I encourage everyone, everywhere to look into the health impacts of using wireless devices. Here’s a video to get you start:
Update May 2018: Although HughesNet has supposedly changed and “better”, the same kind of complaints continue to pour in: Consumer Affairs Complaints about HughesNet.
Their installer says the WiFi can not be turned down or off ever, but you can unplug the equipment. Whether that stops the RF or not, we won’t know until testing is done.
Original post June 5, 2009:
I’ve been meaning to do a post on how important having dependable high-speed Internet access is for bloggers and anyone else who works online. I will eventually do a post on how various types of broadband Internet access compare and which is most suitable. This can’t wait though. Some may have noticed me complaining on Twitter about being unable to work or noted my post frequency has varied greatly lately. The reason is HughesNet is simply horrendous.
After collecting over a dozen case numbers which they never use for anything and escalating my issue to their Executive Customer Care they finally patched me through to Level 3 support again. Level 3 and Customer Care both told me that:
- We aren’t supposed to EVER open more than one tab at a time
- They never claimed their service would work for filling out forms on the Internet on sites like Yahoo Local or Google Maps
- That even if I couldn’t use the Internet there was absolutely nothing wrong – I should just “wait a few hours and try again”
At that point I knew that they were never going to admit what they were probably doing (using the ability to limit bandwidth – they hold patents on ways to do that – see graph below) and I was never going to have reliable Internet access from them. I hope if you’re reading this you have not signed a contract as there are complaints from people who paid their ridiculous early termination fees and were still being hounded by collectors for HughesNet.
I am moved to post this to hopefully prevent others from going through the pain of being stuck in contracts that are very difficult to break. I am, in fact, still paying more for an unusable HughesNet account than I am now paying for excellent fixed wireless that makes using the Internet a joy again.
In one review of HughesNet on DSL Reports MichaelRS posted this image of his speeds over several days:
Note that the speed switches dramatically between about 1.5 meg and under 33.6 kbps (older dial-up) at regular times each day. This is NOT what you would see if more and more people got active online.
Instead of writing any more about it I’ll just share the latest Tweets from suffering HughesNet users. My apologies in advance for any bad language. I can’t blame them for being so frustrated. If I weren’t graphics challenged I’d pretty them up, make them uniform in width and edit out the profanity.
Hopefully you’ll forgive me for just getting this done quickly so I can move on to getting caught up from all the work I’ve missed being able to do while trying to actually get HughesNet to fix my connection – or at least admit they were intentionally limiting my access. Any time my service was particularly bad there would be a rash of complaining Tweets. Just do a Twitter search for HughesNet any time to see them.
Note that these Tweets are all from the last few days. There are hundreds more complaining and these ARE representative of the issues involved. I preserve these here for posterity in hopes someone takes action to force HughesNet to release people who are stuck with long term contracts – contracts that HughesNet has broken because they are NOT providing the service for which they are charging.
Since these are images I provide here the links to reviews of HughesNet service:
- DSLReports HughesNet Reviews – 852 reviews (147 positive) (445 negative) as of today
- RipOff Reports Against HughesNet – 155 complaints as of today
- RateItAll HughesNet Reviews – 85 reviews, most have 1 star – many comment they deserve 0 stars!
Tweets Complaining About HughesNet:
If you’ve read this far you probably have or are considering HughesNet. I urge you to search diligently for a quality local independent fixed wireless company. They are usually owned by technical types who are not very good at marketing so ask around or try searching these links:
- WISP Directory – Find a Wireless Internet Service Provider
- DSLReports – They provide several ways to search for service, great tech support, speed tests, and forums with really sharp broadband knowledgeable techs.
Do be sure to read the reviews and search online for complaints. A wireless company is only as good as their people and the equipment they install. They tend to be either very good or very bad. You can also try searching in Local Search Directories.
If that doesn’t pan out then consider wireless cellular service. Instead of contacting the major phone companies call 3gstore.com. They are widely recommended for their quality tech support and knowledge of current and soon-to-be-announced equipment availability and limitations.
Gail Gardner
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Hughes satellite is pitiful
First day of each month it will seem fast and you will decide to watch a hal hour video and then the next day it will be running dialup slow unless you want to use the *bonus* time between 2am and 8am…….which will also be gone fast unless you unplug the modem every night since they will constantly contact your system over and over (I tested it) and if you call the “tech” you will think you are talking to a 12 year old brat kid.
It even takes several minutes just to load your email page and then 10 more minutes to delete the spam/trash and even get an email TEXT page to open (also tested on several computers)
Satellite/microwave communications is actually FAST unless you have to use crooks like Hughes.net who pack as many people from several States on the same servers………they like to pretend NW Washington State is part of California………I guess that is right as far as the politicians here but slowing us down to 100kbps at 3am when there can’t possibly be anyone else on line where I live is bizarre.
