Clearwire

Clearwire is an average internet service. It works pretty good in the daytime, but once it hits 9 PM, it gets very slow. Sometimes, unhooking the modem doesn’t work to get it back up and running again. It does not work at all if you are located a room away from where the modem is located too. Trying to use internet in the back room is impossible. When I had AT&T, the modem was located upstairs, and although it was just as average as Clearwire, at least internet could be used downstairs and in the backyard without any troubles.
Current download speed is 2mbps and upload speed is 0.49 mbps. A little more than that would be nice, especially since we’re now paying $ 45 for it. Clearwire is also under Sprint now, so I’m not entirely sure if that affects the speed or anything. Although, we’re currently looking for other internet providers and unfortunately, SF has such few choices that are affordable and can offer reliable speeds. :\

¾/​13 — tried the Clear in Glen Park, SF. It’s listed as «best» coverage on the Clear map. Received 3 Mbps down and 0.8 Mbps up (my house is set back and surrounded by houses that are more built out/​up — that might affect coverage). Then moved it to Sunnyside and tried at a friend’s over two days. Map shows «best» coverage. Receive 7 Mbps down and 0.67 up.

despite the great customer service and ease of install… the internet speed and service is spotty at best even though my address is considered to be in the heart of the service /​signal area…
Nice to deal with on the phone. they really did try their best but no go.

If I could give this «service» zero stars, I would. Since the first day we got into bed with this company, Clear has pretty much raped us. $ 70 a month for the shittiest internet service I’ve ever had? And I’m including dial-​up modem internet in Naples, Italy, in 1999, as well as in the middle of the Black Rock Desert in Nevada during a fucking whiteout dust storm. Unreliable, inconsistent, slower than cold molasses, speeds NOWEHERE NEAR what we signed up for, and every time I contact customer service, it’s the same bullshit story of «move your hardware», and «we can’t do anything about it».
If you can’t do anything about it, Clear, why the fuck should we keep paying you? You’re utterly useless, incompetent, and dishonest. I don’t know why your company isn’t bankrupt yet, but I sure hope it happens soon so we can get out of this insanely ridiculous contract without having to pay you hundreds of dollars in cancellation and restocking fees.
DO NOT. USE. THIS. COMPANY.
You have been warned.

Almost zero signal in my home address although their coverage map shows deep-​green (extra strong signal) and two towers are near by. The download is slow and the connection is timeout 9 out of 10 times. Upload is terrible and up to 0.03 Mb/​second!!!
Their website advertises satisfaction guarantee but I didn’t notice the fine prints say only for 14 days!!! When I called two days later to cancel, they insist to charge me full month of usage, even including the days before the device arrived my home!!!
After hours on phone with them to troubleshot their connection and fight with the customer service on cancellation, I gave up and took the loss as the lesson.
Terrible technology and negative customer service. Never ever use this company unless you have too much money and time to burn!!!

Horrible — I mean horrible ISP on all counts. Continued to bill and attempt to bill for months after demanding discontinuance of services. The service was abysmal and speaking to support was impossible. Billing straight up lied several times. Contacting the BBB next. Find a 3G or 4G Cell MiFi instead if you need mobile. Use DSL or Cable if you don’t need mobile. This tech is awful.

Service works well for downloading… well, as long as you don’t use it too much! A T-​Mobile hotspot might work better. I recently moved to SF bay area and, before I got a «real» ISP, I tethered my PC through my T-​Mobile 3G… worked great, speed was good, but was limited to 5GB/​mo. So I figured I’d give Clear a shot. Where I live, I get an awesome signal… and when I initially got the 4G modem, speed was great! I could download at 8−10Mbps, however, upstream was horrific. every now and then it would get close to the stated 1.5Mbps, but it mostly sat around 512Kbps.
The worst of it… when I did anything that sucked up a lot of bandwidth, it felt like I got punished! The modem would be blazingly fast for 30 – 60 minutes. then it would drop down to dial-​up like speeds (for about an hour or so). I later learned about their Acceptable Use Policy (
.c…)… so much for «unlimited.» At least T-​Mobile has a clearly defined cap and won’t stop you mid-​use. I am much happier with Comcast High Speed Internet. :)
Given all of the above, I would have given Clearwire 3 stars… sure, they are a WiFi provider, and maintaining QoS across all customers is important. However, the icing on the cake… their customer support!
Their customer support must be mandated to not allow any customers to cancel. So much for a «hassle free» 30 day trial period. I was on the phone for TWO HOURS trying to explain that I was dissatisfied with the service and that I wanted to cancel. I said I was unhappy with bandwidth, that download speed was great, but sometimes it went to crap (because of their policy… which apparently they never read). I was also unhappy with flaky upload speed. They insisted getting me to measure my speed and told me the speed I was getting was the speed I signed up for. I agreed, but still wanted to cancel (obviously, they never read their own ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY) because their service did not fit my use case. They wanted me to run diagnostics on my modem, reboot it, check some settings and parameters… I tried to explain that this service does not fit my needs… again have you read your own USE POLICY!!! After over an hour of telling them I wanted to cancel, they were shocked they could not change my mind and offered me a service discount… which would have been cool and all, but I wanted to use this as my primary ISP, not as a backup (T-​Mobile works great for that)… Then it took another THIRTY MINUTES for them to actually process my return.
To their credit, I did get the return slip from them (as promised) and the actual shipping was smooth (I got the device extremely fast after I ordered it and the return shipping was hassle free). Talking to them on the phone to initiate the cancel. that was MIND NUMBING.
STAY FAR, FAR AWAY!!!

