When I switched to Clearwire last summer, I canceled my Comcast broadband. When i called, they were amicable.
“Can we do anything to keep you? We can cut your monthly bill in half…”
I said, “tempting, but I’m switching to Clearwire. The modem is already in the mail.”
I knew that I was going to take a performance hit by going to Clearwire, moving down fron 9Mb/3Mb to 1.5Mb/768Kb. That was a sacrifice I could make to be a part of the wireless broadband revolution.
I lowered my standards of broadband because Clearwire was a cool company and I was proud to tell people about it.
Several months went by and Clearwire worked fine. A few minor outages for a short period were the only setbacks–something I expected from a new, growing broadband provider.

Having just moved 3 miles closer to downtown Seattle, I was sad to find that my new house does not get Clearwire service. I was so disappointed. I wanted to keep my Clearwire modem. Sure it’s much slower than cable but they will have Wi-Max soon (One reason I wanted to joined in the first place). I didn’t want to leave but I had no choice. Clearwire can’t service me.

I called Support and explained my situation.
“You will have to have someone take over your contract to avoid paying the early termination fee of $195. I can give you the number of someone in your local market who has a list of people you could transfer it to.”
I get transferred. I talk to Sean. Sean has no idea what the support rep in Florida is talking about. He says he’ll get back to me after he researches it. Several days later I get a voice mail that he doesn’t know what she’s talking about and if he can be of any other assistance to let him know–meanwhile explaining that his department didn’t handle that kind of thing and I would be better off talking to someone else.

Well, damn. I don’t have time to be a Clearwire salesman. I’ve already told my friends and family about Clearwire and I work at a Web startup company–all my friends and co-workers already have internet with higher speeds and better uptime (and after mentioning my predicament to my co-workers, I found that Clearwire didn’t have the good reputation I expected amongst my peers). So, I was stuck. I can’t find someone to take my contract–and I don’t want to shove it on someone else’s plate if they are going to get this kind of treatment. So I call back.

Many times, I talk to them and get thrown back and forth, called back, disconnected, etc…

Finally, after a long negotiation, someone says I can schedule a technician to come to my house and verify that I don’t have a signal. If the tech finds no signal, I won’t have to pay the fee. Ok, great, let’s do it.

I get the guy to come over on Friday evening. I leave work a half hour early to meet the guy. He doesn’t show up until half an hour past the appointment time. He wanders through the house, up and down all three floors and finally concludes that, indeed, I have no service. Great, I did that myself on day 1. Thanks.

Monday, I call Clearwire again. This time, they say that it doesn’t matter. I still have to pay the fee because I’m under contract at my old address. I tell them to have someone call me back who can influence this policy. This is, I say, the one reason I will not go back to Clearwire in the future. I’m on a 2 year moving plan. I expect to sometimes not get service and I will have to change over–but I’m not going back to Clearwire if this is what I can expect from them. It’s not worth my time or energy.

Today, I get a call back from Matt at Level 2 support.

Since I wasted (and was charged for) a month with no service, trying to get my plan canceled at a reasonable cost, Matt from Level 2 was able to refund this last month of service fees. yay. It’s great that they don’t charge customers for a month of service they didn’t give, but I still wasted many hours on the phone with Clearwire and left work early to meet a guy at my house. In the end, they still want me to pay the early termination fee to kill my contract that extends until July of 2009.

So, I’ve already wasted $200 worth of my time and I’m paying another $195 to get the Clearwire monkey off my back. Needless to say, however excited about Wi-Max I may be, I’m not going back to Clearwire anytime soon–and although I recommended Clearwire to friends and family before, I am now on a mission to rant to everyone about how bad this customer service situation was for me. Maybe Clearwire will be better in the future but they are going to have to extend more than a welcome handshake and a bill for service if they want me to join them again.