Inconsistent Service – User Submission by Scott Colburn

I’m glad this site exists. It makes me feel better (?) to know that many have experienced the same problems as I.

I was excited about Clearwire’s service when it first became available in Seattle. I liked the idea of wireless service, portability, easy setup and that they were a local (ish) company. I setup my service and used it for about 1 month and then had to go out
of town for 2 months. When I got home, there was a message on my phone that says that I had high bandwidth usage. I probably did have high bandwidth usage because I’m an audio engineer and move files on and off the web for clients all the time.

I tried to check my email and was getting connection speeds of 3k!! I called Tech Support and the guy told me that they clamped my service because of the high bandwidth usage. I was sent to a Level 2 tech support person who reset my modem which unclamped my service.He also explained that 300k DL was what I should set my ftp client for with a 100K upload. I exclaimed, “300K! I’m paying for up to 1.5megs!” he explained that 300k was all I would EVER get even if I went to the higher bandwidth service.

I guess this should have been a red flag that although Clearwire advertises speeds up to 1.5megs that I would only be able to get that kind of speed for short period’s of time.

I set my ftp client for these limits and was frustrated at the speed problems, but it seemed that it was semi stable. About 1 month later I was noticing serious dips in service. Uploads (which is the bulk of work) ranging from as little as 3k to no more than 90k (my set limit). each day was more and more frustrating in that the upload rate would average 20k. I called Tech Support again and we reset the modem which made everything better FOR ONE DAY! Then it was back to 1993 speeds. I called again and we reset it and it worked again, so i asked the guy if I needed to call Clearwire everyday to have my modem reset. He just laughed.

I called the next day and we ran speed tests which yielded a DL of 2megs!!! and UL of 500K. so they said, you are getting better than average service. (how is THAT possible?) I ran speed tests all day and at night, the speed went down to 500k DL and 80k UL. I called about this one too and we ran more speed test and then , finally the tech admitted that there was a problem. So they started Speed Trend report. By the time this speed trend report came back, I had lost 3 says of work and the report said, “everything is fine here”.

So I tried to cancel my account. the account services person said they would have to charge me a cancellation fee since everything checked out OK. I told her that everything did NOT check out OK. I don’t know what the speed Trend report is or what they did because I wasn’t there watching but for all I know, they could have done NOTHING and waited 4 days to tell me. She suggested that they have a technician come to the house to determine why I was getting poor speeds. She even admitted that while we were on the phone she showed a serious drop in service.

I wasn’t ready for the technician to come out as I was leaving town again, so we put it off, but in the mean time I ran more personal speed tests and got wildly different results each time. Sometimes 1 meg DL, sometime 30K, sometimes 500K. it really was all over the map over the course of days.

When I got home, I checked again and everything was still wacky. I just felt that if I had the technician come out, they would come out when everything was running smooth and I’d still have to pay the cancellation fee, so i called Account Services and said, that I didn’t want anyone coming out and that we should just cancel the service.

I know WHY I’m not getting good service. Cell phones don’t work in the house either. I’m not out in the boonies, I’m right in the middle of the city, in the middle of 3 towers, but in order to get more than 2 lights of service, i have to put the modem in a window on the 2nd floor of my house. I’m positive that my house is just in a place that gets poor reception, but MY perception of Clearwire is that they make it appear that they are checking on things but really, they are just running you in a circle trying to wear you down until you relent.

I really wanted this service to run properly. I was super excited about it and when I found that it wasn’t working, I figured out why, but Clearwire wouldn’t have it. The reason I think this is that one conversation with the account services people when they admitted that my connection was low and said, she had never seen it that low before. So the Speed Trend report says my connection is good, account services says it’s not, I can test it with online speed tests and see that it’s not and I had a technician on the phone saying that it’s not. how many more NOT’s do I need to prove that my service is not working.

Unfortunately, in Clearwire’s terms of Service, they never claim ANY responsibility for speed problems. They actually don’t take any responsibility for ANYTHING. It’s written in a very clever way that gets them out of ANY situation that may arise. So I paid the $180 just to not owe them another $680.

I FEEL TOTALLY RIPPED OFF

So I’m doing my part to let other know about this before they get swindled as well.

Scott Colburn