Wireless Internet Reviews
Clearwire Mobile Broadband Wireless Service
Overview
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Founded in October of 2003, Clearwire is a high speed wireless internet company based in Kirkland, Washington. The company currently offers service in 50 markets across the United States and Europe with a current subscriber base of about 350,000.
In January of 2008, Clearwire announced a partnership with search giant Google that would incorporate Google’s applications, including gMail, Google Calendar and Google Talk into Clearwire’s wireless Web platform. Additionally, Sprint owns 51% of the Clearwire company.
Pros: The Clearwire service maximum download speeds are much higher than your typical mobile broadband provider, the pricing for the actual plan is competitive and you can get the activation fee waived by signing onto a contract.
Cons: The Clearwire network is new, so the coverage area is extremely limited. Additionally, we weren’t huge fans of the hefty activation fee without a contract or the extremely high cost and limited choice in PC Cards (there is only one).
- Shop for Clearwire wireless internet plans now
- Visit the official Clearwire wireless internet website
- Write a review
Detailed Provider Information
Plans: Clearwire high speed internet service offers one plans that features wireless high speed internet access that is not restricted to your home and mimics the service capabilities of larger mobile broadband providers. The plan is called PC Card Premium and costs $59.99 per month. This plan offers you unlimited wireless high speed internet on their Clearwire network up to 1.5 megabytes per second download and 256 kilobytes per second upload.
Customer Service: Customer service for Clearwire wireless high speed internet is available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week via online chat at their website. Additionally, customer service is available via a toll free number from 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. PST.
Credit Check: No
Contract: Service is available without a contract, however, the pricing changes and is less expensive the longer you are willing to commit.
Payment Options: Payments can be made online or by telephone by credit card, debit card or electronic funds transfer. Payments can also be pre-authorized to go through automatically via any of those options.
Bandwidth Restrictions: The data transfer speed of the Clearwire connection has a maximum speed of 1.5mbps download and 256kbps upload.
Activation Fee: There is an activation fee of $50.00 ($100 with no contract). The activation is waived, however, when you’re willing to sign up for a two year contract.
Cancellation Fee: The maximum fee for canceling your Clearwire high speed wireless service contract is $220.00. Please note, the cost will go down the further into the two year contract that you cancel your service. Clearwire will credit the $220.00 cancellation fee by $5.00 for each full month of service you’ve received and paid for during the contract period. If you are no longer able to use the service at the address that you originally signed up from you can talk to the customer service and ask about having the cancellation fees waived.
Roaming Charges: The Clearwire high speed wireless internet service will only work on the Clearwire network. There is no way to roam, so therefore there are no roaming charges.
Modems and PC Cards: Clearwire offers two options for PC cards (also known as air card) both of which Clearwire gives you the option to lease for $6.99 per month or buy for a one-time charge of $229.98. If you have your own PC Card that matches the type they support, then you can pay a one time $5.00 fee to use it instead of getting one directly from Clearwire.
Some of the Available Modems and PC Cards are listed below:
Clearwire Motorola PC Card (shown)
Clearwire PC Express Card
Coverage Map: Clearwire PC Card Coverage Map
- Shop for Clearwire wireless internet plans now
- Visit the official Clearwire wireless internet website
- Write a review
{ 21 comments… read them below or add one }
Avoid at all costs. Terrible customer service. Really slow speeds compared to wired DSL. Bandwidth caps on all downloads not just Torrents and P2P stuff. Worst decision I made and now I have to pay to cancel the service. CRAP!
I’d give it ZERO stars if I could. AVOID AT ALL COSTS! There service is ridiculously LAME. I live in Ballard in North Seattle supposedly 6 blocks from a cell tower and I could not get a signal. They pressured me to go somewhere where I could find a signal so I could connent and agree to their terms of service, saying that then magically a signal would appear at my house. What TOTAL FUCKING BULLSHIT! I’ll stick with Sprint. Reliable and effective, even at 3G.
Terrible customer service, liars, no service signal inside bulding had me stand outside in cold for an hour trying to get a signal. STAY AWAY
don’t be fooled by the great marketing. finding a signal, even close to towers is a challange, and their customer service is the worst of any tech company i ever encountered, or not encourtered, as the case may be, since getting anyone to help is a joke. the choice is quite clear to me – do not use clearwire.
This was the worst service I ever had. I lost my phone connections multiple times mid conversation. The internet service went out all the time. I also could not use my phone and wireless at the same time. The phone caused my internet service to stop. When I cancelled and request a refund for the service since it was not reliable, they informed me that they do not provide refunds. I would recommend everyone stay away from this unreliable company.
The term highspeed is a misnomer. I am lucky if I get .75 megabytes. my avg on speedtest.net is .65 mb. Avoid Clearwire. And customer service is set up to discourage you from seeking customer service.
Purchased on the go service from online rep. The modem was shipped to an incorrect address. When I called Clear to politely inquire as to why I hadn’t received the wireless modem, the customer service rep was rude. High expectations ended in disappointment.
I have used clear wire for my home internet and the service was terrible, always disconnected and have to call them (if they are open) to reset it. it was terrible experience and when we wanted to cancel it they charged early termination for the service that they never gave us!!!! do not trust these people! their service is headache!!!
Tried it, too slow, and couldn’t cancel! Tried 3 times during trial period and they wouldn’t cancel, now I’m out almost $100 in monthly and termination fees! Stay away from their TRIAL offer – bad business practices.
Very poor in speed now, even in 4G. It got slow down after 5pm.
