged our credit card up to 10 times in a day (we use a prepaid so we know exactly how much is coming of)…Honestly, Clearwire is a pain in the rear. Maybe some have better luck though! I hope so.
Worst ISP ever
Clearwire Wireless Broadband ISP is by far the worst ISP I have ever had the misfortune to subscribe to. I never thought I would ever say this again but this service makes me miss dial up. They constantly throttle bandwidth for almost all of my internet activities. God forbid if I wanna upload any file larger than 600M, watch a video, listen to music, use a VoIP program like Skype or TeamSpeak or Ventrillo, play any MMORPG and expect to actually be able to play, check my email, check myspace or any other website not related or contracted to Clearwire. I actually think this service could be used as an effective weapon of war…forget sending in the troops…just send in a Clearwire rep and unload this garbage of an ISP on them…It will drive them to the brinks of insanity the depths of which they can never return or recover. Once I was a normal guy now I’m completely nutts and spend all day talking to the walls because they offer more reliable bandwidth and costumer service than this trash ISP. If you see a Clearwire rep coming for you RUN RUN RUN…would rather have Leather Face watch my children while I go out for drinks with the wife!!!!
BOTTOM LINE: Coverage problems all over Portland and in building. If you can get a connection it is fast.
I was excited to buy Clear to get the WiMax fast internet. I bought everything: the home modem., USB mobile, and Clear Spot (mobile wireless).
When I got home (Lake Oswego near downtown), the Home modem and mobile wireless did not work. The signal was too weak to connect. I called support and they had me check the modem throughout the inside of the house. Nothing. So I got a long extensions cord and checked outside the house in all directions. Nothing.
So I drove around Portland from Tigard to Vancouver on I-5 and also drove east to west. In my car I had the home modem and mobile USB on. I found huge coverage issues. Sometimes from block to block I would lose signal.
Downtown when I was outside, I got coverage. But then I walked into a number of building – no coverage. I need this mobile internet to do presentations. There is no way it is reliable enough – not even close. So I returned everything within 6 days (which was a hassle and required a one hour phone call).
I have to say when I could get a connection it was very fast (6 MB down).
Portland Oregon Poor Coverage
BOTTOM LINE: Coverage problems all over Portland and in building. If you can get a connection it is fast.
I was excited to buy Clear to get the WiMax fast internet. I bought everything: the home modem., USB mobile, and Clear Spot (mobile wireless).
When I got home (Lake Oswego near downtown), the Home modem and mobile wireless did not work. The signal was too weak to connect. I called support and they had me check the modem throughout the inside of the house. Nothing. So I got a long extensions cord and checked outside the house in all directions. Nothing.
So I drove around Portland from Tigard to Vancouver on I-5 and also drove east to west. In my car I had the home modem and mobile USB on. I found huge coverage issues. Sometimes from block to block I would lose signal.
Downtown when I was outside, I got coverage. But then I walked into a number of building – no coverage. I need this mobile internet to do presentations. There is no way it is reliable enough – not even close. So I returned everything within 6 days (which was a hassle and required a one hour phone call).
I have to say when I could get a connection it was very fast (6 MB down).
Re: Portland Oregon Poor Coverage
I hate to pour water on all of the hate posts here but I do have to chirp up. I have used Clearwire for 2.5 years. I am not employed by them, nor have I ever been. I know no one in Clearwire. All I can say is that I am happy. I dumped my landline and use Skype. I have zero problems. I use Skype with web cam. Again, no problems. I am online from 7 am to 10 pm as I run a business that requires me to do so. If Clearwire was a headache, I would have dumped it. I do a lot of building of Drupal web sites. No hassles from Clearwire. I do wish port 80 was open. I do see from using no-ip.com that port 3389 (remote desktop) is open.
On top of it all, I live in a small town of 27,000 people. Go figure.
Poor for my games. Inconsistent Speeds.
Well, I dumped Qwest the other day (really stupid) because they cut off my internet. So I went to my local Best Buy and the sales associate told me about CLEAR. He told me that there was 4g networks where i lived (Boise, ID) and asked me for my address. I told him, and he said i was in luck. I was next to three towers. He told me that i would have EXCELLENT internet. Great for Online Gaming, Downloading Large files, everything! I signed up for the 3Mb/s plan. He told me to try it out for a week, and if i wasn’t satisfied with it, just take it back to them. Well, I got it home, and for the first 3 hrs, IT WAS SUPERB! Playing games with a ping of 20-60. I was in awe. Then, all hell broke loose. My modem only showed me with 2 bars, then 1. Then the unthinkable happened. My internet had stopped working, for about an hour. When it came back up, I started to play some CS:S and CoD4 on the PC. Oh wow, the horror. in CoD4, i was in my friend’s server (he lives like 5 blocks away from me) and my ping was about 560-999 (auto-disconnect) it never went back down to the average 20-60. Then in CS:S my ping stayed at a steady 869 exactly. I then did a speedtest. I had really inconsistent speeds. 10kb/s to 56b/s. WAY lower than what they had advertised to me. Not even half! With a stroke of luck, i had a 1.3Mb/s test, but it turned out it was just a fluke with my internet latency. I will probably be taking this CLEAR WiMax modem back to Best Buy and cancel my plan. I mean, i’m only on the second day of my 1-week trial! Thanks Clearwire, for making EVERYTHING clear. STAY AWAY FROM YOU.