I have several satellite dishes and wish I could use my 10ft dish for my ISP since it has worked for almost 40 years and had Hughes satellite signals since all the tv channels were free……….the day all the Hughes internet satellites fall into the sea will be a National Holiday to me.
Hi Sampson,
I know exactly how you feel. And I haven’t been saddled with HughesNet since back when I wrote this post. It is just how greedy HughesNet is. I was on the waiting list and got one of the very first Earthlink 2-way satellite dishes. It was great and I never hit any limits. And ironically, they used Hughes satellites!
Now I have ViaSat and while it isn’t unlimited, I only use it for backup to my AtLink WISP connection. The ViaSat costs more for less. WISPs are almost always better than satellite and usually REALLY unlimited data (not the pseudo-unlimited ViaSat claims we have).
I’ve never run out of my limit on ViaSat, but I’m curious how good or bad the slower speed there would be. I am confident it could not possibly be as bad as the highest-priced HughesNet was.
One thing many don’t realize is that 35 Mbps download speeds on satellite don’t load pages any faster than 5 Mpbs download speed on WISPs. That is the latency issue. I have 2 separate but similarly equipped computers on 2 separate connections and can load pages side-by-side. They load almost exactly the same speed.
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hi Gail Gardner, thanks for your views about HughesNet satellite internet. I was thinking of getting a satellite internet connection from HughesNet but after your views I will further research satellite internet providers. can you provide views about Viasat?
Hi Emma,
HughesNet is so bad that now they lock people into 2 year contracts instead of 1 year. I ended up paying them out because cancelling cost more than paying out the rest of the contract.
And there were posts online where others had complained that they did pay the cancellation fee and HughesNet turned them over to collections anyway.
ViaSat’s site is misleading. Look carefully at how much data you get. Two things you should know:
1) When you run out of the data allowed, you will still have access. But I haven’t ever done it so I don’t know how good or bad that access will be and it can vary by load on their end.
2) Whatever download speed you pay for will be slower than non-satellite download speed. For example, I have:
5 GB/month data
Speeds up to 25 Mbps
Streaming video at LD quality (typically 360p)
But even though my AtLink speed is only 5 Mbps down, it loads pages as fast as my ViaSat connection. This is due to the latency (delay) caused by the greater distance to the satellite signal.
AtLink is a WISP which is a local wireless signal from a tower. In my case, that tower is 1.3 miles away. AtLink is true unlimited (no data limit).
I use both, because AtLink is better and cheaper, but prone to outages from hours to up to 2 weeks if lightening storms affect their equipment.
ViaSat is basically my insurance backup. It costs more (the cheapest plan where I am) and I don’t watch videos on it or use it for production work unless my AtLink is down.
If your access is critical to you, watch the bandwidth you’re using on the ViaSat connection and limit what you do, especially watching videos.
Note that gamers can NOT use satellite connections for live multi-player games due to the latency issue.
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HughesNet has been working just fine for me for nearly 14 years. Download speeds in the mid 40Mbps range and upload speeds in the mid 2Mbps range. No problems here. And the alleged “installer” doesn’t know what he’s talking about. The WiFi can be disabled very easily.
Hi Gabe,
The question is how much do you use it? I had images and videos both blocked and only did text, had the most expensive plan they offered, and STILL hit the data caps and ended up with no internet for 24 hours every time that happened. It was worthless for someone who works from their computer.
The WiFi on new installs is very powerful – so powerful that I had to relocate when a neighbor 100 feet away had their service installed. I can’t be around any wireless devices and even that distance did not stop their WiFi from blasting inside where I lived.
I strongly recommend that people search for EMF in a search engine or EMF groups on Facebook and find out what they’re doing to their own health by using it.
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I don’t stream very much, but I do watch Youtube videos on a regular basis. I browse, shop, pay bills, use Facebook and belong to a couple of different satellite internet support communities. I am online pretty much every day, and usually for at least four or five hours at a time. The internet is often on longer than that, but I mean that I’m actively using it for hour or five hours. I unplug the modem at night.
I’ve got the Gen5 20/50 plan and, though I’ve come close, I’ve never run out of data. I had the 15/50 Gen4 plan from Feb 2016 to Mar 2017, and I never ran out of data with that. From Dec 2004 to Feb 2016 I had a daily refill legacy plan, and as time went on I did start to run out of my daily data allotment once in a while.
As for the WiFi being able to be completely turned off, as in no broadcast whatsoever, I’m not sure. I didn’t realize that’s what you meant.
SSID enable is a feature in the Hughes modem and when unchecked disables the SSID broadcast. Most of what you are saying Gail is untrue for most customer experiences.
