Clearwire Broadband

mirwillbeback

Anyone know anything about this, sounds great, 30per month, no land line needed.

Is it too good to be true?

MunsterCycling

Indeed it is, port blocking, speed throttling etc...

MC

ambasite

getting wireless modem from them tomorrow, one week trial, not sure if my address in galway is in range of their signal.

Munster Cycling port blocking/speed throttling?? does not sound good...

RangeR

They may not admit that they block or throttle ports but in my extensive testing when I had clearwire and BT, they were doing some real nasty stuff.

Also affects online gaming. World of Warecraft and Steam based games are the ones I know of.

VPN can be bad, VoIP can be quite bad at times.

Mark1

I can agree with IrishTLR VoIP (skype) works only badly you can hear other party but they can't hear you at all most of time or else very garbled. gave up with P2P only way i have found to transfer large files is to up load to a web site. Other softphones seem to be blocked alltogether. We have no land line and limited options of provider.

generalmiaow

My problems with Clearwire:

1. Not responding to emails, and when they do, they just tell you to ring them. And when you ring them, they give you half-baked answers.

2. Not having a set day of the month when they take their direct debit from you.

3. No way of logging in to view your account details online. (how much bandwidth you've used, etc)

4. Unreliable service. No connection roughly 10% of the time.

5. Block ports 2082 and 2095, so if you have a website with squirrelmail or cPanel, you're screwed (like me).

6. Slower than advertised. I'm supposedly on a 2Mb connection, it barely breaks 0.7 Mb most of the time. Sometimes it's slower than dial-up.

7. Block VoIP, including Skype and possibly even voice over MSN messenger, or maybe that's just because they're so slow.

8. Block Peer to Peer, Bittorrent, etc.

9. FTP Traffic is 1/2 the speed of HTTP. Both ways.

10. Online games such as BF2 and Steam games etc, exhibit high pings and occasionally, for weeks on end, cannot connect whatsoever.

Things I like about Clearwire:

RangeR

generalmiaow wrote:

Things I like about Clearwire:

To be fair, you should have put in, "do not need a phone line" as that is a big seller to a lot of people.

generalmiaow

IrishTLR wrote:

To be fair, you should have put in, "do not need a phone line" as that is a big seller to a lot of people.

I agree that it is an (the?) advantage to Clearwire, but it is no longer one of the things that I like about them. We are in fact, having a phone line installed just to get away from them.

generalmiaow

ooh, and add to that the fact that my girlfriend can't access her university webmail, and infact, I can't use any smtp server except mail.clearwire.ie.

Of course I'll be compiling all these complaints to send to them once the contract is up. Who can I send this to in Clearwire to ensure it's read? Would love a full page newspaper ad, but I suppose a letter will do, but of course don't want to send it to someone who will just throw it out without opening it (like their support staff for example)

[edit:] Just realised I'm off on a rant. Sorry thread. My point to the OP was yes, it's too good to be true

ronanp

Its an awful service. Wasn't too bad at the start, was getting connection speeds of about 1.8mb. Nowadays though if you're planning on using it for anything where reliability of connection is an issue (like online poker!) then forget it, quality of service sometimes as low as 1%. No good having a speedy ping reply if yer only getting a reply half the time.

Have been trying to cancel it but support is ****e. Always has been. Have worked on a few helpdesks myself and I know when i'm being fobbed off!

Initially was being told there was ongoing 'upgrade' work that may be causing issues, i'd be phoned back when it was over (never happened).

Another outage "I'll check into that and phone you back in ten minutes" (10 minutes before closing time, funnily enough, and never happened).

They were going to send someone around to see if my signal could be improved, made an appointment. (yeah you guessed it, never happened, and no phone call).

DNS servers stopped working at one stage, was having to use eircoms DNS instead, rang the helpdesk, was told there couldn't be a dns problem or they'd know about it. Cough cough.

Someone from customer services was supposed to ring me back a few days ago when I tried to cancel my account, never happened, my account got charged a couple of days later anyway. Seems the only way to cancel it is by blocking payments through the bank.

Avoid it like the plague.

