Clearwire to face lawsuit over WiMAX throttling, false advertising

By on Mar 10, 2011 at 9:33 PM
Legal March 10, 2011

WiMAX network operator Clearwire is the target of a new lawsuit that has been filed out of a Seattle district court. Lawyers representing the plaintiffs allege that Clearwire “throttles down the speed of its Internet service to speeds similar to dial-up telephone modem speeds,” and likens the company’s business practices to “a bandwidth Ponzi scheme.” Customers who are not satisfied with the speeds provided by Clearwire’s self-proclaimed high-speed internet are forced to pay early termination fees. “Clearwire made materially false, misleading, and/or deceptive representations and omissions about the speed and capacity of its Internet service,” reads the court filing. “Rather than limiting its subscribers to a number that its broadband infrastructure can accommodate — such that Clearwire can make good on its representations regarding high-speed service and capacity — Clearwire signed up many more subscribers than it could handle so as to maximize revenue and profit.” The embattled network operator now faces false advertising claims from fifteen plaintiffs seeking class action status. Clearwire has been in news headlines over the past several months as it tries to negotiate a usage agreement with WiMAX network partner Sprint.

[Via PhoneScoop]

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  • http://twitter.com/ATT_FAIL ATT FAIL

    I see AT&T going through the same thing….Wait until I find a lawyer lol

  • Clear sucks

    Experiencing the same drop in speeds here in Chapel Hill, North Carolina on ClearWire’s network! Very unsatisfying!

  • Generatione

    Class action lawsuits only help lawyers. I went through a ton of them when owned stocks and never saw a penny.

    • http://twitter.com/ATT_FAIL ATT FAIL

      the purpose of them is actually to get big corporation to stop screwing people….

      • Anonymous

        True, but lawyers are worse, they get millions, you get a free month of service or release without etf.

  • Anonymous

    May be a good idea for Sprint to Distance themselves from Clear for Good…

  • M_lions

    I worked for that company…it was only a matter of time

  • Drew

    Somebody needs to disband that shiesty ass fake 4G…

  • Anonymous

    Finally someone is suing this garbage ass company and their garbage ass WiMAX service. A cable or DSL replacement it is NOT.

  • Flashingguru

    I own a cell phone store in the Nashville area. A while back a clear representative came in trying to sell me on becoming an authorized dealer. I agreed to meet with her and honestly her pitch sold me. There commission structure was one of the best I had seen, the upfront dealer costs of $1000 were cheap compared to other companies, a large percentage of that money went to purchasing promotional items, and she made the service sound solid.One of the prerequisites of becoming a Clear dealer is that you have to purchase there service on a take 3 plan with a 2 year contract. I had no problem with this, if I am to sell there product I should be using it. I was told the service was unlimited with no cap in the 4G bandwidth. I was also told that if I wanted to buy out of my contract I would only have to pay 2 months of service.After purchasing Clear, and becoming a authorized dealer I was pleasantly surprised with the service. My speeds were really fast, I was streaming full movies with no problems, and I was saving money since I was supplying Internet to my store and my home on the same plan.After about a month of service I started to experience the nightmare of Clear. My speeds had dropped dramatically, and the service was unbearable. When it worked it would take minutes to open the simplest of pages. I remember one time where I timed it and it took 1 min 32 seconds to open Craigslist! As a dealer I tried to contact a representative to find out what was happening with my account. For the life of me I could not talk to a customer representative. The first few times I called I gave up after waiting for about 45 minutes.After finally buckling down, determined to talk to a rep, I finally reached one after being on hold for a hour and a half. After another half hour of being given the run around they finally admitted to throttling my speed. I was furious. When I tried to cancel my account I was told my termination fees were close to $300. Way more than my rep quoted me on.The first month I had Clear my rep was helping me to sell it. I sold it to three customers before my account was throttled making back approximately half the money I spent to become a Clear dealer.After my web was throttled I would no longer sell it to my customers. I actually had a few customers come in specifically to buy Clear and I talked them out of it. I make about $300 a customer that I am able to get on a 2 year contract. I threw this money away because I am a firm believer in believing in what you sell. Also, at about the same time our account began to get throttled, the rep that sold us clear was laid off due to Clears massive cutbacks. The new rep that replaced her, I had never met.Clear stole $1000 from me with false promises. Additionally they also are continuing to get $83 from me per month because I am unable to terminate the service. I have since wrote my rep and explained to him my opinions and in turn they terminated my dealer privileges. which is all in good as I would not sell there service anyway.I keep the Clear sign in my store window so that if someone comes in inquiring about it I can save them the nightmare that is Clear. You would think that if there was any customer that they would not throttle it would be there dealers as they are representing them. However they lack the common business sense to do that.Do yourself a favor, if you run into a salesman that is trying to sell you Clear, run as far aways as possible as fast as you can. They are a crook company that should not be allowed to continue to do business.A actual ex-Clear dealer

    • Orangesky

       Hey Ex Clear Dealer if anyone asks, let them read this: 
      I had to have service in my home not out and about. I called Clear and their sales person said he checked and coverage in my area would be great. I paid $54.73 for the privilege of trying their service. A USB Dongle was overnight-ed to me. It failed so I called Clear and they instructed me to try it at a more populated area, I did, it worked but that was no use to me because I needed it to work in my house. I called again that same day to end the service and get a refund. Clear said they have a unit made for home use that would work and they would send it right out. They sent it it arrived over night and it failed also. That same day I asked for a prepaid label to return the two devices. Clear did not send the labels. After a week I called back eventually they sent the labels, I returned their junk. So finally my refund comes…$30.27 they charged me $24.46 to test their junk once at their instruction! Two weeks later I get a call from their billing department. They said the service was left on for 12 days and that was the basis of the $24.46 charge. I found out that this is how they are funding themselves at the expense of suckers like me in hopes of building out its network sometime in the future . The throttling you complain of is symptomatic of their desperation. Clearwire revealed in November of last year that it will likely run out of cash by mid-2011. New customers like me are just like Clearwire ATM machines.

  • Tntwarranty

    I am a Master Dealer of Clear, does anyone have the contact information to the Lawyer on this case? 
    We would also like to file a bad business practice lawsuit based on the same premise of the suit currently filed by consumers.

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