Hi Ann,
I find it telling that locking people into a year contract for almost worthless internet wasn’t enough for HughesNet. Now they lock them into paying for TWO YEARS when it doesn’t work for them.
So many complained that even if they paid the cancellation fees (which in my case would have been more than paying out the entire year), Hughes sent collectors after them. So I ended up paying for two internet services until I could get rid of it.
HughesNet is still bad. Just look at the current reviews on Consumer Affairs [average rating 2.5 stars from 3,089 ratings as of 11/4/19] or the current complaints on Twitter.
I wouldn’t wish HughesNet on my worst enemy. And I’ve had every kind of internet there is to have since 1994. I have AtLink WISP and ViaSat satellite internet now. The only reason I have ViaSat is that AtLink equipment is prone to outages that can last 2+ weeks or more due to lightening strikes.
ViaSat is more expensive (unlike truly unlimited AtLink WISP) and has similar limitations to HughesNet. But it is never horrendous and unusable unless it is entirely down — unlike HughesNet that was unusable repeatedly for 24 hours at a time.
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I strongly do not agree! !! Been a customer for many a year and hsn suxx. Gen4 reloads on the 1st day of month, by the end of day 2-3 data is ZAPPED completely. HSN’ s explanation (too many things running in background) Then wth! don’t tech support offer the customer a way to figure out and stop that from occurring. As far as the bonus GB suxx as well. Who the hall is gonna be up at 2 fricking am. (when the bonus data starts) to get something done or better yet enjoy their internet. Upgrade to Gen4 didn’t do nothing but raise the bill and my bp!!!! Plus was told to upgrade- had to renew contract for 2 years. Well I want my money back or 3 FREE years of internet service that works like HSN claims. What a RoyAL Screwing with no vassi ;);).
Marie,
You’re on Gen4, which is the prior version of the service. Also, if you’re running out of data in two days something is burning through it. HughesNet is your ISP. They can’t tell you exactly what is using your data for various reasons, the most important ones being legal. If you have Windows computers connected you can download and use Glasswire (the free version), which will tell you what is using data on the computer it’s installed on. There are other programs for other operating systems, including operating systems on tablets and phones. You can also buy a router with data monitoring capabilities that could tell you how much data each connected device is using. There are also various forums that you could utilize to ask for help, including the “HughesNet Support Community.”
The 50GB of Bonus Bytes is very valuable to plenty of people. Scheduling files and programs to download during this time is what people do. People also use things like PlayOn Cloud to download movies and TV programs during this time. What would “suck” is having to use Anytime Data to do this.
What do you say about charter spectrum now the internet services providers industry is totally changed, new technology has been introduced in the market.
Hi Sarah,
Service can vary depending on where you are. I’ll never try HughesNet again. ViaSat isn’t bad, but their marketing is misleading. “Unlimited” should really mean unlimited at the speed you’re paying for NOT possibly unusable if you go over your download limit.
While there is new tech, it still can’t overcome things like latency, rain fade, and for wireless (WISPs), sensitivity to lightening.
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Thanks for such a long review on hughesnet but I am using the services of charter spectrum and I am really happy with their services.
Great sharing this post. Lovely article to get a lot of information. Thanks a lot for this post.
Good review and alert to give to avoid future problems. It is perfect article about hughesnet share more article thanks for sharing
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HI Matt,
You truly deserved hatsoff, as a blogger we also need good connection and speed as we 24×7 online
unbelievably poor service. Completely false advertising. STAY AWAY. Ordered the service in November. They installed the Sat dish in December on a fence post (2″ diameter – really). Laid the cable on the lawn to a crawl space opening. They cut a hole in the rodent screen and pushed the cable through. In January, after several calls they removed and reinstalled the dish on a 2.5 in galvanized pipe starting at 9pm, 6 hours after time promised. After several more calls they retargeted to a different satellite. The same poor performance; 675-1,200 ms latency, download speed 456kbps-10mbs, upload 0-1mbs. After an additional 8 hours on the phone, mostly on hold, finally got someone to cancel my contract and refund the “disconnection fee of $371”. They said I have to remove the Satellite and pole and send back certain pieces from the dish. UNBELIEVABLE. Thanks for letting me vent.
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Hi Presh,
Believe me, you are not the only person who needs to vent about HughesNet. You are lucky if you got a refund. Most peple end up paying out the contracts which was bad when it was 1 year – and now they sucker people in for TWO YEARS!
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Hi,
Great Blog and information provided.
Internet connection is like oxygen , everyone needs to survive whether its their business or any other work.
I was using it but after all information that you shared here, i will stop using it. thank you so much.