RangeR

generalmiaow wrote:

ooh, and add to that the fact that my girlfriend can't access her university webmail, and infact, I can't use any smtp server except mail.clearwire.ie.

This is a standard security block with many ISP's. It should not be a problem for most people.

generalmiaow

IrishTLR wrote:

This is a standard security block with many ISP's. It should not be a problem for most people.

I don't know for sure about that... in my experience while it's true that most ISP's will block their own mailserver from outside, and I know they blacklist from inside mailservers that are known open mail relays, most of the ISPs I've dealt with in the past have allowed me to send mail from smtp servers outside their service. Besides, it's not even a consistent block. One day out of five I can use other mailservers (though I'm capped at less than 1KB/sec), the rest I cannot. Sometimes I can use some servers, and not others. There's no sense to it at all. I do agree, however, that it doesn't matter once I can send mail from A server.

However, nowhere did they tell me about the existence of mail.clearwire.ie ... I emailed them asking whether they provided an email service, and they wrote back three weeks later telling me to ring their hotline.

RangeR

generalmiaow wrote:

Besides, it's not even a consistent block. One day out of five I can use other mailservers (though I'm capped at less than 1KB/sec), the rest I cannot. Sometimes I can use some servers, and not others. There's no sense to it at all. I do agree, however, that it doesn't matter once I can send mail from A server.

Didn't everyone know that they do testing on their Network from 9am to 5pm, Monday through Friday. It's a continual testing phase that I don't think will ever end. Clearwire were great before they officially launched their product. I have no time for them anymore.

generalmiaow wrote:

However, nowhere did they tell me about the existence of mail.clearwire.ie ... I emailed them asking whether they provided an email service, and they wrote back three weeks later telling me to ring their hotline.

Classic Clearwire. Gave me a nice Friday Laugh

Eyeofthetiger

Yes it is too good to be true!
Went with them cos of the whole no landline needed thing and the cheap IBB not being available in my area.

Been with them since November and since then the only payment they have managed to process correctly is my first one...somehow someone has managed to take down my credit card number and my bank account details everytime I have given them..which lead to me being charged for 4 month's worth all at once and without any notice.

Was cut off by them for a while in April cos apparently I was uploading too much and the traffic they could see was Skype which I didn't even have on my computer. This went on for 2 weeks with them basically telling me it was all my fault when there was nothing going on my side... they had a record number of connections into my laptop when neither the router nor my laptop were even switched on. took ages to get them to switch it back on again everytime I rang up the guy said he had to wait till the next day to do it...the day he could actually do it I rang and was told he would ring me back straight away and I waited 2 hrs for him then I tried ringing again and got straight through to him..obviously he was too busy to be calling me. And I got charged for these 2 weeks!

All in all a pack of imcompetent lazy people and I will definitely be ending my contract with them when it runs out!

/end rant

mivec

im only finding all this out now its a pity i didnt ask any1 on this site before, im so angry that they have stopped all my p2p connections.... they worked before now its totally stopped.... not impressed

RangeR

mivec wrote:

im only finding all this out now its a pity i didnt ask any1 on this site before, im so angry that they have stopped all my p2p connections.... they worked before now its totally stopped.... not impressed

I'd be very interested in knowing the following...

1. When did you sign up?
2. How long after you signed up did your connection change for the worst?

Clearwire have been blocking / throtteling P2P for about a year now. If you had nothing blocked within your 7 day trial, then "normal stuff" blocked after you were tied to your 12 / 24 month contract, then I'm sure there is some law or regulation against that.

That would be blatent entrapment or whatever you want to call it.

mivec

IrishTLR wrote:

I'd be very interested in knowing the following...

1. When did you sign up?
2. How long after you signed up did your connection change for the worst?

Clearwire have been blocking / throtteling P2P for about a year now. If you had nothing blocked within your 7 day trial, then "normal stuff" blocked after you were tied to your 12 / 24 month contract, then I'm sure there is some law or regulation against that.

That would be blatent entrapment or whatever you want to call it.

signed up bout a month ago, was happy and connecting to p2p without any hassle now i cant get any connect also seems the connection has been slower but cant prove the speed end of things really, u reckon i have a case to pull out of the service?