Horrible! it was great until 30 days later..wouldn’t connect even though I had an excellent signal! Tech support was horrible..they told me I had to exchange my laptop! I had just bought it a month ago! So after a week of no service and calling every day, I’m fed up! Needless to say I’m going elsewhere! How convenient it stops working after the trial period and after they bill you..hmmm
New customers be warned. Takes forever to get someone on the phone…eating up cell phone minutes and time you could spend doing anything else. I contacted the on-line help but they refer me to internet pay system that does not recognize my password (when I just verified it with customer service). This becomes a frustrating cycle and nothing gets resolved. I tried submitting my request for a call back but the computer does not want to recognize existing customers, just new ones. So don’t get caught in the trap. My service goes out and my roommates get mad at me when the account is 10 days over do. But what can I do if I am unable to contact service?
Absolute crap. Tired of playing Bandwidth games, customer service is abysmal, can coast at 7 mb’s in the morning, yet can barely break .2 mbps in the evening. going either with comcast or qwest. Clearwiere can go down the drain
Clearwire service is awful. I had a problem with Clearwire”s modem. Called the service department. The service rep stated I had an outdated modem and they would ship a part. This would take a week. I cancelled my service and continued being billed. I told my credit card company not to pay their bills and it has taken one month to finally cancel service. While I was with Clearwire I constantly had to move the modem to get reception and when I did get reception it was slow. I know that now because I have switched companies. Stay Clear of Clearwire!
Great service in dallas. super fast, much better and cheaper than dsl. customer service is very nice and efficient…one person can answer EVERY question you have…LOVE IT !
I signed up for Clearwire about two weeks ago. I got a great deal from a very helpful person. My wireless broadband device arrived the next day, too. Then when I when on-line to activate my service found out I HAD to consent to receive telemarketing calls from Clearwire and its “business partners”, waiving my rights under the State do-not-call registry and agreeing to be responsible all charges incurred on my cell phone, in order in order to activate service. I cancelled my service with Clearwire immediately, and all though the people I spoke to were helpful, had to call more than once to get my UPS return label. I don’t know if the service would have been good but I do know how telemarketing calls {and extra cell phone charges} can turn one’s life into a living h*ll.
Clearwire is Horrible. I have aps that i need to run 24/7 and my internet cuts out sometimes 4 times a day or more. Customer support is in another country somewhere and are not helpful at all. They started taking payments automatically from my bank account Without my permission. Steer Clear People.
HOLY COW. Worst experience I have ever had with a company this big.
My first couple months with Clear Home Internet were great. I was getting anywhere between 8 and 14 mbps down and 1 mbps up. About three weeks ago, I started getting intermittent connectivity issues–web pages would not load, they timed out and I had to refresh several times to get them to load successfully. I gave Clear the benefit of the doubt and spent 6 phone calls and over 2 hours on the phone with them. This is where the true nightmare began. First of all, it is almost impossible to understand ANY of the customer service or account reps. It is as though they took all the customer service rejects from other companies, put them shoulder to shoulder in a room, gave them crappy microphones, fed them spoon fulls of sticky peanut butter, and forced them to interact with customers while listening to a recording of cats having sex, turn on full blast. I was told all kinds of stories. They told me my internet connection simply needed to be reset on their end, they told me the towers in my area required repairs, they told me they dispatched a repairman, they told me the towers in my area were almost done being repaired, they told me the repairs were taking longer than normal, they told me their network was being upgraded, they told me there was too many people in my area using YouTube at the same time (no joke). It was a different story every time I called.
When I asked one of them to credit me for the 3 weeks I was hardly able to use my Internet, he refused. That was the last straw. I called to cancel my service and was transfered to an account rep, who offered to cut my bill in half. When I declined the offer, she OUTRIGHT REFUSED TO CANCEL MY HOME INTERNET SERVICE. She gave me some BS excuse about not being able to “future-date” cancellations, which was an absolute lie. She also became snippy and rude when she realized I was not going to budge from my position. I called back a second time and got a different rep. He gave me the same sales pitch–offered me a 50% off discount, offered to “hibernate” my account, and offered to upgrade the speed on my account. He would not take no for an answer. He kept repeating over and over again that too many people in my neighborhood were on YouTube, as if that was enough justification for my crappy connection to keep me as a customer. After 20 minutes on the phone with him, I finally got him to cancel my service.
I will NEVER, NEVER do business with Clear again. You shouldn’t either. Consider yourself warned.
Very bad customer service…. Will not work in certain areas. Do Not get this service if you are not 100% sure that it will work in your area. I got it and it didnt work in my area and they would not refund my $45. they just got paid for nothing. Took advantage of me.. for real!!
EVERY time I contact customer service, they disconnect me or hang up on me. Made an advanced payment and they “have no way” to get me a receipt. I asked if they could just send me an email indicating that I made the payment and the response was, “we do not have access to email”. What kind of INTERNET company doesn’t have email?! What kind of company doesn’t give a receipt when you make a payment?!
The “view recent payments” section does NOT show you recent payments. All it shows you are recent BILLS. There is nowhere on their site where you can view your recent payments. I’ve been with Clear for far too long already and the problems with customer service consistantly are the WORST I’ve evern dealt with. And I thought Wal*Mart was bad… Cancelling service once the “contract” is up. (I never signed a contract or ever agreed to a contract. They found a way to have me in one though) Clear is a SCAM, a joke and a rip-off. Trust the reviews and go with that other company…
I hooked up with clear wireless after being utterly disgusted with cables games and prices. They promised me that I was under a tower so excellent coverage.
That is so far from the mark. Some times the signal is pretty good, most of the time is sucks horribly.
I’ve moved it around, stuck it by a window etc etc, short of putting it on the roof I’m determined that I want to drop kick their modem as far off a cliff as I can, that or take a baseball bat to it.
I’ll be switching to another service. Pure frustration especially if your a gamer or video watcher.
Don’t buy it!