Clearwire - Compliments thread

RangeR

Hi all,

As some of you may know, I've been through the mill with various ISP's over the last year or two and have finally settled on, what I think, is the best ISP so far. I've read [contributed and sometimes started] sooo many threads complaining about internet providers that I just want to give a little biit of the good stuff back to one in particular.

Clearwire. Naas High Site.

I was VERY apprehensive about Clearwire well before I joined up with them as I had massive problems with another wireless provider. I talked to Clearwire one day and told them of my previous problems. They said that they have been watching the market and are not making the same mistakes as other ISP's. To be honest I took that with a pinch of salt to be a sales pitch. But I gave them the benifit.

The next day, two of their guys came out to install the equipment, which was only a small black box "non line of sight radio modem". Considering that I have a huge amount of houses directly between me and the highsite, I'm amazed it works better than my DSL line. Anyway, it took all of two minutes to set up and was easier than setting up DSL, which isn't too difficult either.

There have been a couple of tiny issues over the past month or two but I let these go as they WERE tiny issues and they were still in a testing phase.

It's not for everyone though.
======================
* You have to be within their catchment area.
* They DO NOT offer static IP addresses at the moment. However they do have a workaround if you REALLY need them.
* Their highest upload speed is 256K but they have plans to implement 512K upload but no date confirmed. Probably wont be this year. I was soo tempted to get two of their boxes but I have to wait until my DSL contract runs out.
* Their modem is effectively a DHCP server. This is not quite true but in simple terms it has the same effect. If you have a DHCP Server router you may need to talk to Clearwire support about it, as conflicts may occur. I got around my problem by talking to them.

In summary, every time I have had to deal with their support team [about 3 times in 2 months [this is nothing compared to other ISP's, and more often than not it was just me giving them information to complete their trials faster ]], they have been helpful almost beyond their job description. I can't praise them enough. I even had their head of networks guy [I think] ring me one day for about 20 minutes, out of the blue, just to talk about my requirements. How cool is that? I'm sure that this kind of support can only be given while they have a small customer base but it was greatall the same.

All the above is MY experience. I am aware that others may not have had as good a time with them as I did.

Try to keep this thread about good experiences with Clearwire. We have enough threads to add the bad stuff to.

eth0_

Have you noticed their pricing on their website?

512Kb/s broadband with 128Kbps upload, 8GB cap...€37.50 EX VAT!!!

1Mb/256 with no cap is €45 EX VAT!

Those are absolutely ridiculous prices, how can they expect to get customers with prices that high? 512Kbps broadband is pretty much obsolete in this country now too.

Having said that, their service and support is great.

But I signed up to pay 39.99 inc vat a month for a 1Mb product - where do I stand?

LegacyUser

eth0_ wrote:

1Mb/256 with no cap is €45 EX VAT!

Those are absolutely ridiculous prices, how can they expect to get customers with prices that high?

I would be perfectly willing to pay that amount. All I want is a service that is reliable. I currently pay IBB 48 euros and yuesterday had NOTHING!! No internet, tech support was complete ****e and then when it came back lastnight it was no faster than a 56k modem.

Those prices are completely acceptable, if provide what they state they will provide

Sponge Bob

Who does 1mbit UNCAPPED for €54 a month or less ?????????????????? Voda will charge you €100 a month for 384k down and 1Gb cap on their 3G Datacards, Clearwire have about (ish) the same coverage as Voda 3G .

The only uncapped package I can think of for less is Cablesurf in Dungarvan where you get 9Mbits for €40 uncapped. and Crossan in Longford who do 1Mbit down and 300k up for €40 a month, also uncapped .

And you can take the feckin thing around with your laptop . Pretend to work in the pub

For a mobile solution , and if it works like it should most of the time , its absolutely great at that price !!!!!!!! I did say all along that my ultimate hope for Clearwire is a Ripwave that works because this country needs it badly to keep the Mobile Operators from ripping us off rotten with their cacky data packages .

RangeR

Arg, I really wanted to stay away from the negative side.

Can't comment on their prices but I would tend to agree with bubby and sponge bob. I am willing to pay up to €50 for reliabiity of service but not for 128k upload. And How could I forget the mobility factor, Sponge. Dammit you got there before me

How many of you can bring your DSL modem or any ISP equipment around catchment areas and still have net access. Yes, you can with Clearwire.

I'm smitten. No other word for it.

Drapper

I'd pay for a reliable service. Hopefully they are not wrapping you in cotton wool as your one of the first few customers. It was the same with IBB ! fantastic speeds, latency and DL/UL, but it all went pear shape!

Good to hear a good new BB TRL storey for a change.

D

BeardyGit

Called the lads at Clearwire on Monday afternoon. Spoke with one of their sales guys several times to confirm what they're offering and where they see their company going in the near future. He kept me up to speed on what was happening with my survey request etc. and dropped by earlier today with the wireless modem.

I can't believe the difference between this product (in its current offering) and IBB's Sh1twave. I'm getting 100% signal from 3 Rock instead of 45% with the Sh1twave (I'm located in a radio 'hollow' so even mobile phone reception here is dodgy at times), downloads are very good and DNS lookups are instant. I can't comment on anything a 'gamer' may be interested in such as uplink and latency but I'm going to have a friend see what he thinks this evening. A cursory check on ping response would suggest very low latency - Certainly more than adequate for my own needs.

I've signed up for a 2Mb/256k package with a 20GB cap for 49.95 per month. At this time I'm very happy - Yes I'm being molly-coddled as a new customer but to be honest I wouldn't expect anything less at this point in their companies development!

