Clearwire, me and the last 3 years – User Submission by Mr. Griffin

After I bumped into some health problems, me and my wife ended up moving in with my parents. They live in a rural area so DSL or cable wasn’t an option. I pretty much live on the internet. It’s how I keep in touch with the people I care about, and I’m an avid gamer. I knew my parents had Clearwire, but when I had tested it a few months before we moved in it seemed pretty decent. How wrong I was. Ping times in the 1-3k range, constant time outs, terrible throughput. All day long the connection was pretty much completely useless. At about 12 midnight it would become mildly useable for the rest of the night, turning back to garbage around 8am.

I almost always had 4 or 5 bars, 3 very infrequently. I called their support, and they made me run their useless gambit of tests (most of which I had already tried before calling.). I’m pretty good with networking and computers in general. My knowledge level was always much higher then anyone I ever talked to at clearwire. So for the next 6 months I called and complained. They always told me that I had a very strong signal, but usually did very little or nothing at all to actually DO anything to try to find out what was wrong with their equipment. They always tried to convince me it was something on my end. Then something really amazing happend. Not once but THREE OR MORE TIMES! The support people at clearwire told me that if I didn’t like I should just FIND ANOTHER PROVIDER! That’s right, their idea of resolving this issue it to tell me, “Tough shit. If I don’t like it then leave!”. The last time a rep told me this I asked to speak to their manager, and they said NO. He told me that a manager would just tell me the same thing. I was dumbfounded. I think this is when I decided I was going to stick this out no matter what. Them telling me to find another provider was absolutely pathetic, evasive and passive agressive to say the LEAST!

Then all of a sudden the suggestions to find another provider stopped, and anytime I mentioned it to anyone at clearwire they denied anyone at clearwire would ever say anything like that. Uh huh. So now they were also calling me a liar. Anyways. Another couple of months goes by, and they try sending me a new modem. They tried to make me send back the original modem, and then pay for the new one. I told them that isn’t happening. We had already paid $75 for the modem we had. We were not sending them back the modem we already paid for. They had to go to all kinds of managers and they all freaked out about this. Apparently untill then no one had ever questioned them on what a scam it was for them to make a customer pay for a modem, then require that modem back if you want another one (that you ALSO HAVE TO PAY FOR) or if you drop the service. I got the new modem for free and sent them back the old one. They actually seemed kind of scared about that whole thing. Maybe it’s illegal for them to do that, I don’t know. But they didn’t do it to me. But I digress.

So the new modem only ever gets 4 bars now, sometimes 3. But still a very strong signal, and they confirm this. It fixes nothing. So after almost 2 years they FINALLY send someone out! Yippie. He comes out here for FIFTEEN MINUTES. Says he can’t replicate the problem and leaves. His only suggestion? Take out the PLASTIC screen in the window that the modem is in. Of course, that does nothing. So back I go to calling clearwire every week to complain. After almost 2 years they at least stopped making me go through all their dumb, “Go power cycle the modem. Ok now go plug directly into it. Ok now purge YOUR SOUL AND PRAY TO THE GODS OF THE INTERNET FOR A GOOD CONNECTION…etc. etc.”.

So one day I actually get a hold of a tech who wants to help. He does some digging around and finds out there is indeed something fishy going on with my connection. He says that there’s 2 radio’s on the tower, and that one is broken. And since it’s broken it’s kicking everyone off onto the good one. But the good one gets overloaded because so many people are on it, so it kicks a bunch of people off onto the bad one. But it’s bad, so it kicks them back to the good one. On and on it goes. He says he talks to the local guys here and they’ll look into it. I’m relieved that this might actually get fixed! A couple months goes by and nothing changes. So I call. They tell me that the work has been done, and that my connection should be fine! I tell them bullshit, nothing has been done. They get all huffy, but I demand they look and tell me exactly what has been done. You know what had been done? NOTHING. They had been sent a report from where I live saying that they had fixed the tower when in fact absolutely nothing had been done. They apologized a lot. So for the next 8 months or so I call constantly, asking for updates on when this will be fixed. They either have no new information, or they tell me that the repair date has been pushed back (the “repair date” got pushed back like 8 times. Keep in mind that all these YEARS that I’ve been dealing with them, I’ve had mostly unuseable service.). So the last two times they told me it was pushed back because they don’t own the tower, and that it need to be built on to in order to support the new equipment they need to put on it and this is the responsibility of the tower owner. They’re just waiting on him. A few more months go by, and I call and get no new info. January of this year I call and they tell me, “The work has been done. There is an obstruction between me and the tower and there is nothing they can do.”. They try very hard to get me to cancel our account. I tell them I don’t want to be without internet, and that there’s some things I want to look into first. This made the guy on the phone VERY nervous.

So the next day I call back, and get this super cool guy. We actually spend most of the time talking about games and stuff that has nothing to do with clearwire. But this guy did something that no other customer support rep. had ever done. He gave me the number to the local office! Every tech I had ever requested this from told me THERE WAS NO LOCAL OFFICE TO CALL, or flat out told me they wouldn’t give me that number. The next day I call the local office, and I get the lead salesman General Manager for all clearwire in Redding, and he told me exactly what I had suspected all along. There hadn’t been any work done EVER on my tower, or any tower at all in the last 3 years! Not only that, he had never heard anything about anything I told him clearwire had told me. So clearwire had spent the last 3 years LYING to me, and stringing me along and wringing our pocketbooks for as long as they could keep up the facade.

The local clearwire guy was really cool, and he came out and tried everything he could to get things working on my end. He replaced our modem (again) and our clearplugs. He also tried every posistion short of on the roof (which I had actually already tried my self). After all that he told me that it clearly wasn’t an issue here, and that he would have one of the tech’s go check out the tower for me. That was a week ago. I haven’t heard from him, but nothing has changed and I’ve had my fill of clearwire. There’s another company out here that provides G4 wimax, and they’re comming out here to set us up within the week. I can hardly wait. Because it’s pretty much too late for clearwire now. After I found out that the last 3 years was them just flat lying to my face, I knew I was done. They truely are a sneaky lying swindling company, and I could never tell anyone enough to stay the hell away from them.

Mr. Griffin

P.S. Here’s a few speed test links just to show you what my usually connection was like. I’ve got tons of these saved.




and here’s one from right now!