Reader Jeff isn’t pleased with HughesNet and has cc’d us on his email so that we can listen in. It’s more of a warning than a specific complaint that can be resolved:
I would just like to take this opportunity to reiterate, for the hundredth time, how much I loathe HughesNet. I have just been FAPed again. No one here is downloading any movies, music, books, or much of anything — just using the Internet. I have a guest visiting, and I’m assuming their additional drain on the ridiculously small 375 MB cap we’re afforded is what’s knocked us over the limit…so now I’m stuck at sub-dialup speeds for the next 24 hours.But even if we were downloading movies, music, or books — so what? That’s my prerogative as a customer of your hideously overpriced, unreliable service. I pay the bill, I should get to decide what to use the service for. As long as I’m not doing anything illegal, how I use HughesNet’s service should be up to me — particularly since I work from home, and depend on that service in order to make money to feed my family.
Does HughesNet care? No. HughesNet knows that 95% of its customers have no broadband alternative, so they overcharge, and supply negligent (at best) customer service. Here’s a terrific example: During the installation that I paid $600 for, HughesNet’s technician came out to my two-story home and bolted an enormous dish to the roof, angled perfectly to collect snow during the winter months. Does HughesNet give the option of bagging the dish to prevent signal disruption after snowstorms? Does HughesNet give the option of spraying the dish to aid in keeping snow off? Of course not. HughesNet offers to charge me $140 for a service call to clean the dish.
Upload speeds are abysmal — and what’s worse, uploads are consistently disrupted and truncated. What is HughesNet’s solution? To offer me a new, supposedly faster modem — and charge me for the modem, plus shipping, plus demand a penalty-laden extension of the 18-month agreement I had to sign just to receive service in the first place. No thanks, HughesNet.
HughesNet is absolutely, without a doubt, the worst company I have ever had the misfortune of relying on for an essential service. The way it treats its customers may not be technically criminal, but it should be. I take comfort in knowing that the rapid spread of alternative technologies — such as wi-fi, which should be reaching my corner of New Hampshire this spring — will decimate HughesNet’s customer base, reducing the company to nothing more than a deeply unpleasant memory for its former victims.
I’m cc:ing the office of my Congressman, my Senators, the good people at consumerist.com, and the Better Business Bureau on this e-mail. They may not be able to do anything, but too many of this company’s customers suffer in silence. We need to do a better job of spreading the word that, for most people, having no Internet connection at all is preferable to signing up with HughesNet.
Yours,
Jeff
Yikes.
(Photo:cogdogblog)
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I’m not sure where the original poster’s location is, but I’ve yet to come across an area where I couldn’t at least get cellular data. An EVDO connection is just about as good as a regular broadband connection, just a little more laggy when it comes to latency.
This service, if you can even call it that, is quite possibly the worst I’ve ever dealt with. After moving to an area that didn’t offer DSL or Broadband where I lived, I saw the commercial for this on Direct TV. When I called them they told me basically everything that someone wants to hear when trying to make a sale. How “great” the service is, how fast it downloads (1.5mbps down, 280kbps up). Deciding that we needed to have the internet and refusing to go to dial-up, we ordered it. Bad mistake. Didn’t even have it a full 24 hours before the speeds were atrociously slow. I wait to see if its just the satellite still needing to sync up (which the installer told me it would need some time to sync up to get a better connection). I call tech support the next day and she informed me of a fact that was failed to be disclosed, their “Fair Access Policy”. The lady told me that with the plan I had, I could only use 425MB PER DAY of access. I told her that the sales rep did not mention it at all and if I had known that there was going to be a daily limit, especially one that didn’t even equal a full CD’s worth of information, that we would not be having this discussion because I wouldn’t have their product.
Went to Alltel that day and signed up for their Wireless internet and even though it’s slightly better than dial-up, it’s 1000x better than this rip-off HughesNet offers. They need to do something with making it known on their commercials that restrictions apply (there is no fine print whatsoever on their TV ads)
Even my crapy Wildblue service gives me better than that. They FAP you on a “running 30 day cumulative” (in my case 12 Gb of data) I have busted that twice (pr0n addiction) and it takes about 5 to 7 days of sub dialup speeds to get back to regular (usually about 300 to 500 kb/s on their “up to” 750 kb/s service).
There’s always the option of using the telephone instead of IM, snail mail instead of e-mail, and renting/buying DVD’s/CD’s instead of downloading movies/songs. While Japan is running at 100 Mb/s, parts of New Hampshire appear to be stuck in the early 90′s.
@JustAGuy2: If you have a landline phone, you are subsidizing the ‘rural’ areas by paying the phone companies…e.g. Why Caller ID costs $6/month.
And as far as choosing where to live…I would have to think that ‘availability of broadband’ would place further down on the list than say ‘price’ ‘cost of living’ ‘crime’ ‘climate’ ‘close to work’ etc. Unless you have unlimited funds at your disposal as some whiny posters seem to have.
Okay, I am usually not part of the “blame the customer” crowd, but this one is screaming out.
Unless you have something that is legitimately forcing you to live in a rural area (such as working in agriculture), then you should consider moving to civilization. If you choose to stay rural for the benefits that you may perceive, then you have to understand that those benefits come at a cost. The lack of a good ISP is one of them. The fact that the ISPs available to you are bandwidth constrained themselves (hence the FAPs) also enters into this formula.
In short, HughesNet is simply putting an appropriate price on the very difficult task of providing you with internet service.