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I will never use HughesNet Satellite ISP. Thank you so much! Very helpful read. I love your posts. Keep up the great work.
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We took Hughesnet because we thought from advertisements it would be pretty good. The only reason we change servers was because out old server (a company ) went out of business. so bad, they really were on top of things. This is much slower than (i dont want to show the company name) I have problems with email.
Is Hughesnet still in business? I wonder how long you can stay in business when you s*ck so much.
Reading this makes me think about my internet provider.
I’m with one of the two biggest internet providers in China and after 6 internet always gets really slow. Maybe they are manipulating the speed, or it’s because of my housemates coming home…
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Damn, I didn’t know that HughesNet was providing such a poor quality service, and I was about to apply as a subscriber. Thank you for the warning,
I should have noted on my previous comment… we are on a business level plan. Support is horrid, and from what I have read online, we’re not doing any better than those on a regular Hughesnet plan!
You all are lucky… we moved to the mountains with our business and we’re relying on them to provide at lease SOME level of service. No such luck though. SSL sites don’t work at all…. and these days, everyone uses ssl for login (ebay, amazon, facebook, hootsuite, all of our business sites, etc).
It’s so useless, it’s not even funny. I cannot even tweet about how bad it is because it wont load! Every day sites and email work fine though. Go figure!
HughesNet is WORTHLESS!!!!
Hi Chris,
I totally agree..the worst dial-up I ever had would run circles around their so-called “high speed”. When Yahoo.com takes 5+ minutes to load and it is so slow that just following people on Twitter will make you want to pull your hair out it is time to just forget them and move on. Alas, you may have to pay out a contract for years to get rid of them though! That is what I ended up doing. Used them for backup but could never get my work done at all.
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” * We aren’t supposed to EVER open more than one tab at a time
* They never claimed their service would work for filling out forms on the Internet on sites like Yahoo Local or Google Maps
* That even if I couldn’t use the Internet there was absolutely nothing wrong – I should just “wait a few hours and try again”
”
I just can’t believe that!
haha
in this time and age where you win something in one second, and you can lose it in another…
The internet should help you work nearly as fast as the speed of your thoughts.
thanks for the post
Hughes offers a great service for remote areas, BUT it’s a SAT service, meaning lot’s of delays and thus unsuitable for realtime services like VoIP or fast webbrowsing. It’s also problematic for services where there is lots of interaction with a server (aka ‘near realtime), like most HTML5 webpages (often used in webforms) and paymentservices.
If you need/want a realtime service, you need a fixed connection (Copper/DSL, Fiber/Ethernet, whatever), if some lag is workable than a wireless connection will be workable (Wimax, 3/4G). If lots of lag is no problem, than SAT might be a solution.
If you are a ‘download only person’ (downloading big files, with little to none interaction with a webpage), than SAT offers a good solution too, but it will cost you, since good bandwidth never is cheap.
Hi Roy,
Unless HughesNet works a lot differently anywhere else they do NOT offer a “great service” for ANYONE anywhere because it can take 2, 3, 4 or more MINUTES to load ONE simple page. Not even 2400 baud dial-up was ever that slow. It is ridiculous and unusable.
I assure anyone reading this that theywill be far better off with regular dial-up than paying premium rates for simply horrid access. Even on days when it takes ten or more minutes for a single page to load HughesNet support will still insist that the load times “are within normal parameters”.
They have you run their speed test, the first few are well outside even their excessive target speeds and then they “do something” and all of the sudden your “test loads” are faster – but never actually loading even pages that have almost nothing on them like Yahoo.com or DuckDuckGo.com.
I had Earthlink satellite at three previous locations and THAT worked fine (keeping in mind that I don’t do gaming or other things for which the inherent latency of satellite is unsuitable). Since Earthlink uses Hughes satellites I do not know why theirs worked better or whether it would work better now.
I phoned Earthlink when my HughesNet contract was fulfilled trying to find out whether switching to Earthlink (to use as my backup Internet access – WISP) would work better but could not even get their rep to understand that I did NOT want to buy ANOTHER dish – only to switch the equipment I already bought to their service.
If ANYONE has decent satellite service please let me know. Just reply to this comment or use the contact tab or Tweet @GrowMap or Skype to GrowMap.
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Let me clarify: I have no experience with consumer products offered by Hughes or their American offerings, but lots of experience with their b-to-b offering in Europa and for non-realtime webstuff and big downloads it really is a great service with good multi-lingual support. Like I said: it costs you (>200 euros a month, per site). In the US you can try Echostar as an alternative, but be warned: they just bought Hughes 🙂
To be clear: I run a b-to-b fixed connection broadband provider in Europe and we mainly service shops (paymentservices) and hospitals (client data, alert services). For Petrol sites we make extensive use of Hughes Service and I have experienced them to be very professional with lots of knowledge.
