opinions on clearwire

Sam Vimes

the other clearwire thread seems to be a few months out of date so i thought i'd start a new one. basically i want to know if its any good.

is p2p still blocked?
does that mean skype won't work?
is it very unreliable?
are there any happy customers/are they heavy users?

is it as simple as the american guy with the annoying voice on the radio says it is?

he keeps telling me to have a nice day. will i have one if i sign up to it?

antodeco

Commander Vimes wrote:

the other clearwire thread seems to be a few months out of date so i thought i'd start a new one. basically i want to know if its any good.

is p2p still blocked?
does that mean skype won't work?
is it very unreliable?
are there any happy customers/are they heavy users?

is it as simple as the american guy with the annoying voice on the radio says it is?

he keeps telling me to have a nice day. will i have one if i sign up to it?

p2p is "not supported" which means that if you get it to work, it will run ridiculously slow.
Skype and other voip is dependant on what mast you are on (saturation issues) This is generally the case with all wireless. Was using my mates ripwave for a while, and whilst he cant use voip at all on it, i was able to "use it". Wasnt great, but did the job.
Reliabilty is as above. Some are happy, some arent. hit and miss it seems.
Happy users are generally the people who use it for mail and browsing. "Basic" internet usage. For anything else, depends. Overall if you want to game/file share on it, you wont be happy. But there are people who game on it no problem. Again, this would be a saturation issue. Cant answer the heavy users part!

Hope that helps

Floodzie

Commander Vimes wrote:

the other clearwire thread seems to be a few months out of date so i thought i'd start a new one. basically i want to know if its any good.

is p2p still blocked?
does that mean skype won't work?
is it very unreliable?
are there any happy customers/are they heavy users?

is it as simple as the american guy with the annoying voice on the radio says it is?

he keeps telling me to have a nice day. will i have one if i sign up to it?

I've been using CW for about a year now... As I said on another thread they are the worst company I have ever dealt with in any capacity.

Service is dreadful (even though I have 5 lights - the max - on the box). Quality goes up and down (if you check packet loss, you'll see it's pretty bad).

Basically CW technolgy was designed for simpler times, when most people weren't using the net for games, P2P, streaming video/audio, downloads, graphic intensive sites (ie Google Maps) - basically the cool stuff that most users want to use. Try watching anything from Google Video and you'll see what I mean.

I was in a friend's house last night and even though his Smart Telecom line is the same speed as my CW line (2 megs), his was running the way I wish mine was! No problems viewing streaming media etc, alll loaded up nice and fast and played with no interruptions.

I've heard of people having trouble getting signed up to Smart (bad customer service) but once it's up and running you seem to get your money's worth. The only problem is that you need a phone line.

Speaking of customer service... where do I begin?? With CW you either spend months (4 months in my case) trying to get through to no avail or when you do, they call you back about 5 times in 2 days, each time the support person has no idea that CW had called you previously or is talking cr@p (basically they are fobbing you off, but trying to sound like they are doing something).

They know they have bad technology, have no way of providing the service you are paying for, and so employ a bunch of 'support' people to pass excuses to the customers (all the while the money is rolling in).

For example:

Popular lie #1 from CW:
"the site you are connecting to is slow". I checked it against a friend's Smart line. Guess what - it worked fine for him. Same area (same building, in fact) and most importantly same contention ratio.

#2:
"your computer is the problem". I am a software consultant, specializing in networking. I assure you, my PC is not the problem. Just to be sure, I checked the line with a friend's laptop. Still a problem.

#3:
"We'll send you a new modem which should fix the problem". No luck there either. Streaming media downloads are still the exact same start/stop affair.

#4: (Their most famous one, other CW customers I know have a good laugh about this one)
"We'll look into it and call you on <insert date here>"
Don't even bother cancelling work/holidays waiting. They usually won't call, and if they do... they won't be ANY use.

#5:
"We don't throttle P2P". They do. They Throttle P2P.

#6:
"We don't support P2P". I know, some 'support' people will say P2P is fine (see #5) but not to have too many connections open, others will say it runs slow, and other will threaten you with a clause in your contract saying that you can't use your PC as a server (as an expert in client/server systems, I'd like to see them even try to define client/server comms. in court, especially with regard to P2P).

Oh, and Skype with CW is hideous, too.

They will offer you a 1 month 'evaluation' period. After you have signed up for a year though, you get the same sh1tty service as the rest of us suckers.

CW are laughing all the way to bank and should be prevented from trading. I'm not sure what the governement can do (not enough, obviously as CW still trade) but what Clearwire customers SHOULD do (and what I try and do) is to go up to the sales stands they have in shopping centres etc, and describe your experiences to any potential customers that the CW salesperson is talking to. A most enjoyable way to spend an hour or so after you've been given the runaround by CW for a year.

