Clearwire Mobile Broadband Wireless Service

Basic information

Clearwire had been founded in the year 2003 and is a wireless internet provider based out of Washington. Currently, the services of Clearwire are available in 50 markets in US and in Europe with a large subscriber base.

Another interesting fact about Clearwire is that it is in partnership with Google which enables users to use various applications of Google like Google Talk, Google Calendar and gMail. Sprint also owns 51% of Clearwire.

The advantage of using Clearwire is that the maximum speeds are higher than the usual broadband providers and the price for the services is quite competitive. The drawback of Clearwire is that the company is relatively new and so the coverage area is not very extensive. Also, there is a large activation fee and high costs associated with their PC cards.

Clearwire Plans

Clearwire has one plan which offers high speed access to internet which is not limited to home usage. The PC Card Premium would cost users $59.99 and offers unlimited usage of the internet on their network with 1.5 megabytes/second download along with 256KB/ second upload.

Customer service

Customer service is quite impressive at Clearwire. The website has an online chat option where users can get help with their queries 24/7. There is also a toll free number which the users can make use of to contact the company.

Contract and payment options

The services of Clearwire are available without having to get into a contract. However, the prices for using the service without a contract are much higher than the contract services. There is no credit check for using Clearwire’s services. Users can make their payments through electronic transfer, debit or credit card through phone or online. Users can also pre-authorize their payments. The speed for data transfer with Clearwire is at a maximum of 256 KBPS for upload and 1.5 mbps for download.

Fees

Clearwire charges an activation fee of $100 without a contract and $50 otherwise. However, if users are willing to go for a 2 year contract, the activation fee is waived off. The cancellation fee for the services of Clearwire is at $220 maximum. The cancellation fee would go down the longer the contract is kept valid by the user. The fee would go further down by $5 every month for the service that is received and paid for during the term of the contract. The cancellation fees might be waived off in a few circumstances. There are no roaming charges applicable since Clearwire internet services work only on their own network.

PC cards and modems

There are two options available to subscribers for the air cards both of which cost $6.99 for lease every month. For purchasing the card, there is a one time cost of $229.98.

Users who already have their own card which can be used with Clearwire can pay a one time fee of $5 for using it. There are two cards to choose from, the Clearwire PC Express Card and the Clearwire Motorola PC Card.