Clearwire is the problem, not so much Wimax
I can’t believe that they are this bad, I bought it about 3 or 4 days ago. I told the person in the mall who worked for clear that I only wanted to use it for xbox live for the most part and from time to time my lap top. I play cod modern warfare II and I have already called the help line and they told me that they were going to fix the problem, it seems that this has been an ongoing issue for quite some time now. I am glad that I have read all of these people’s posts and I am going to refuse the service while I am still within the 7 day trial period. it is true though, I have all 5 green lights lit up on the modem while im trying to play but the game is so laggy that it times me out alot during the match, and then puts me right back in but without my kills. I always have 2 bars for xbox live lol but 5 on the modem…. They told me that it was great for xbox live. and so far it has not been. I guess I will have to return it and go with someone else. sucks because at first all i heard was great things. why dont they just make good service like they advertise?
Glad I read this
Thank god! Any device that keeps YOU off the internet can only be a good thing.
Clearwire
Clearwire IS indeed crooked. I used them for about 3 years and never had any “real” issues. As time went on the service became slower and slower. They DO block ports. I ran nmap to check this. In the beginning they didn’t block many ports at all.
As for getting out of the contract, I did. I called Clearwire to ask what would happen when I cancel my service. I explained that I know my 2-year contract is up. I asked what would happen if I canceled my service, they told me that I would be o.k. because the 2 years were up. When I signed up, there was a 2-year contract which stated that after 2 years I would be on a month to month contract basis, of course at a higher rate. When I called to cancel my service they told me that that everything was o.k., just return the modem and all is well. This did not happen. My bank account was hit with a $180.00 cancellation fee. I immediately called Clearwire CS. I informed the “customer no-service” person that I did not agree to another 2 years. They told me that my original contract stated such. Well I informed them that it DID NOT. I still had the original contract. I informed the CS guy that a contract is between two parties, if either party changes their terms, the contract is void. That is the entire point of any contract! You can’t be obligated to something which is “subject to change” and then be bound to endless changes, otherwise why use a contract in the first place? In other words I DID NOT authorize the a debit withdraw.
After talking with their “customer no-service” people for about 2 hours, I finally got someone who could give me a refund. Then they told me that I HAD TO return the modem through the mail. I was told that I could not return the modem to the local Clearwire store, where I had picked up a replacement modem before, and returned the old one there. I asked them how this made any sense, why can’t I just return it to the store? They told me that they had issues getting the modems returned through the stores. They actually said that they can’t trust the people in the stores to return the modems! So I said, “Why the hell should I trust them with my credit card number then!” I couldn’t believe how ridiculous all of this was!
So I finally convinced the store to take back the modem. They were trying to bill me for another month after I canceled the service. I DIDN’T USE the service after the first time I called them, because I was already using my new ISP. They said that they would charge as long as the modem was not returned. I told them that I was about ready to get a lawyer. My wife’s place of business offers a law service for a monthly fee, we have it. Anyway I told them that they can look at their network and see that my modem has NOT been online since the date where I canceled the service, and that they were NOT going to charge me when I’m NOT on their network!
After all of this I finally got my refund, but they still tried to charge me for that one month of NO SERVICE! Then one year later, I see a Clearwire transaction in my account. I was about to go ape man! Then I see that they refunded me the last $33.20 I was owed.
My suggestion is to stay away from Clearwire. I brought them 4 customers back when they were worthwhile. Now it seems that they are trying to scam everyone. I know that people need to read their contracts, but they tried to change the contract on me in the middle of the game. I only received a refund because I had my original contract, and knew what it stated, otherwise they would have taken me for the $180.00 and the $33.20!
Since, they have changed their service. If you are behind a router you will notice that your connection seems to be inactive. Then when you plug the modem straight into a computer, it will take you to a website which tells you that your contract has ended. Then it lists a bunch of changes in the contract, and requires you to click on the agreement. Just hope your kid doesn’t do it while you’re not at home, because after that, you’re bound to another contract… Ha Ha Ha!
Gaming
I use my connection a lot for games and streaming. I would just like to say that since moving down here from washington (where i used comcast), my internet experience has sucked. I dont see any reliability here, since whenever the wind blows a little bit outside my ping time jumps to a C rating on pingtest.net. This makes my connection rather useless to me. Ive been reading a lot of posts and information about the subject, and the fact that they block whatever they dont like seems wrong to me. Disgusted, Rod
The internet they sell you is NOT the internet you
you should know, most internet providers block servicing ports like 80 unless you subscribe to a business class of service which generaly have higher upload speeds to support such services. you can’t blame a company for your own ignorance.
I have had Clearwire for a little over two years, and by far is it inconsistent. I do some gaming, as well as manage a few small websites, but I have noticed that there are periods I receive little to no service. It’s irritating and too much of a hassle to deal with technical support as they’re highly incompetent, and quite frankly I’m at my end with the service.
As of recent, I get this ‘home.clearwire.com’ crap at night where it interrupts myconnectiom, and I am unable to do much else but shout profanity at this hindrance. If anyone can help with this, I’d appreciate it.
(p.s. I’m on mobile since Clearwire has become a dud to me at the moment.)
I have had Clearwire for a little over two years, and by far is it inconsistent. I do some gaming, as well as manage a few small websites, but I have noticed that there are periods I receive little to no service. It’s irritating and too much of a hassle to deal with technical support as they’re highly incompetent, and quite frankly I’m at my end with the service.
As of recent, I get this ‘home.clearwire.com’ crap at night where it interrupts myconnectiom, and I am unable to do much else but shout profanity at this hindrance. If anyone can help with this, I’d appreciate it.
(p.s. I’m on mobile since Clearwire has become a dud to me at the moment.)
Complaint and response to clearwire
Howard, you’re an idiot.
http://www.clearwiresucks.com