Hi Roy,
It sounds like they treat their business clients better than their consumer clients. If you read the details of this post you will see that what they told me was simply outrageous.
I am decidedly not your average Internet user since I work online, spent 23 years at IBM as a technician often working with Telcos on data transmission issues, and once even lived in an ISP where I assisted with tech support.
The HughesNet connection I got stuck with contractually was so bad that it was almost useless even as backup and was definitely slower than 33.6, 24 or 21.6 dial-up connections back in the 1990s (although we both know that back then there was less multi-media on a typical Web site so that will affect page load times).
What I still would like to know is why Earthlink satellite access which I used in two different locations worked fine even though it used Hughes satellites and HughesNet using newer equipment is so worthless. That could be an install problem but HughesNet refused to send someone to check to see if that was the problem and I am pulling the plug since the contract is up and even at $30 off per month for 6 mos. – what they offered me when I last tried to get them to fix it instead of actually admitting there must definitely be something wrong – it isn’t worth having at any price.
It literally can take more than 5 minutes to load a simply page like Yahoo.com but their tech support insists that is “not a problem” because their little speed test thing (which fails the first times you run it suddenly returns numbers that are “within specs” once you give them the first numbers – even though you can count how long it takes to load and it is far longer than their test says it is). If you ask me they just return false results to get you to go away.
I urge anyone considering HughesNet to simply type in HughesNet on Twitter search any time and see all the complaints. I have never searched that there weren’t tons of them.
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I have been a customer since 2008 and I would do anything to get out of contract. I am having issues with this system. Most often, I got a error message while browsing the net, I firstly I thought that it was because of the problems of the website or something like that. But soon I have got a realization that it is because of this huge net only! Nothing else! And sometimes the download speeds dropped to around 10-20 kbps! And the promised speed is 800kbps. . i called support but it only fixed it temporarily. And they were telling like if I upgrade speeds will be faster. But I am not daring to give e try! I am really waiting for the 3 months, for then only I can get out of those 24 months. I am truly join with you don’t never ever use this!
Hello,
I upgraded to the Pro version and that did NOT help. Get out of the contract and move on if you can get ANYTHING else. If there is no other high speed alternative, first try various dial-up companies. I sincerely believe that you will find them much faster and more reliable than HughesNet ever is.
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Hughes is horrible, I thought i was the only one who hated them, then I found this blog post lol.
Hi Tony,
Just search Twitter for the word HughesNet any day of the week any hour of the day and you’ll see all the complaints (as well as many trying to make money convincing others to sign up with them!). Sometimes I reply to them and send them this post.
Has your tree trimming company claimed their free local listings yet?
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this is a great site full of great content
hey
( my second post on your blog and a second big conclusion)
one of my Internet Marketing menotr- James Schramko, says this ;
there are three major points that should be considered for anybody who wants to work on the internet
all three are obvious but rarely considered:
1. have the right mindset, know why you want to do ti
2. have good internet connection- respect your time…if you will not, nobody else will
3. get a great chair
essential stuff
thanks for your post
cheers
Ryan
Has anyone tried running a proxifier on this company, with the right proxy software and proxy, you can maybe get past their daily limitations. Your speed would remain the same though.
Just a thought, i have been doing this in South Africa with one of our mobile networks, they charge us ridiculous rates here, so i am getting them back over and over. FREE internet for all is what should happen.
Hi Dawie,
I wonder if it would be worth setting one up for me. Since I was locked into a long-term traffic I still have HughesNet as my backup connection. It costs twice what my local WISP charges and is almost useless for any serious work.
The problem with HughesNet is not so much the speed as it is the way they limit how much you can download. Even with images blocked and never watching videos if you work the way I do they throttle your ability to work.
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Well, Even if you are using it for business, HughesNet is not recommended. This is the worst ISP ever and their support is useless.
Even if you are not on the blogging business, HughesNet is not recommended. This is the worst ISP ever and their support cannot not actually provide one.
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ANY CLASS ACTION CASES ON HUGHES NET?
I’LL SIGN UP
THEY NEED TO BE STOPPED!!!
Yes Marsha,
Hughesnet Sued for Poor Service
HughesNet Class Action
Consumer Affairs HughesNet Complaints
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Satellite broadband is an unsuitable option for fast-paced applications like internet television services or online gaming. However, it is also the only option available for those in the remote areas. It would be better if HughesNet provide improved customer support.
Before contacting any satellite broadband provider, you should keep yourself informed of their qualities so that you will have basic idea of what the company offers. These details will help you deal with them professionally and also ask questions for which you need answers.
