The Problem of Relying on a Dying Technology Company

For the longest time, I have had trouble finding an Internet company that both works and is somewhat affordable. A long time ago, I went through Comcast, and aside from atrocious customer service and a product that worked 33% of the time, it wasn’t half bad. But when I moved away from the place where Comcast served my apartment building, I no longer had access to that dismally somewhat okay service. Upon moving to Grand Rapids, I was stuck in an apartment complex that did some kind of sweetheart deal with a company called Suite Solutions, which I discovered had atrociously bad Internet service. I was lucky if I got a stable signal four days out of a week, and there were so many weekends where it went down on Friday and didn’t come back up until Sunday after midnight. I shut off Suite Solutions and never looked back.

As a result, I had to be a little more creative about finding an Internet service provider. Because this company was the one with the sweetheart deal, that meant you couldn’t go through any of the standard Internet companies. Therefore, I looked for other places where I could try to get my Internet service. My two choices really ended up being AT&T’s DSL service, which is generally a lot slower than most other Internet offerings, and a company called Clear Wire, which runs a satellite Internet service on the backs of the Sprint network.

For the last year or so, I’ve actually been using Clear, and even though they’re not the greatest service in the world, I’ve also started to realize that I’ll be lucky if the service remains working for another year or so. Clear has been losing money big time since it first started, and it just doesn’t have the ability to compete with any of the big boys out there. Also, for some reason their management seems to do pretty much everything wrong, and their ability to attract new customers has been horrid. Sprint has been talking about closing them down almost since the day I first signed on to using them.

As a result, the service has been kind of spotty. I suspect that the service is getting worse because they’re closing down their lines, but they don’t want to lose any of the revenue they already have coming in through the door. I suspect that they’ll keep going until they squeeze every dollar out of their customers and then they’ll pull the plug (probably the day after the last charge goes through my credit card account).

I’m kind of sad about this because it’s been kind of nice having an Internet company that was somewhat off the grid and pretty fast (it was a decent speed). But they need, or needed, more customers, and they had a horrible process of making that happen. If I wasn’t already a customer, I probably would avoid them like the plague, because they have really draconian policies about shutting off the service. An example is that even though I bought the modem outright, meaning there’s no leasing and no amount of money they’ve invested, they still force you to sign their entry agreement where they rake you over the coals when you try to leave, charging you a disconnect fee, like a cell phone does when you leave before finishing out a two-year contract. You really don’t attract people with policies like that, and even though the clerk promised me that I wouldn’t end up having to pay the separation fee if I left (because I bought my own equipment instead of using theirs), I know better, and know that when I finally leave, it won’t be without a fight.

But slowly, my Internet is going away. I’m probably going to switch to AT&T as a result, but that doesn’t mean that I’m not upset that this company couldn’t make it on its own. It’s one of those cases where a company that could have done great things was led into the ground by people who just didn’t get it. And I saw it happening. I would have said something if there had ever been anyone willing to listen, but you know how those things go.

The other day, I was driving by the office where I first looked at the service they were offering. The storefront was empty. On the door was a notice from the landlord, threatening Clear with legal action for not paying its rent. Not a good sign. Not, not a very good sign at all.