Clearwire in Bellingham
August 24th, 2009 | by Tim |Hey – just found your site this morning.
We recently upgraded to WiMax, we were one of the first, did it in late June 2009.
We actually saw an improvement in our connection, going from 1-2 bands to 3 (out of 5), but pretty darned good…for a while…
One week ago Sunday, the modem lost its connection.
On Monday the 17th, I called Clearwire and their first tier support only had me reboot the modem. I told them that it seemed like the issue was most likely at the tower, but they said they checked the tower and it seemed OK.
Huh. So nothing happened, they couldn’t fix the issue, and that was that. ???
By Monday evening, hours later, somehow the modem was able to connect again, and we had three bands.
OK for the rest of the week until Thursday evening, when it went down to one band, and then lost its connection.
We noticed the modem was roaming, with the lights going from right to left over and over. We rebooted the modem, etc, to no avail.
Friday morning we called again, and once again they had us go through the routine of rebooting, etc, to no avail.
They once again checked the tower and found nothing.
Thing is, this time we were not able to get back on. In fact, as of this writing, Monday morning the 24th of August, we are still down.
So we have been without internet since Thursday evening, and we are getting a little, how can you say, “miffed”.
Also – we are not the only ones suffering. Our neighbors (two other neighbors we know of in the Columbia Neighborhood) are also down. Exact same schedule as ours. Once last Sunday and Thursday night on to today.
What to do?!? We all would hate to come crawling back to Comcast, that’s for sure. And the idea of DSL with Qwest makes us all shudder…
Jason
Bellingham
10 Responses to “Clearwire in Bellingham”
By Jason on Aug 24, 2009 | Reply
UPDATE: We worked with Clearwire reps on the tower issue, and they still had us reboot the modem, etc, wasting time, and finally admitted that they were having a lot of calls in Bellingham about a connectivity and tower issue they were having. (so why waste time with the modem?)
They said they’d have a tech out to the tower in 24-48 hours!! Two more days to wait?!?
By Levi Jacob Bailey on Aug 25, 2009 | Reply
Just wanted to let you know that I have a friend in Bellingham (I’m in Michigan), and we’ve been trying to talk on Skype to save him some cellphone minutes. He’s housesitting for a friend, who is a Clearwire subscriber. Long story short, his internet connection was lost while we were talking, so I called him on the cellphone. While he was describing the problems he’s been having, I Googled Clearwire, quickly found this site, and was surprised to read your post, which mirrors, nearly to the slightest detail, the exact issues he’s having. I began reading him the post, and he became so disturbed that he told me he’d call me back, because he felt the need to call his friend and tell her she needs to drop Clearwire.
The part you wrote about “We noticed the modem was roaming, with the lights going from right to left over and over. We rebooted the modem, etc, to no avail…” was extra funny/disturbing, since my friend had described that EXACT thing, the lights racing back and forth, not five minutes before I read him this post.
I’m sure glad I don’t have Clearwire.
By Kathy on Aug 25, 2009 | Reply
Wow, same problem and same time frame in Bellingham, I am in the Cornwall Park neighborhood. I have it in my home and it is my home phone as well. This has been going on since last Thursday, what a nightmare. They made me do the dance around the house taking the modem to each room to find the conneciton, not working,same story, no problem has been reported about the tower. I kept saying it has to be the tower, they wanted to know what room , what window. So I thought I would take my modem to work, I have Clearwire there and it is the Columbia neighbood. I had nothing but scanning going on couldn’t test my modem. Over an hour on the phone, forget the fact I am at work and have business to attend to they wanted me to unplug the modem and take it all over the building…..I kept saying it is not the modem, I have two here. It is the tower. I came home to a nice suprise, 4 lights, it worked and was working in the office. only for about 5 hours. this sucks. Talked to my neighbor, she was having the same problem. She took her modem to the clearwire store to have it tested. no one wants comcast too expensive, If you know someone with clearwire. and they are having a problem. Please have them call in and report it. I had my WIMax since October, I was one of the selected ones to test…. It was great, until they ship out to everyone. What can we do? Who regulates them? We are not getting the service that we are paying for.