Thanks for the great info, keep up the good work, I’m an avid reader!
Internet marketing is getting popular now day by day. Even people try to do shopping, make banking transaction through on line. So its very necessary to get a connection from a reputed ISP who can provides you better bandwidth.
It is extremely important to have a reliable internet connection for anybody who works online or has a blog, or even a casual user… after all, he/she is paying for it! It is ridiculous for them to tell you things like you should not open more than one tab or do not use Google maps… its like telling you cannot use our bandwidth even though you have paid for it! Such ISPs require a quick boot from the regulatory bodies.
I am certain to stay well clear of these guys – many thanks.
I have never used Hughes, and now I know I never will,
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Hi, your post is really informative…thank you very much for sharing this satellite ISP issue.
That is completely ridiculous. My dad also got told “wait a few hours and try again” when it wasn’t working. What planet are these guys on. Internet that always works is standard for the price they charge. It’s not meant to be a bonus if it actually half works!
Hello and welcome,
Yes, ridiculous is what I thought when they insisted it was working when it wasn’t working. When their Executive Customer Care and Tech people both told me we could only open one tab at a time that was it. I had to find real Internet access somewhere.
Even though I barely use the HughesNet connection it is still so slow it is almost worthless. I have a secondary PC hooked to it and only use it for Social Networking sites, checking email or working on spreadsheets.
I sincerely feel for anyone stuck with using HughesNet. If anyone has read this far I recommend sticking with dialup because any time you try to actually use it for high speed access you’ll get clamped down far slower than the slowest, original dial-up speeds.
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Yup – it sucks but at least you have a choice. Here is South Africa we are being raped by Telkom and there’s nothing we can do about it!
Hi Jim,
Is there only one ISP and no WISPs in your area? What independent dial-up companies do is buy a trunk line from the Telecom and resell to their customers. Wireless companies put up their own towers to send the signal directly to a receiver at your location.
In some parts of the United States there are now choices but many areas still have no high speed options until a small business decides to install wireless where they are. There are many countries with far better Internet infrastructure than here or there.
For many very important purchases we do not really have choices – we only have the ILLUSION of choice. There may be two major phone companies but they are really the same. Even independent Internet companies have to buy from the same major Corporations so we are all dependent even when we do our best not to be.
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Thanks for the heads up. Cant see how they can stay in business with such attrocious principles. This reminds me of that Liberty Domaines of America based out of upstate New York. They send out letters and emails to domain owners trying to get them to renew with them. their letters are deceiving and misleading to say the least. Once an unsuspecting customer sends payment their domain is switched and hijacked for a much higher annual fee. If you want to move elsewhere, there is another incredibly high fee. Buncha crooks. beware of liberty domaines and hughesnet.
Hi JT,
Thanks for the tip. I had not heard of that scam yet. The difference between the two scams is that Corporate scams usually get ignored for political and financial reasons while smaller scams generally move and change their names, addresses and phone numbers as complaints mount.
There are many sites where we can warn each other about scams so I hope you posted information about them on those to increase the likelihood others will avoid being scammed.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Instantly Acquire 76 High Quality Incoming Links =-.
I don’t think this kind of technology is reliable yet – but I can’t hardly wait.
Wireless has been around since the early days. The equipment now is far better – especially the Canopy stuff – and very reliable except when hit by lightening. Antennas on the highest available points do tend to attract it and that is an unfortunate drawback.
We have had thunderstorms with unnatural amounts of lightening so I have had two short outages. Both times they responded quickly and resolved the issues. There really isn’t much they can do to prevent that type of damage.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Social Networking is NOT Chat =-.
Thanks for the heads up. My uncle was actually planning to try out their service. I better warn him fast.
.-= Sandra@1800PetMeds Blog´s last blog ..Why Does My Dog or Cat Scratch So Much? =-.
Hi Sandra,
I hope you caught him in time. I still have HughesNet I use as a backup and it is still pitiful even when I rarely use it. Any time I update anything on that PC it slows to a crawl.
I hope you had time to check out all the great resources here for growing your blog and business. If you have any questions just ask. I’ve been at this a long time primarily assisting ecommerce sites to increase their conversions, traffic and revenue with great success.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..How to Evaluate Your AdWords Accounts =-.
Is a disgrace that they get away with this poor service. Unfortuately there are so many big companies who don’t care about their customers. A complaint to the BBB could sort them out!
Hi Phil,
While filing complaints with the BBB is a good idea to let others know about the issues they don’t really have the power to get businesses to do anything. As long as a business responds to the BBB they usually don’t have much impact. Any business that does NOT respond makes it extremely obvious that they simply do not care even that much.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Major Television Stations Feature MyLocalLookup =-.
Hmmm, I have never tried HughesNet!