RangeR

mivec wrote:

signed up bout a month ago, was happy and connecting to p2p without any hassle now i cant get any connect also seems the connection has been slower but cant prove the speed end of things really, u reckon i have a case to pull out of the service?

If you signed up a month ago with everything perfect and things are now bad after you are tied into a contract, I'd say you have a case to do much more than just get out of your contract. Clearwire have been doing these blocks etc for the past year but I could never prove that they were trapping people into contracts by giving perfect service during the trial period, then restricting when you are committed. I've suspected it for a long time but could never prove it.

I'm no expert in the law so I'd advise you to talk to someone who is. This is a very serious charge against Clearwire.

generalmiaow

I would note however, that peer to peer (and even bittorrent) has worked sometimes. Other times I have zero access to these ports. Were it the case that clearwire didn't suddenly block p2p for mivec after his trial ended, but in fact it just stopped working because they're so crap, or they decided to randomly put the block on it again (like they do with 2082 and 2095 every so often), would this still be the same serious charge?

RangeR

generalmiaow wrote:

I would note however, that peer to peer (and even bittorrent) has worked sometimes. Other times I have zero access to these ports. Were it the case that clearwire didn't suddenly block p2p for mivec after his trial ended, but in fact it just stopped working because they're so crap, or they decided to randomly put the block on it again (like they do with 2082 and 2095 every so often), would this still be the same serious charge?

Valid point and the way you put it, would be almost impossible to prove.

Sponge Bob

IrishTLR wrote:

Valid point and the way you put it, would be almost impossible to prove.

I did suggest what could and should be proven and by whom ......here.

If you have proper access in the trial period and are crippled after you sign a contract (which then costs you money to get out of ) that is clearly an "Unfair Contract" and should be void .

If what ye say is true it should be easy to 'prove' , PM each other and agree on a methodology and help the Consumer People I mentioned in that link above to test your theory.

Being allowed to bang away at p2p in a trial and being restricted AFTER the trial is most inconsistent , you should be blocked consistently or not at all. Thast because if p2p is bad sui generis its therefore bad to let trial customers use it to affect the connections of contract customers.

weejimmy

Of course I'll be compiling all these complaints to send to them once the contract is up. Who can I send this to in Clearwire to ensure it's read? Would love a full page newspaper ad, but I suppose a letter will do, but of course don't want to send it to someone who will just throw it out without opening it (like their support staff for example)

Why wait till your contract is up, call them tell them they do not deliver and you will not pay a cancelation fee on this basis. If they say you will have to pay a cancelation fee, threaten them with leagal action and say you will go to the paper.... but say this " put this to your supervisor. I will not pay a cancelation fee, I will take you to court and win also, I will sell my story to a national paper" I assure you this will work it worked for me. I got a call back 10 mins later saying. " ok we will give you your last months money back and you dont have to pay a cancelation fee" I will be taking them to court and will be selling my story to the paper soon. They are missleading and waste your money and time messing about while you talk to some chinese bloke telling you to try turning your virus protection off then this will work, that will work or your fire wall is blocking it, turn that off try this try that.... no way to much time and energy and crap sorry good luck clearwire narrowband!!!!

RangeR

Regardless of this being a long dead thread, Clearwire don't care if you ring up to complain. They are fully aware that their network is in sh!te. It's been sh!te for a while now, and will be sh!te for a while more.

If you read a few threads here talking about Clearwire, you might even notice that they have achived the the high status by being nicknamed .... Clearesh!te.

RobertaBlueEyes

My advice would be to stay clear (if you pardon the pun) of Clearwire! I am experiencing incredibly slow download speeds! Sometimes as low as 13Kb/Sec! Slower than a dial-up connection!
And I'm supposed to be getting 2Mbps!
Clearwires response to all this... there's nothing wrong with their service, the problem lies with my machine, or my network card, or whatever, but basically NOT THEIR PROBLEM!!!!!

Abysmal performance, only matched by their abysmal support!!!!!!!!