I'm also aware that they're keeping their finger on the pulse by dropping in here pretty often so to anyone at Clearwire reading this, THANKS! I hope you've learned from IBB's gross mistakes.....

Gil

kaizersoze

eth0_ wrote:

Have you noticed their pricing on their website?

512Kb/s broadband with 128Kbps upload, 8GB cap...€37.50 EX VAT!!!

1Mb/256 with no cap is €45 EX VAT!

Those are absolutely ridiculous prices, how can they expect to get customers with prices that high? 512Kbps broadband is pretty much obsolete in this country now too.

Having said that, their service and support is great.

But I signed up to pay 39.99 inc vat a month for a 1Mb product - where do I stand?

The thing you have to remember is NO LINE RENTAL!
That's a great saving if you don't want a landline.

stakey

Pings of 35-40 in Counter Strike Source and 30-38 in Battlefield 2 all week. Had a few issues last week but they sent out a rep
to my place who kindly sat around on the phone with an engineer for an hour and a half until I was happy that full service was back.

Seem like a good bunch. One week to go in the trial, leaning towards keeping them.

Drapper

kaizersoze wrote:

The thing you have to remember is NO LINE RENTAL!
That's a great saving if you don't want a landline.

Line rental or not, reliable service is more important!!

How do you call the tech support when it goes down? mobile call aint cheap when your on hold for hours!! and you may aswell have kept it !!

ask a few of IBB' satisfied customers

kaizersoze

Drapper wrote:

Line rental or not, reliabl ervice is more important!!

How do you cal the tech support when it goes down? mobile call aint cheap when you on hold for hours!! and you may aswell have kept it !!

as a few of IBB' satisfied customers

Agreed. But alot signed up with wireless operators because they do not have or do not have a land line or they wanted to ditch the land line for VOIP. A cheaper option but it does mean you're screwed if the service is so bad that you can't even use VOIP.

Drapper

I'm not being negative, if I seem this way! I visit Korea allot and they have a pefect BB solutions in all locations, then again thier Gov regulates the services people receive there and requested increases in speeds acoordingly, with which the providers must comply, in the interest of national progress!! Average BB pacakge there is 6mb introduction.

stakey

LOL, mobile phone calls are expensive but when I was annoyed after half a day downtime with Clearwire I rang there technical support and demanded they ring me back so I could complain. Which they promptly did,

antodeco

Ah found out that their customer care is a 1890 number! Thats nice and cheap. Better than a 1550 number with certain companies. Or as eircon have, you must email them if your broadband stops working. Interesting concept that...

ZENER

I've been with Clearwire about 6 weeks now and I have had the same positive experiences the others here have had. Tech support called out of the blue (thanks Ciaran) to chat and find out if I was happy with the service ! There's something you don't hear of every day !

The only small problem I had turned out to be my cats fault - he knocked over the modem and because I can't see it I didn't realise it - sitting the device up restored my connection. The cat has had his knackers snipped for his troubles

I've got the 2Mb/256Kb option and it's been no trouble at all. Downloads are constant at about 220KB. I don't play online games so I can't speak for their performance there.

Highly recommended especially if you're in the Applewood area of Swords and can't get IBB, Clearwires service is usable there too.

ZEN

krinpit

Does the 8Gb limit apply to the €39.99 per month deal? I know they have a tarriffs charter on their website, but it's a little vague on details (http://www.clearwire.ie/service/tariffs.html)

BeardyGit

The thing here is that Clearwire haven't *officially* launched. The caps at the moment are 10GB on the 40 quid package and 20GB on the 50 quid deal. This will most likely either see a price drop or a cap increase when it's launched. They're being sensible at the moment and not trying to compete on price - It's clear (ahem) that many of us are happy to pay over the odds if the service is good and not oversubscribed. This means we pay more, they can cover the costs of building a proper infrastructure and IBB can deal with the tight-arses who won't pay for a quality service.

This is Ireland - You HAVE to pay through the nose for service but if you're like me and happy to do so, at last we have a company who will take our money and look to be all set to really deliver the goods.

Good stuff.

Gil.

eth0_

Just to say I have clearwire nearly a month now in Portobello and i'm really happy with it, had a few teething problems but they were sorted immediately.

Great company and service thus far.

gibbon75

So what will happen when more and more customers sign up for Clearwire?
Same thing with IBB->slower and ****e connection and horrible pings?
Or they will upgrade their sytem to handle the increased number of customers?

flamegrill

iBB's apparent problems were because they didn't have long haul going to each high site. They got it to a small few of them and then shared it between high sites wirelessly.

This prooved to not work and from what I can gather its been looked after now. Supposedly the new carlow high site has fibre running to it. I'm going to sign up and give it a lash.

Paul

RangeR

flamegrill wrote:

iBB's apparent problems were because they didn't have long haul going to each high site. They got it to a small few of them and then shared it between high sites wirelessly.

This prooved to not work and from what I can gather its been looked after now. Supposedly the new carlow high site has fibre running to it. I'm going to sign up and give it a lash.

Paul

I would tend to agree with that. When I did Trace Routes on my IBB connection in Clondalkin, I was going through 2 or 3 IBB high sites before breaking out of their network.

John Player

yeah i have them for almost a month, the first week there was downtime twice but its plain sailing since, id recommend them, cust service are cool too, down to earth kinda ppl.

luke

malachy47

Anyone know what it is? And how to subscribe?

Thanks