By Jason on Aug 26, 2009 | Reply
UPDATE II: Yesterday, Tuesday the 25th of August 2009, we were still down, but sometimes we’d all of a sudden see three bands. But we couldn’t get any pages to come up (for example, Google.com). Like it connected, but couldn’t move data.
This morning, Wednesday the 26th, we had three bands and were able to surf the internet. Clearwire support only said to call them back if we continued to have issues. So we don’t know what happened, other than they sent someone to the tower to “check on things”. I will report back here if we’re still on or whether we are still roaming, searching for the elusive internets in the etherspace.
By Curtis on Aug 26, 2009 | Reply
We signed up with Clearwire i March of 2008 and were very happy with the sevice, then we were “upgraded” to WiMax about 3 weeks ago. Well things have not been so sweet since then, it is faster when it gets a signal, however approximately 50% of the time it is searching for a signal. When I call the tech line they have me reboot the modem, when that don’t help the want me to try moving the modem around to other rooms in the house. When that don’t help they say they can send a tech out, but it will be about three weeks before one can be scheduled. It didn’t sound like the tech could do much but try moving the modem around either. Sounds like Clear got too big too fast. Meanwhile I feel like we are getting ripped off. We are paying for 24/7 service, not occasional service.
Guess I better option for internet service.
By Jason on Aug 27, 2009 | Reply
Last UPDATE: The tower techs got us back on the internet, we were online the whole day on Wednesday the 26th, 2-3 bands at best. We never get 4 or heaven-forbid-5 bands.
Sum total of being down: 5 whole days, plus the previous Sunday evening, so between 5-6 days total.
That is simply unacceptable. A tower goes down, and they should be on it like flies on Sh…asta Cola that very same day. We had to nag and nag in order to get them to check the tower. Checking from first tier support was not good enough, and was ineffective – first tier support merely said the tower was OK, when it wasn’t. Clearwire needs to fix this piece of the puzzle, or else they are going to really take it.
By Drew Darion on Aug 28, 2009 | Reply
Clear is launching in Philadelphia on October 1st and i was approached about subscribing to the service. I decided to do some research online and I cant believe this sales rep made it seem like the second coming of christ. I was under the impression there is no contract and therefore can cancel anytime without a cancellation fee. Is this a lie also? I now have comcast and often have poor service, do you think the area you live in has to do with the poor service of clearwire. Thanks for the advice.
By JFinger on Oct 5, 2009 | Reply
Area is key to everything in Clearwire (now called “Clear”. Take Bellingham this past weekend. In the Sunnyland neighborhood a tree fell down during high winds this past weekend – fell right smack into a main power line taking down a handful of transformers. Not only did the tree catch on fire, but 4800+ customers were without power for about nine hours. But when the power came back on, our Clearwire service acted like it did back in August (read above). All day yesterday, Sunday, no service. Today, Monday, it better be back up and running. Furthermore, I was with a group of parents in the Columbia neighborhood on Sunday and most have left Clearwire due to poor service. It’s either Comcast or Qwest DSL silver. I just wish Clearwire would act quicker when these events take place.
By Lisa on Oct 6, 2009 | Reply
I have had Clearwire now for about 5 years..and have had intermittent problems for every single one of them. I live in Ferndale and woke up this morning to those wonderful flashing lights on my Clearwire modem. I called Customer Service and was given the same old song and dance…unplug wait 10 seconds….twice! I was told that there was a problem at the tower in Ferndale and that it should be up and running in 2 to 4 hours…um, it’s been 7 hours. I am so sick of this…
By Lisa on Oct 7, 2009 | Reply
Hmmmm….got up this morning, still not online……..called them this afternoon and was told that my modem is not in service anymore because of the new WimMax service. Why could they have not told me that yesterday? I didn’t even get a warning call.