Does anyone have a good suggestion for broadband in southern Spain? (Andalucia specifically!)…
I was going to go for a satellite bband option, but now I am wondering if there is a ‘local geek’ -(as you put it 🙂 ) in the area!
Hmmmm an investigation is needed I guess!
.-= Johnny@broadband´s last blog ..Podcasting Pioneer Scott Sigler Launches Book Publishing House Dark Overlord Media =-.
Hi Johnny,
Do you have any geek hangouts in Spain? Do check the sites I linked to and especially DSL Reports. They have a forum with some great people. With any luck some will be in Spain and will know what options are available there.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Local Search Directory Taps the Power of Television =-.
Every time I do a search for HughesNet at Twitter my heart goes out to all those suffering from almost no Internet access because they use HughesNet. One suggested that everyone file a complaint with the BBB. Sounds like an excellent idea.
What really needs to happen is a class action lawsuit. If anyone hears of one let me know and I will forward them all the information I have including lists of Twitter users who have Tweeted complaints.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..How Much Is A Memorable Logo Worth? =-.
I live in a rural area and after being laughed at by AT & T about DSL, I decided to give Hughesnet a try. I should have stayed with dial up. It ran smoothly during the initial 30 days , during which I ran afoul of the “FAP” on one occasion. During the last four days, I have been unable to go on line for 30 minutes out of almost every hour. It s appears to be DNS server related and Hughesnet customer support is useless. I can ping Yahoo and other IP’s but get error messages if I try to surf. The connection is useless for at least 30 minutes to an hour each time. I would love to explain the problem to an american technician without being asked inane questions. If some one is considering Hughesnet, DON’T. I wish I would have checked before.
Hello Barry,
You have described the issue that those of us who have serious issues with HughesNet have seen. Some suspect they intentionally and severely limit bandwidth which causes many sites to fail to load.
I spoke to level two and three support and Executive Customer Care. It doesn’t matter whether they can speak English well or not – they will insist there is nothing wrong even when any rational person would conclude that their Internet connection was unusable.
That was true even though I had upgraded to the Elite Pro plan. It is very unfortunate because there are still some locations that have no other high speed options. Worse yet is their cancellation policy. Even though I now have wireless for far less than HughesNet’s least expensive plan I am still paying them every month for almost useless Internet access.
Fortunately for me I can use it as backup and for a secondary computer so it is not a total loss. Others have it far worse Just search for HughesNet on Twitter any time to see their pain.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..How to Add Your Free Business Listing to infoUSA =-.
Oh! I hate it when companies have such a poor level of customer support! If only HughesNet spent as much on tech support than they do on advertising!
I have a question, I found this blog post while doing some research into sat. broadband, I am soon going to be moving to rural France, and as I run a few web businesses, I am researching best options for broadband – I was thinking about Sat. bband, but now I am not too sure…
My question is… have you tried any other Satellite broadband providers? Do you have an opinion on who the best satellite broadband company is at the moment?
Thanks!
.-= peter@mobile broadband free laptop´s last blog ..Cash machines turned into Wireless Broadband (Wi-Fi) hotspots =-.
Hi Peter,
I had one of the very first Earthlink satellite accounts installed in two different locations and never had the issues I experienced with HughesNet even though Earthlink was using a HughesNet satellite.
Satellite is not usable for certain types of applications – especially gaming – because of the inherent latency caused by having to send a signal so far above the earth and back down again.
The problem with HughesNet is most likely the way they are managing their bandwidth and not the satellite technology itself. I noticed that my wireless download speeds for large files is slower and for routine Internet usage is faster.
That tells me my WISP (wireless ISP) limits throughput for certain actions (large downloads) so that everything else has better response times. This is a much better way to handle bandwidth limits than the way HughesNet gives you either all or almost nothing.
You should check out the reviews and forums at DSL Reports to find out which companies provide the best service in your area. Also check the WISP Directory to see if they have International information on wireless providers. I would always choose point-to-point direct wireless over satellite.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Select Keywords First to Make Your Content Easy to Find =-.
Holy Cow!
I almost signed up for HughesNet last Wednesday after spending three days on the phone with BellSouth trying to figure out why/how my DSL account was closed without my permission.
I had never had an issue with BellsSouth before and I have used their DSL Internet for over five years. No one could seem to offer me a sensible explanation for the account closure. I did consider giving HughesNet a call on the recommendation of a friend who thought they offered a good service. Personally, I thought they were a little pricey and decided to wait for BellSouth to correct their mistake.
In the end, I was able to finally speak with a manager at BellSouth that not only reinstated my account, but also gave me a credit on next month’s bill.
Looks like my frugality might have saved me a tremendous amount of agony.
