Clear Corporation Clear CLWR wireless Internet service provider ISP billing customer review

Clear Corporation Clear CLWR wireless Internet service provider ISP billing customer review

I got into a relationship with Clearwire Corporation this morning (at

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I smelled a bear, but hey, I like bears. I will use this thread to post what happens with my CLEAR Service Plan WiMAX Unlimited Mobile Internet.

Reply to
ultraport
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Ordered the service online early Saturday morning. Like with most merchants, they charged my card immediately. They signed me up for automatic payments without asking first. The charge to my bank account was supposed to be $189, but for some strange reason they withdrew $215. I called customer service and was told that they only withdrew $189. That's the first time in my history of using a bankcard that the amount taken from my account is different than the amount the merchant says it took.

Reply to
ultraport

Taxes and government fees?

Reply to
LouB

The invoice says 179+ $10 in taxes. The overcharge was about $26. I cannot explain why they don't even know what the actual amount taken from my bank is. A wild guess would be the $26 is for overnight shipping. But the shipping was suppose to be free.

Reply to
ultraport

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

Yes, they made those charges too. Those are separate charges for one dollar. The overcharge I am talking about is for $26, as part of the legitimate charge. It is not the usual inquiry/hold.

Reply to
ultraport

Reply to
ultraport

Apparently they included overnight shipping when asking my bank to hold the money. They deducted that amount before finalizing the charge.

The equipment is scheduled to arrive on time today, three days after the billing period started.

Reply to
ultraport

Ask them to prorate the monthly fee.

Reply to
News

Got the equipment. Amazing how easy setting up stuff is these days, it took very little thought and no troubleshooting.

My understanding of how their system works... They are trying to accommodate two different types of users. Daytime/business users who need fast access to data, and off-hours users who want to download lots of big files. Apparently, if you download tens of gigabytes over their wireless connection, they will slap you with slow speeds during the daytime. Partly out of curiosity, I would like to know whether all downloads are treated the same, whether downloading large files in off-hours counts the same as downloading large files during the daytime.

The connection in my big city is fine. Currently, my PC speeds are much faster than DSL here, about 6 Mbps during the daytime. The upload speed seemed kind of weird, it seemed to vary during the test. I guess the average was about .5 Mbps, if the test was accurate. My connected iPhone WiFi DSL Reports speed test says the latency is about 160 ms and the speed is somewhere between 1500 and 2000 kbps.

Something I don't understand is people complaining about 100 ms being high latency. As a real-time strategy gamer, 100 ms is great. The above test shows that latency was reduced from AT&T 3G

400 ms down to Clear 4G 160 ms. (That is for comparison, I'm not saying that total latency while gaming will be the same.)

The service is portable, for $45 per month. I guess there won't be much to post until they throttle me or increase the monthly charge. Except maybe to tell whether and how much speeds increase during the off-hours. Also, I may comment about online gaming performance. I don't sell anything for anybody. If and when things go wrong, I will tell.

Too bad they don't subscribe to WatchESPN. Apparently they have

24,139 customers. Maybe that's a fraction of what AT&T and Time Warner cable have, so they don't want the additional expense (however small), and maybe they don't want to encourage streaming media that way. If you enjoy minor sports, WatchESPN is cool. With production costs so low, maybe they will increase the coverage.

Good luck and have fun.

Reply to
John Doe

Relative to fiber, cable or even DSL, 100ms is high. Relative to other wireless last mile tech, 100ms is good.

Reply to
alexd

After 24 hours, some outrageous numbers around my state.

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15-17 Mbps upload 1.5 Mbps download

Wireless, for $45 per month.

Seems to respond faster than AT&T DSL did hear. Internet activity seems snappier.

I might eventually be throttled, but if I get near those kinds of speeds in the off hours, this is going to be great.

Reply to
John Doe

Reverse that

Reply to
John Doe

Oh. No good for spammers, then...

Reply to
News

Er, me?

Sorry, I'd forgotten that I was posting on American Usenet, where my small European country experience is irrelevant.

Really? I've never seen a ping below 200ms on 3G [Vodafone and T-Mobile] to anywhere.

Reply to
alexd

Looks like they are about to go into bankruptcy, another week or two at the current rate. Sprint appears to be doing poorly too.

The Clearwire technical support forum sucks IMO. They might think of it as encouraging free speech, but they allow way too much noise. Some of their users are constantly whining about the same thing over and over again. Their so-called technical support forum looks like a huge waste dump. The moderators seem to encourage negativity, constant repetitive negativity. I think they should separate their technical support forum from what appears to be a "get in touch with your feelings" forum, so those of us who are interested in the facts don't have to wade through massive piles of garbage.

I have always thought little of World Wide Web forum moderators. UseNet is king, but I can see a great use for moderation over there.

Reply to
John Doe

Disregard my other reply. My excuse is that the ping times on the speed test are different than what I'm used to seeing in a game. I just added DSL, using the same test, DSL is much quicker.

Reply to
John Doe

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