Clearwire sucks soooo much I would rather not have Internet than deal with this bull crap Internet!!! I mainly use it for among online and I lag soo badly tht I cnt even play! And now I can’t even find a good game to play without sitting waiting for 20 mins to play a game and strts to lag right away!! All I got to say is never get clear on a scale from 1-10 I giv it maybe .5..!
– Just a followup. By the time I sent you the log from my chat session with a Clear representative and then rechecked my speed ratings on Speedtest.net. I went from .58Mbps up and 1.41Mbps down to (suddenly and miraculously) 6.10Mbps down and 1.39Mbps up. So at some point after my conversation with “Andro” someone, somewhere got a red flag and decided to press the little button to remove my speed cap. Suspicious? Devious? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Chat Transcript
Hello Motley. Please wait while we find a CLEAR specialist to help you.
You are an existing customer with a Tech Support question.
You have been connected to tt_Andro D.
tt_Andro D: Hello, thank you for chatting with Clear. My name is Andro, So I can help, may I please have the 10 digit phone number on the account?
Motley: XXX-XXX-XXXX
tt_Andro D: Thank you for that information. Please give me a minute to pull up your account.
tt_Andro D: If I understand you correctly, your having speed issue, correct?
Motley: I’m having a speed CAP issue. As I’m sure you are aware. I’m aware that your towers are now throttling the download speed of my connection.
tt_Andro D: I see. Let me check that one.
tt_Andro D: Would you please verify the account by telling me, in what city you were born?
Motley: XXXXXXX, XX
tt_Andro D: Thank you very much.
tt_Andro D: Motley, as i check here, Yes, our towers manage the speed on your area if there is high volume of user online and if the system determine a heavy user.
tt_Andro D: As much as i would like to, i cannot change or touch anything on that since that on the system algorithm.
Motley: So Unlimited means Unlimited* (note the star). It’s currently almost 1:30AM in my area. I highly doubt the volume is that great, and I just woke up a few moments ago.
tt_Andro D: Actually, Unlimited mean unlimited data usage. We dont cap the data usage. but we have the authority to limit the speed if your determined a heavy user and impacting other user.
Motley: Tell me this, is there some extra surcharge I can pay to remove the annoying “managed” status on my account and reset my status?
tt_Andro D: I’m sorry but we dont have that features because this system is place to secure our customer to have a great experience using the internet.
Motley: I’m not unaware of your practices. I’ve already done some footwork, and I know about your “traffic-shaping” strategies. However, .58 Mbps download and 1.41Mbps upload is SUCH a disparity that I cry FOUL.
tt_Andro D: Yes, i understand that.
tt_Andro D: However, in our end, we really cant do anything in that. I suggest to check if you have background programs that using internet and terminate them.
Motley: So, what you’re REALLY telling me is that Clearwire doesn’t authorize YOU to do anything about this. Is there a superior that I can speak with that CAN do something about resetting that status? Because clearly, the system is not working correctly at this point. Whether or not I’ve been a heavy user today, this week, or this month.. it’s after 1 in the morning where I am so the traffic volume cannot be that high.
Motley: And Andro.. you’re talking to a “power user”. I know everything that’s currently running on my Linux boxen… and I have no background processes using any bandwidth.
tt_Andro D: I understand that, What i can do here is to refresh your connection, if you still want to talk to our higher level of support, you can call us at 888-888-3113.
tt_Andro D: Oh okay.
Motley: Go ahead and perform a refresh and we’ll see where that gets us. Why not, right? Couldnt hurt. And as for the phone number from your web-site, I was hoping for a little more than that Andro, srsly.
tt_Andro D: Sure, regarding on the phone number, that’s our universal number so when you get a live agent, ask to be transfered to Level 2 technical support.
tt_Andro D: Just reset your connection.
Motley: Ah…. the infamous level 2 tech. This should be a laugh riot. And btw.. my stats now report .60Mbps and 1.30Mbps, just the same as before.
tt_Andro D: Oh i see.
Motley: You have to agree Andro. That’s a pretty underhanded method of customer bandwidth management.
tt_Andro D: Because honestly, we really cant removed that on our end.
Motley: I understood when it was this afternoon before I laid down to rest and I was getting poor speeds. But seriously, now the moon is rising and I definitely am NOT in a Prime Time usage window. So you can see my frustration. 
Motley: Anyway. I’ll give your number a shot, and we’ll see what sort of a fun ride that becomes. Otherwise I guess I’ll just have to wait until the automated system takes me of of “managed” status.
tt_Andro D: Thank you.
tt_Andro D: I apologize for this matter.
tt_Andro D: Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Motley: Not really. But hey, thanks for the sympathy. 
tt_Andro D: You’re welcome Motley.
tt_Andro D: Thank you for chatting with Clear today!
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The service, in terms of bandwidth or speed was never good at all (4G my ass!), but for the last 10 days we’ve had a lot of rain and cloudy weather and the signal is so poor an unreliable, that I’ve been having to reboot my modem at least 6 times a day. And when I do get a connection I only get two bars! I use this connection for work and school (or try to) so it’s really problematic. I went to the equipment dealer that I bought the modem from and he told me to call the main customer service number and ask them to send me a new modem because he suspected mine was an older one and the older ones “aren’t any good”. So I called the customer service number and got what seemed like the same girl with a Kazhakstani accent (swear to god she sounded like a female Borat) and went through the whole routine of rebooting the modem and “refreshing the signal” bullshit. She said she was going to submit a request to see if there was a problem with the tower my signal comes from and then she came back and said her “system was down” and she would “submit the request later”. I then questioned her about getting the newer modem as the dealer had instructed me to, and you guessed it, she told me to see the dealer I bought my current modem from. I then told her (as I already had) that I’d done that and he told me I had to get it from Clear corporate. After a pause she said “Well if you get it from us, you have to send it in to us and we have to check it to see if it’s faulty and it takes about three weeks”. At that point I hung up. I guess my next call will be to the cable company.
Bill S.
I, like many, many others, having serious problems with Clear’s throttling policy. What they advertise as ‘unlimited internet’ is a scheme in two senses: first of all, it’s not really unlimited, it’s ‘fairly fast until you hit the limit’. Once you hit the limit it throttles you to the point that the internet is basically unusable.
What’s worse is that it doesn’t take massive downloading to cripple your internet. Do you watch Netflix several hours a day? Tough luck! Because it’s going to be throttled.
The throttling is egregious and virtually constant. Hulu, Youtube, Netflix almost never play smoothly even though they should be able to. I am not sure whether this is fraud or sheer incompetence. It seems to me it would have made a lot more sense to put the ‘download limit’ lower and the capped speed higher.
I hear they may go bankrupt this year. Let’s hope.
Tiffany in Washington