The complicating factor is that I also have a PC card that works with the older service, which I use during my frequent visits to a town that has not yet upgraded. But the robocallers are unfazed: I must upgrade.

I can't block the calls, because they come from a service to which Clearwire has outsourced the chore of calling its purportedly laggard customers who cling to the old, soon-to-be-obsolete equipment and the caller ID doesn't show. I've talked to the outsource service. I've talked to Clearwire. I have a whole folder of notes, dates, times, follow-up notes. (They know they're talking to a customer; they may not realize they're talking to a journalist).

In the past week, I've had pleasant chats with Gene, Carla, Scott, and a woman from the outsource service whose name I didn't get because she transferred me very quickly. She said the calls would stop in eight to ten weeks. I told her that was too long, and I'd cancel first.

Clearwire's personnel are pleasant, conscientious and appear to be earnest about trying to solve the problem . . . and my previous problems, for that matter. The most creative attempt was blocking my telephone number in the database so the outsource service can't call it. I think they haven't refreshed the data lately, and so the calls keep coming. When I go out of town, a whole bunch of friendly Clearwire messages accumulate in my voicemail.

At this point, perhaps the answer is simply to laugh and be patient. As my IDG News Service colleague Steve Lawson reports, the , after which the older equipment may no longer work. Then, Clearwire will probably retire the robots and cease the outreach, and just sit back to take tech support calls from the actual laggards . . . but the company won't hear from me, because the new gear is still working fine; and I'll be glad to no longer hear from it, pushing an upgrade that's already occurred.