Sponge Bob

how many times did they promise to ring YOU back Roberta

Electricsail

Name of guy I got in Clearwire was <removed>, had his email address, but cannot find it. I thought their service was terrible, ended up getting a line in, then used BT for Broadband

foggy_lad

had clearwire for approx 4months and at start the speed was always great around 800-1300kbps then after about 2months this changed and it was awful at peak times and all weekend it was unbearable.

spent the next two months trouble-shooting with customer care who then cancelled my contract as they could not say why my speeds had more than halved after 2months good use.

and yes i also had the ignored emails and the insistance it was my pc and never their service that was at fault, so i would say steer clear of them!

Electricsail

Bad customer service from Clearwire, no response from Customer (don't) Care, find that hard to believe. Have a look at http://www.clearwire.ie/?section=61 Well OK, they didn't win, but they were finalists, probably beaten by Eircom, IBB, SKY and NTl, isn't life a b**ch....

Moriarty

Electricsail: Please read the sticky at the top of this forum. Posting staff members names is strictly against the rules of this forum.

Electricsail

Moriarty wrote: »

Electricsail: Please read the sticky at the top of this forum. Posting staff members names is strictly against the rules of this forum.

Sorry about that, what's a sticky?
I don't know if it makes any difference or not but I was given the staff member's name by the call centre

Neworder79

Clearwire have taken down a mast in the Harolds Cross area for "upgrades". However it's been over 6 days now and I've gone from full 5 bar signal to none. Had their technician out to wander around the house like a water diviner but only get the weakest of signals from other masts, no use.

So sick of calling these people. Can't get a straight answer as to when or if it will be back up. Would happily leave their network only I'm moving in a few months and don't want to start another contract.

debskennedy

USE CLEARWIRE BROADBAND AT YOUR PERIL

I AM EXPECTING DEBT COLLECTORS (INTRUM JUSTICIA) TO ACCESS MY HOME AT ANY MOMENT TO TAKE MY POSSESSIONS IN ORDER TO COVER REFERRED, SUDDEN UNJUSTIFIED INTERNET BILLS FROM CLEARWIRE:(

After requesting termination of service from them due to frustratingly slow connection and download speeds from them and also service charges being increased from agreed 30 euros per month to 40 after the first month and for their modem to be collected from me, I have now received threatening and unjustified charges up to 800 euros for their modem and internet usage.

Do not put yourself through this scam like I did.

CLEARWIRE BROADBAND ARE AN UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY WHO'S ETHOS IS TO CHARGE CUSTOMERS UNJUSTIFIED AND UN-COORDINATED FEES BY WHATEVER MEANS POSSIBLE

DR. Harrison

Watch out for charges being increased ad hoc - I was charged 30 euro as agreed in the package for the 1st month only and then 40 thereafter although direct debits were unpredictable to say the least.

slow connections and downloading speeds meant I requested cancellation and return of modem to the company to no avail.

They are now charging me money I do not owe including 200 euro for the modem and 600 euro for internet use I asked to cancel, through a debt collectors' agency.:(

CLEARWIRE ARE AN UNSCRUPULOUS AND INTIMIDATING COMPANY - USE AT YOUR PERIL

take care, Dr Harrison

dub_commuter

Now is it me, or does it seem that the same person has just posted under two user names?

Funza

I think it is clear from everyones views and experiences here that Clearwire should not be touched. AVOID, AVOID AVOID!!!

Mr. Altitude

Dear mr. Funza, its very obvious you have 2 or 3 accounts and recreated the same comment a few times.
just 1 question, arent you using clearwire to access boards.ie? so they cant be THAT bad! Im a customer and have been for a while now and ive found their service great, I live near dundrum and my speed is very good and when I had a problem, their 3rd line tech person came out to me, on time, and was very friendly, so I dont know hat you are complaining about, obviosly you are hard to please!!

Speaking about hard to please!! hey foggy_lad, hows the porn? or have you cancelled that isp too?? oh and hows the carphone warehouse??

anyways, cya lads!!