as mentioned by the first two Unilocalers. clearwire lies about the speed of internet and has horrible customer service. im not going to reiterate everything they said but it is dead on. will be dropping them soon and will wait for them to go out of buisness. do not use these guys.

Ordered service and told it would great in my locatin of Redwood City, CA.
Received device, activated fine.
Service was ok, but not promised speeds. Over time (next couple weeks), it became so erratic that I could not even download small webpages at all without timeouts.
Called customer service and spent HOURS on the phone. Their conclusion was that signal quality at my address was not good enough.
Cancelled service 1 month after signing up.
They REFUSED to give me a full refund, and failed to process the return equipment after three calls.
Eventually, I had to call American Express to dispute and get full credit on my account — CLEAR refused to do so.
I spent so many hours with customer support, it is ridiculous.
DO NOT SIGN UP FOR THIS SERVICE — They are theives!!!

I started out with good service in my apartment. I subsequently purchased a townhouse 2 miles away and moved in. The service was utter crap in the new place. According to their «coverage area» map, I should still get service but RF is a tricky animal. Without a clear line of sight to one of their towers, you aren’t going to get good service regardless of what their coverage map says. If there’s a tree or building between your house and the antenna you’re screwed. They have this web-​app on their website which will diagnose your signal strength. So they know whether or not you are getting an adequate signal and you do too. Again it doesn’t matter what their coverage map says; they have a utility which tells them and you exactly how strong the signal it to your house.
So I called to cancel and they are now charging me an early termination fee even though there service isn’t delivering what they claim and they know it. I think this is a perfect basis for a class action lawsuit if any ambulance chasers happen to be reading.
Additionally their customer support is a nightmare. I mean epic fail. I called customer support and I was re-​directed to a woman who literally could not speak English. She was unable to answer any of my questions and I was barely able to make her understand that I wanted to cancel my service. I was promised a confirmation email and of course that never happened. I was then called by them via an automated call to set-​up my payment for the early termination fee. Then they put me on HOLD!!! I’ll be damned if I’ll wait on hold while some lackey grabs a clue as to how they want to take my money for their ridiculous early termination fee. These guys are truly idiots. I’m no fan of Comcast but they look like customer service geniuses compared to the guys at Clearwire.
Honestly this has gotten really funny. I have two friends who are using their service with no problems but after seeing the way you are treated if anything goes sideways; they’re re-​thinking their service. I anticipate that in a very short period of time Clearwire will join the ranks of Comcast and ATT at the very bottom of customer satisfaction surveys.

Worst. Internet. Ever. Just when you think it can’t get any worse than Comcast, it does. When I moved from Seattle to SF bay area, I decided to get on-​the-​go Internet so I could stay connected wherever I went. Huge mistake for several reasons:
–Clearwire put a cap on 3G bandwidth about 6 months into my contract without grandfathering me in to unlimited use, which was only reserved for 4G customers. I was told that it was probable that 4G would come to my area within a year of starting service. That didn’t happen.
–My connection dropped so frequently that I stopped chatting with friends and wouldn’t use Skype.
–Customer service was a joke every time. I called to see what I needed to officially change my name. It took 20 minutes for the rep to put me on hold and eventually tell me that I needed to call back during normal business hours.
While the price is good and the convenience factor is attractive, stay far, far away from this company. The cons outweigh the pros by a landslide.