Save yourself the hassle and avoid CW at all costs!!! I will be calling into my local TD soon to try to get help getting this sorted, believe it or not.

carrotcake

that's a pretty damning report, i must say!

Sam Vimes

right so, i have the bad experiences. any good ones?

geecee

I think you willl find it very hard to see anybody posting good experiences about clearwire!
Except People like someones Mum who just wants to book flights on ryanair every now and then.
Or people or absolutely Loathe eircom so much that they refuse to have any eircom copper (for a phone line and DSL connection)near their premises!

At at €50 PM after the initial promotion... Its a complete rip off!

caff

clearwire for me has being nothing but trouble, in maynooth and soon switching to digiweb metro when it rolls out in decemeber

problems so far were that initially when signing up they doubled the speed for the first six months, at the end of which we dropped down to the original speed. but instead of dropping us down to one meg from 2 they dropped us to 28kb.... when we called to sort this out they claimed that becasue fot he software they used they would not be able to update out account to put it to 1meg till the months end. so stuck at 28kb for 3 weeks....

DamoVOTF

There is NO good side to Clearwire.

Unless you are glutten for pain and large phone bills to their support.

And yes I am still with clearwire. 6 months till I move out and I cant wait.

Moe Lester

i played gmaes on it for awhile and even when i went over the limit it would still play fine no lag at all.

but that only lasted about a month or so

then it was so bad that i could even join a gae half the time.

my opinion if you get it you will be handing them money for a service that is worse then dial and not only that if you have any problems dont expect to get any help.

Floodzie

Commander Vimes wrote:

right so, i have the bad experiences. any good ones?

I suppose the only good side to Clearwire is that you get connected straight away.

It's not worth it.

Hang on for Esat BT, Smart or whoever else. Yeah, they take AGES to hook you up because they have to wait on Eircom to unbundle your phone line - ie separate your service into line rental, local calls, long distance calls and broadband, so that a different company can try to offer you a better deal on some or all of these services. Understandably Eircom are not going to do this quickly as they are helping themselves lose customers. There is also no legal obligation on them splitting your phone bill in a reasonably fast time, or even at all. So expect to wait.

But a wait of 2-3 months is still a LOT better than dealing with Clearwire and their customer disservice line.

CW are a bunch of cowboys out to screw people into signing up for a year and handing over a large amount of dosh, for a service they can't provide to even 10% of their customers. People are catching on and CW will (eventually) be kicked out of Ireland. The w*nkers who run that company don't care, because by then they will have already milked a bunch of gullible Paddies (myself included) out of their hard-earned cash. They'll also be out of Irish jurisdiction so it's going to be VERY difficult for the government/regulator/whoever to catch them and get our money back.

If CW were as good as they pretend to be, no-one would have fixed-line broadband.

ZygOte

nail on the head

i wonder if the ppl at commreg or ireland offline have any sway over them?

Floodzie wrote:

I've been using CW for about a year now... As I said on another thread they are the worst company I have ever dealt with in any capacity.

Service is dreadful (even though I have 5 lights - the max - on the box). Quality goes up and down (if you check packet loss, you'll see it's pretty bad).

Basically CW technolgy was designed for simpler times, when most people weren't using the net for games, P2P, streaming video/audio, downloads, graphic intensive sites (ie Google Maps) - basically the cool stuff that most users want to use. Try watching anything from Google Video and you'll see what I mean.

I was in a friend's house last night and even though his Smart Telecom line is the same speed as my CW line (2 megs), his was running the way I wish mine was! No problems viewing streaming media etc, alll loaded up nice and fast and played with no interruptions.

I've heard of people having trouble getting signed up to Smart (bad customer service) but once it's up and running you seem to get your money's worth. The only problem is that you need a phone line.

Speaking of customer service... where do I begin?? With CW you either spend months (4 months in my case) trying to get through to no avail or when you do, they call you back about 5 times in 2 days, each time the support person has no idea that CW had called you previously or is talking cr@p (basically they are fobbing you off, but trying to sound like they are doing something).

They know they have bad technology, have no way of providing the service you are paying for, and so employ a bunch of 'support' people to pass excuses to the customers (all the while the money is rolling in).

For example:

Popular lie #1 from CW:
"the site you are connecting to is slow". I checked it against a friend's Smart line. Guess what - it worked fine for him. Same area (same building, in fact) and most importantly same contention ratio.

#2:
"your computer is the problem". I am a software consultant, specializing in networking. I assure you, my PC is not the problem. Just to be sure, I checked the line with a friend's laptop. Still a problem.

#3:
"We'll send you a new modem which should fix the problem". No luck there either. Streaming media downloads are still the exact same start/stop affair.

#4: (Their most famous one, other CW customers I know have a good laugh about this one)
"We'll look into it and call you on <insert date here>"
Don't even bother cancelling work/holidays waiting. They usually won't call, and if they do... they won't be ANY use.

