The Consumer’s Corner

This post is being brought to you by Clearwire Broadband Internet service. No, this is not a sponsored post; but that first sentence was quite accurate. Not too long ago, I drove myself down to an official Clearwire dealer, gave them my Visa card number, and left the store the proud lessee of a Clearwire modem, and one month’s worth of access to the internet.

This cost me every bit of $20.33, but they also stuck a $45 hold on my card. I’m was not happy at all about the hold, because I was in no way informed that there would be one. I used my debit card to make this transaction, and it caused me to have a negative balance on my account. Not cool. I’m not going to blame Clearwire though, as I believe this to be the fault of the dealer I chose; they simply did not provide me with complete and accurate information. Take that as a lesson, always deal with the business itself when possible, never the middle man.

Being a ‘value’ minded consumer, as you should expect me to be (that’s my niche), I went with the ‘value’ plan. $24.99 per month for the service itself, $4.99 for the modem lease, and a few cents worth of taxes that will vary by your location. This bought me a theoretical download speed of 768 kbps, upload speed of 256kbps, and 3 email addresses. I may or may not be receiving a $50 Visa Gift Card; it was never mentioned at the dealer’s store, but it is on my receipt. That will be a nice surprise in 6-8 weeks, maybe (hopefully!).

I tested the speed earlier, and it was actually a bit quicker than advertised. I checked again in the past few days; and that speed has been maintained. Can’t promise the same for everyone though. Anyways, the speed should be more than quick enough for my basic needs; blogging, web browsing, and downloading media. I’m used to a much faster cable connection, but I’m really not noticing a tremendous drop in speed. Those huge data ‘pipes’ are only useful if something can throw it to you at that speed. If you’re a single computer household, there are very few things  (none?) that can serve you data at that rate. But on the other hand, if you’re running a four or five computer network as I know a lot of you are, that extra speed may be essential to keep from bogging everyone down. Clearwire does offer a higher speed; 1.5 mbps download, so that may be of some interest to you if you’re a power user.

It’s kind of hard to give a solid thumbs up or thumbs down at this point (I’ve only used it a month or so), but so far I’m pretty impressed. My connection is solid (the technology uses cell towers). 4 out of 5 lights on the modem about 70% of the time, 3 out of the 5 for the remainder. I’ve seen it dip lower, but only momentarily. It has yet to completely drop out on me. I’ll report back later, and let you know how it goes long term; they have me locked into a two year contact because I’m cheap and didn’t want to pay the activation fee. So I have a long time to report! By the way, customer service was very friendly, and quite helpful. Surf on!

Update: Stay far, far away if you have any other broadband options available to you. The first couple months were great, very consistent and reliable service. Now? It’s a crap shoot every time I switch the computer on. Technical support has been very frustrating to say the least; 1 hour long plus calls, with no satisfaction.

Speed has been dipping down to dial-up like levels, and after they hit some buttons while talking to them on the phone, speeds will miraculously increase; only to completely drop out a few hours later. That is unacceptable to me, and they have so far refused to let me out of the contract. If this spitting match continues, and they are unable to make my speeds consistent or let me go on my way, I’ll be stopping payment on my credit card, disputing charges with the credit company, and filing reports with the BBB and FCC. No longer recommended!!!

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–Jeremy Hobbs

internet access, broadband, wimax, wireless internet