Sponge Bob

You could be a pretty pathetic 3rd line supporter back from the febrile field ......reading that last post

Funza

Mr Altitude, in response to your comment; I am only using Clearwire until Eircom come out and install their broadband (even slow speeds are better than having no access to the web), then Clearwire are out of my life! I may have to pay a €200 cancellation fee which is a pain, but in a way worth it if it means never dealing with them again. Read all the other posts on this thread and it should be quite clear that they are useless in the vast majority of these cases. By the way, I have ONE account for this forum so I dont know what you are talking about suggesting that I have 2 or 3 accounts, but will admit that I have left a comment on another thread in a similar discussion (which posted up twice for some reason?!?), this is because I wish to warn those considering having Clearwire installed what they are letting themselves in for from my experiences! I'm confused as to why MY comments in particular seem to have irked you.

jor el

debskennedy wrote: »

I AM EXPECTING DEBT COLLECTORS (INTRUM JUSTICIA) TO ACCESS MY HOME AT ANY MOMENT TO TAKE MY POSSESSIONS IN ORDER TO COVER REFERRED, SUDDEN UNJUSTIFIED INTERNET BILLS FROM CLEARWIRE:(

Debt collectors are not Repo men, they have no right to enter your home nor to reposes items belonging to you.

You do have to be careful when cancelling a contract too. You can't just tell them to take it away and that's that. You need to prove the service doesn't work by logging calls to them and also keep a track of speeds measured on various days and times. You can then request an early termination of the contract. You should put everything in writing to them (not email) and send by registered post. Also, you should have returned the modem too.

You could find that if you didn't follow correct procedure that you are liable for some of the charges that Clearwire are billing you for.

Pacamac

:mad:last year I commuted to Dublin from the UK for a few months, staying in a rented apartment. I needed broadband and there was no telephone line connected. I signed up for Clearwire in the beginning of November, and 3 weeks later my position was made redundant, and I had to return back to the UK. I have since then been trying to cancel my contract but no one can be bothered to even reply to my emails. I had 1 reply last year and was asked to send a letter in writing to the customer services manager, which I did. Guess what not even a reply from him. Waste of space.
I also subscribed to SKY at the same time, and this being a decient company, looked at my circumstances and cancelled my contract with no extra cost at all. They even apologised to me for being made redundant. Now thats customer service.
I am still trying 3 months later to at least get a reply just to let me know they have received my letter. Customer service? they dont have any and it sucks. My only option for contact left to me is via a medium!!!!!!!
Bottom line is, great people in Ireland and Dublin. Loved every moment when I worked there, its just a shame that you have a c..p company like that letting your country down.
You have been warned. :mad:

Hurricane-Dean

I see alot of people are giving out about clearwire, i know my post is a bit late but i have been with clearwire for over 2 years now and if anything i found them to have gotten better. i never have problems with signal and my bill is only €13.50 a month for my loyalty to them,i also received a free router and usb modem. so i would say i am very happy with them.

devnull

Hurricane-Dean wrote: »

I see alot of people are giving out about clearwire, i know my post is a bit late but i have been with clearwire for over 2 years now and if anything i found them to have gotten better. i never have problems with signal and my bill is only €13.50 a month for my loyalty to them,i also received a free router and usb modem. so i would say i am very happy with them.

And you signed up just to make that statement, I'm sorry but when anyone makes a statement like that it just screams shill, especially when it's their one and only post.

Hurricane-Dean

Eh devnul i had a boards account before if you wanna look up "dax07" but had problems with it, big words about my one post from the person with just 14 and no i didnt sign up just to do that, i dont see anything wrong with clearwire and thought i would put my opinion out there.in future dont be jumping to conclusions when you know nothing (similar to youtube comments if anything)

devnull

If thats the case then I apologize. Unfortunately I've seen clearwire shills on other forums that have been banned with very similar posts.

Hurricane-Dean

No problem man,i just figured you were having a go for no reason and as i said i had a previous account and stopped bothering for a while so i wouldnt have seen the fake posts. lets put it behind us

jor el

This is pointless and redundant. There's a midband forum for discussion of Clearwire, but not on a 3 year old thread.