@KC2IDF
Not everyone who lives in rural areas does so by choice; I’m sure we’re all intelligent enough to understand why. I don’t find it unreasonable for ISPs to provide service to rural areas at a comparable rate to what is charged for urban areas with greater infrastructure. Not only for the benefit of people who want to watch videos on Youtube, but also for rural economic development, education, both of which are important enough alone to advocate broadband access, but also access to information by a sector of the American public that’s long been held hostage by the whims of big business.
@thomasrz:
Sure, it’s a choice to live in rural areas; last I checked, serfdom was abolished quite a while ago.
I’m sure you do find it reasonable to force ISPs to provide service to rural areas at comparable rates to urban areas, regardless of the cost to provide that service – that would benefit you. It hurts me, though, because I pay higher prices to subsidize you. I choose to live in an urban area – that comes with pluses (like lower cost for broadband provision) and minuses (congestion, higher rent, etc.). As soon as you’re willing to force parking garages in Manhattan to let me park for nothing, as you can in your driveway, I’m happy to force ISPs to provide you discounted broadband.
Wow satellite sucks. I have a larger, cheaper data cap on my phone.
Can you get cellular service out there? If so, do it, and let all your neighbors know, too.
Oh, yeah, justaguy2 – stop it with the stupid “OHNOES11! TEH SUBSIDIES!!” argument. The fact is, all kinds of things in the US are subsidized, the textbook examples of which are utility provision to rural areas.
I personally have wildblue and have been a very pleased customer for over a year. I also procured a kyocera 650 card and wifi router as a backup thru alltel. I only pay 75 for sat access and 25 on my exsisiting alltel plan. I live in the country so cable is not option.
@Mr. Gunn:
Yup, lots of things are subsidized, and it bugs me. I don’t demand that rural folks subsidize my lifestyle, so it annoys me when they demand I subsidize theirs. And yes, I include rural telephony and electrification in that.
It is being lied to that pisses off most hughes customers. They promise better speeds with an upgrade, but you have to agree to a 15 month or 24 month contract, and the results are nowhere near what they promised.Hughes continues to advertise that They have a fast reliable service. The fact is that recently(several months),they have more customers than available bandwith. Those who were getting what they paid for in the beginning are now starting to see poorer service. Hughes does admit that speeds will be reduced during peak hours. They even go as far as telling you what numbers to expect during peak hours. For my Proplus plan $89 download/upload speeds are up to 1.5mbs/200kbps, but during peak hours hughes claims 700-800kbps/100kbps Well if you read the BBS websites for hughes you’ll see that a lot of people, myself included, get only about half the download and a tenth of the upload of what hughes claims. 100-450/7-20 22 out of 24 hours. With uploads at the reduced speeds I’d be better off with dialup. couple the slow upload with a huge satelite latency and you time out with most games and sending pics to family can take hours. And no you idiot I’m not moving just to get fast internet. Hughes should live up to their promises.
The worst thing about HughesNet is that chirpy woman on the commercials saying “How cool is that?” Usually I am watching a TV show on my PVR or have a few minutes of pause built up so I can avoid hearing that vomit-inducing fake cheerfulness.
@JustAGuy2: sorry but WildBlue’s cap is about 10x higher than Hughes Net, and I think about the same price if not a lil cheaper (check for verification)
BTW WildBlue is available everywhere in the US depending on how your trees look
As far as cleaning the dish….. Its on your house. Put a garbage bag around the dish carefully. Tighten it so that there is no arc for snow to rest between the LNB(tip) and dish. Voila! Youre done.
I feel your pain, my friend! Hughesnet is by far the worst ISP out there, they’re product is horrible, service unacceptable, and the customer service… oh dear, i better not even get started on that. And yes, they overcharge for all of it. They have actually gone as far as TELLING me that my son should not be allowed to play online games using their ISP!?!? What business is it of theirs, I’ m not sure…
I could go on and on, but I’m saving all that for the hate mail I have started sending them as I’m hoping to cancel soon. I know there’s a fee for terminating my contract early, but I assure you it will be worth every penny. Surely, there has got to be some laws broken by these people! If anyone starts a lawsuit in Ohio, Please contact me!
Becki
I can say from 3 years experience that Hughes.net is the most DISHONEST company with whom I have ever done business. They make promises they don’t deliver, reduce service without telling you, and knowingly have holes in their bandwidth due to missing satellites but don’t inform their customers – just to name a few lies. And all this because they know that if you live in the backcountry, they have you by the short-and-curlies since you have few, if any, options. You can read plenty of other examples and rants from Consumerist members @ http://consumerist.com/2007/05/well-downgrade-your-bandwidth-82-and-youll-like-it.html.
As far as the assumption that rural customers are asking to be “subsidized,” that is both presumptuous and political rhetoric. I already gladly pay a tax referred to by my neighbors as the “Colorado Mountain Tax.” It means driving 6 hours and 300 miles to see my doctor or fix my motorcycle, giving up basic city services, or understanding that my house will burn down to the ground before the first fire hose is uncurled – all in exchange for the sound of the river outside my window, the blazing smog-free sunset on the peaks that wrap our valley and the inconvenience of an occasional one-stoplight-two-minute traffic jam.
What I EXPECT with any company whether in the city (50 years in PHX, whew!) or country is honesty and integrity, neither qualities which Hughes possesses..
I have been on the phone with customer service for an hour now trying to find out why I am being billed automatically for an account that I closed last July. I have been on hold for most of that time. They want 3 to 5 days to “investigate” but they are not offering to close the account.
Truly the absolute worst company I have ever dealt with.
I thought I had finally moved on, but it appears that this is not to be.