.-= Terry@Rip Off Report´s last blog ..You Must Buy Links To Rank For Some Search Results =-.
Hello Terry,
The only way HughesNet could be considered good is if someone uses very little Internet bandwidth. Perhaps those who just check their email and look at only one page at a time and never update their operating system (OS), visit a lot of pages in one day or go to YouTube would find it better than dial-up.
If you do a search for HughesNet at Twitter it becomes really obvious that serious Internet users will find getting work done nearly impossible. I still have it on a secondary PC but find it so slow even though I use it less than 10% of the time and never for large files or updating my OS that I do almost everything Internet related on fixed wireless now.
You are far better off with DSL and if you ever did need to make a change use the links in this post to seek out a small wireless company. They are so much easier to deal with than any corporation.
.-= Internet Strategist @GrowMap´s last blog ..Intelligent Bloggers to Consider Reading =-.
So all is good now with the new wireless? I’ve never heard of them, but thankfully our local cable is fantastic. 🙂
Dennis Edell’s last blog post..3 Tips For A Better Adsense CTR
I am so grateful for REAL INTERNET again! No more waiting until the middle of the night to download anything. No more ignoring everything audio and video because I might hit the ridiculously low FAP limits and be without Internet for 24 hours.
I can get twice as much done now and with that resolved I have a new faster PC being built. I should have it by Friday and then things will really speed up with two PCs and two Internet connections. (Since I can’t get rid of HughesNet I may as well use it.)
Most people don’t realize that fixed wireless is usually provided by a small local company owned by a geek. The better the geek the better the service. Compared to HughesNet it would be really difficult for a wireless company to be worse. This one has been good so far and their reputation is they are dependable.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..DMOZ Now Largely a Waste of Time
I hate these large companies that take advantage of unsuspecting users. I’m so paranoid now that it takes me forever to commit to a service, as I had to look for so many reviews!
Sorry for you tough time, we’ve all been there!
Nick’s last blog post..Targeted Email Marketing
Hi Nick,
Thank goodness there ARE reviews. I am a big advocate of encouraging more people to write reviews because we all benefit from them. I’m working on an upcoming series of how-to write reviews for the major Local Search Directory sites to make it easier for everyone to get started.
If you’re an expert on targeted email marketing I’m sure there are many readers here that could use what you share in your blog.
Internet Strategist’s last blog post..We Miss The Golden Days of the Internet – Pay Per Click Advertising Circa 2003
Thanks for the response,
That’s part of the reason I started my current blog, because I deal with clients on a regular basis who use a wide variety of email programs, some good, some not. It is almost impossible to get a clear recommendation of a solid email marketing program (and other software for sure), so I hope to help out a bit. Of course, full disclosure, I hope to make some money off my recommendations too! But at least they will be legit, from someone who works with these programs every day, and not simply the software with the best affiliate program. That’s why I think it’s so hard to find good reviews these days!
Keep me posted on your latest how-to guide!
Hi Nick,
I was just catching up on comments and thought you might want to check out the new features in FeedBlitz if you haven’t already. What they’re doing may make having another email list management tool like AWeber unnecessary.
.-= Gail @ Social Media Marketing´s last blog ..Wedding Boom Predicted for Next 22 Years =-.
If it were ME, there would be BAD BIZ FINDER reports, RIPOFF REPORTS, A one-star Yelp, and numerous other bad press created by me…….guaranteed to warn 10,000 potential customers away from Hughes Net.
Hi Matt,
I’m still working to get caught up from all the work I could not do for the many weeks HughesNet service was limping and I could not work. Believe me when I say I will warn as many people as I can as many places as possible.
My research will be very useful in the future. Eventually a major class action lawsuit is bound to be brought against them. There already is one in California.
Internet Strategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1
Another weapon is the simple Credit Card…….ALWAYS pay with C/C and you can dispute the charges.
If the service was not provided in the manner promised, you win the “Charge-Back” and the disputed item can be refunded to your Visa account. The number of days allowed varies from Bank to Bank…….I know my bank would have reversed all fees paid within a 90-day period…….YMMV (your mileage may vary).
Hi Matt,
That isn’t a bad idea. I wonder if that would work. I probably will unless the banks aren’t willing to take on HughesNet.
Internet Strategist’s last blog post..Select Keywords First to Make Your Content Easy to Find
I think just making this post helps people find out about these types of business. I have done several warning posts about companies and people are always doing searches before going to anywhere else!!
Good review and alert to give to avoid future problems.
Hello Birmingham,
Thank you. I sincerely hope it saves at least some people from wasting their time and money on such a truly bad service. The worst part about it is their dishonesty.
Internet Strategist’s last blog post..How to Create a Successful Blog Based Business Part 1