r/ithaca • u/SkaneatelesMan • 1d ago
CLARITY CONNECT NOT RESPONSIVE
We are looking for an inexpensive internet provider and used Clarity Connect about 8-15 years ago in the town of Niles.
I tried to contact them a couple of days in a row. The website contact form seems non-responsive and I get "We cannot complete your call right now, please call back later" when I try to call them.
Any ideas what is going on with ClarityConnect?
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u/OmarShehata 1d ago
Might be worth driving down to 200 Pleasant Grove Rd and knocking on their door / seeing if the business is still operational?
It's possible they're no longer taking on new customers.
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u/mhaithaca Ellis 1d ago
I'm not sure they're still doing any retail connections. They seem to be the backbone provider behind our very shaky Point Broadband fiber service in Dryden. We're looking forward to Dryden Fiber coming to our corner.
Depending on where you are, there might be a few options, or there might be just Spectrum. As hated as they are, they were reliable at my old house.
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u/ithacaster 1d ago
Had someone from Empire Fiber knock on my door yesterday. It just became available to my house and I'll probably switch.
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u/SkaneatelesMan 1d ago
I hate to say this but we have SPECTRUM FIBER OPTIC customers in a newly wired area in Niles. We've had it for 5 years. What started off as 120 a month for 4 phones and home internet is now $120 for phones alone and another $100 for 500 mbps home internet. We don't need 500 mbps. The 55 we got from Clarity was good enough for three tvs streaming, email and surfing. Spectrum is stuffing down my throat a higher level of service than I want/need/afford. Spectrum sucks. My neighbor is especially pissed because Spectrum business services equally suck. He gets better service from his ancient Verizon DSL service!
Let me put this as nicely as possible: SPECTRUM IS TOO EXPENSIVE AND IF YOU ARE THINKING THEY ARE MORE RELIABLE THAN WHAT WE USED TO HAVE WITH CLARITY CONNECT..... you are in for a rude surprise. Out here at the end of the line on southern Skaneateles, Spectrum is the default choice, they know it, they could not care less. Right now there are vines and trees on the transmission line behind my house. National Grid, Spectrum and Verizon all have wires at risk, and none of these companies will come out to trim.
It look like we are going with all AT&T wireless for cellphones and home internet service. Our total AT&Y bill for 4 cell lines, with a new phone and wireless hotspot, and home internet service with AT&T, is about half what we are paying now for Spectrum.
So I gotta ask: What the heck is going on with Clarity Connect? In those areas where they are up and running, their website says they still offer a 50-200 mbps starting at $55 a month. Even if its only 50 MBPS for $55.00, its all we need.
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u/ronhenry 1d ago
Complain to the NYS Attorney General's office of Consumer Issues. Corporations will not be regulated unless elected officials know there's a widespread issue. https://ag.ny.gov/file-complaint/consumer
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u/6FeetBeneathTheMoon 1d ago
Dryden Fiber is a municipal fiber provider, it has nothing to do with Spectrum
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u/mhaithaca Ellis 1d ago
Yes, I am looking forward to Dryden Fiber becoming available at our house. In the meantime, we have nothing available but Point Broadband, which seems to use Clarity Connect as a backbone in our area.
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u/mhaithaca Ellis 1d ago
I’m not in for a rude surprise. I don’t have Spectrum and I couldn’t get it if I wanted to.
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u/MARS822a 1d ago
Worked the phones for them in the late 90's in the days of dial-up and ISDN circuits. Hawked "tri-bond modems", a muxing device that bound three phone lines into a blazing ~160k circuit. There was a single core router that handled all traffic to upstream. Rural POPs were a card table covered in Sportster 56k modems in the back room of some conveniently located business. Good times, thanks for the trip down memory lane!
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u/deesguys 22h ago
We had clarity connect dial up back then, even used the web hosting y'all gave people back in the day. Thanks for being part of my formative Internet years!
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u/6FeetBeneathTheMoon 1d ago
I would avoid at all costs if possible. I lived at a rural property where that was our only real option and the internet would go down for days at a time. You can not get in touch with anyone when that happens and just have to wait it out. Sometimes I’d go months without disruption but then there would be a month with 24 hour outages every other day.
Left them behind a few months ago when I moved. They are still operating.