#5:
"We don't throttle P2P". They do. They Throttle P2P.

#6:
"We don't support P2P". I know, some 'support' people will say P2P is fine (see #5) but not to have too many connections open, others will say it runs slow, and other will threaten you with a clause in your contract saying that you can't use your PC as a server (as an expert in client/server systems, I'd like to see them even try to define client/server comms. in court, especially with regard to P2P).

Oh, and Skype with CW is hideous, too.

They will offer you a 1 month 'evaluation' period. After you have signed up for a year though, you get the same sh1tty service as the rest of us suckers.

CW are laughing all the way to bank and should be prevented from trading. I'm not sure what the governement can do (not enough, obviously as CW still trade) but what Clearwire customers SHOULD do (and what I try and do) is to go up to the sales stands they have in shopping centres etc, and describe your experiences to any potential customers that the CW salesperson is talking to. A most enjoyable way to spend an hour or so after you've been given the runaround by CW for a year.

Save yourself the hassle and avoid CW at all costs!!! I will be calling into my local TD soon to try to get help getting this sorted, believe it or not.

stepbar

Clearsh1te..... €39.95 for a 1mb line that resembles Dial-up on steroids.... what a load of me bollox.

musiknonstop

I would not recommend Clearwire to anyone, especially considering how expensive and unreliable it is.

I have just come out of a 1 hour plus outtage that now seem to happening on a daily basis. (2 times yesterday)

Has anyone else experienced this problem? The modem lights blinked constantly from about 21:15 to 22:30 tonight, no service. I'm in Blackrock.

daithimac

OH CRAP!
I just signed up to them today
we had an outage today but i just thought that was because we are on the out skirts of carlow town.
I knew they were going to be bad regards video streaming but should I expect worse as things go on.
are there any more carlow users on this thread

RangeR

daithimac wrote:

OH CRAP!
I just signed up to them today
we had an outage today but i just thought that was because we are on the out skirts of carlow town.
I knew they were going to be bad regards video streaming but should I expect worse as things go on.
are there any more carlow users on this thread

You have 7 days to cancel. Do it now. A family member in Ballylinen just got Digiweb weireless in [not metro]. You might be able to get the same. Maybe even DSL if you have phone line.

Digiweb is better than Clearwire.

trojaneater1

Heavy user living in finglas. Signed up last month. Worst service i have ever come across. Cancelling dd tomorrow... let them sing for it!!!!!! I wouldn't take their service for free.!!!!! Btw . Dialup is actually more reliable and faster at times................

Keep away at all costs...........
Troj;)

sisyphus

Rather a hefty write-up Floodzie, but you've just about summed up the exact same problems as I had with them for almost a year (Had no other alternatives available at the time).

Biggest shower of muppets I've ever had to deal with (And believe me, I've dealt with quite a few in my time!). Terrible network service, terrible customer service, and terrible product. The best move I ever did was to send it back to them (And even that was an ordeal. I had to drop it to their office beside Leopardstown - Which they don't even have a sign on. It's inside of a software company's building, with no reference to Clearwire anywhere!!). I've since gotten an IBB Breeze connection installed, and have never been happier. Excellent service.

What really grinds my gears though is how well they're doing. This time last year apparently, they had less than 5k customers. Now, they have almost 15k, and growing (So I hear anyways. If someone has more accurate stats, I'd be interested to know), and on top of that, there's speculation of them buying out IBB (Jesus, I hope not!!). It's a bloody shame to see so many customers being sucked in by them, and getting screwed left, right and centre along the way.

To echo the sentiments of others in this thread. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM CLEARWIRE!!!

daithimac

Goog god
Has anyone had a good experiance with them

RangeR

I have my suspicions about that. I used to be a customer of theirs last year.

I'd be interested to know of anyone who fits the profile below.

1. You signed up to Clearwire within the last 6 months
2. During your trial phase [is it 7 days or 1 month? Not sure] everything was fine. Speed was grand and everything worked.
3. After your trial ended and you were locked into the 12 or 24 month contract, your connection started to go downhill.

I have heard too many stories for this to be co-incidence. I just had no proof around the time I was connected to them.

Nalz

stepbar wrote:

Clearsh1te..... €39.95 for a 1mb line that resembles Dial-up on steroids.... what a load of me bollox.

that is offically the best way to describe clearwire. I take my hat off well done

sleur

yeah, same experience as everyone else here. had to get clearwire last month due to DSL in my building going dead.

have full 5 lights of reception, absolute **** speeds. the funny thing is that irishisptest.com shows well over the 2mb service i should have, however, try to download anything, you'll get 10kb max. they've bandwidth throttled everysingle site except the irishisptest i rekon. these ****ers should be done for.