Usually slow (0.1 to 0.2 Mbps). Requires frequent reboot.

This is the worst company in the history..well, in the history of companies. My co-worker and I have been trying to resolve a fairly simple issue for the past few weeks with no answers in sight. Today alone, their "customer service" dept has transfered us to dozens of different people, has kept us on hold for hours on end and has hung up on us three times. Total time spent already: 4 hours today, several hours of the past few weeks and we still can't get the right goddamned dish. I HATE DIRECWAY MORE THAN WORDS CAN CONVEY!!! Please please learn from our awful experiences and DO NOT DO BUSINESS WITH THEM.

I had nothing but problems with direcway/hughsnet and am the ultimate of glad that I'm rid of it.

The installation was a 4 hour ordeal (I didnt think he'd ever finish) which resulted in a lot of my service problem afterwards. (lesson learned by the installer - you dont place a dish in line with a huge tree because it may work in the spring but once the tree gets leaves it blocks the view of the sky which interferes with the service)

When the sun was bright I'd loose my service. When it was overcast I'd loose my service. When it would rain or snow I'd loose my service. If snow collected on my dish I'd be without service.

To top it off, tech support/customer service is a complete and total joke! I could not understand them and they could not understand me. (outsourcing sucks and is a definite sign that a company cares less about their customers!)

After countless calls due to of bad reception (and having to send them pictures from different angels showing that the dish pointed right into the tree), direcway/hughsnet finally admitted that the dish should have been put on a poll away from the house because it was in line with a huge tree - but because it had already been installed if I wanted it moved I would have to contract someone authorized by them and pay for it myself.

And to think, I paid for that aggravation! Never again.... never ever again. Instead I now have wireless and couldnt be happier. Not only is a much more reliable, but I didnt have to buy any hardware and the service is half the price that direcway was charging!

horrible. never use this. ever. their customer service is set up to blather uselessly in foreign languages until you give up. FAP can be hit by the simplest web surfing, which reduces speeds to 1/4 dialup, assuming you can connect at all. if there is any precipitation, you get 0 signal. crashes often. downloading? Ha! you're better off with no internet at all

Do NOT use these people. There is NO, zip, zero, nothing but an excuse for tech support. they keep jacking around w/ their settings and don't tell you till you spend 2+ hours on the phone with their so called tech support and that's IF you can understand them AND IF they can understand you.

I am a computer network administrator. Living in a rural area with no other option for broadband I signed a contract with Hughesnet for their "Pro" plan that boasted download speeds of 1500K. During the evenings we routinely only average 90K download speeds! I have spent hours and hours on the phone with tech support and they always end up admitting that they can't provide the bandwith promised in their advertising campaign... but they will not let you out of your contract. One year later I can say if I were a wealth person I would hire a lawyer and sue for false advertising. Rip Off Warning - STAY AWAY FROM HUGHSNET!!!! (I gave a one star because negative stars are not available!)

Service is pretty terrible. They've boosted the price 20% and reduced allowed daily data caps by 80% and yet are still somehow able to sell service. Just recently they blocked access to world of warcraft servers and thus alienated a few thousand gamers. I've had the service since 03 and it was halfway tolerable until april 2007 when data allowances were reduced 80%. august 08 the price increases and further port throttling and blocking went into effect. If your a lame assed 'use the net for nothing' but looking at email for 30 minutes a day you may like the service. I only stayed because I was able to play world of warcraft for a few years. since its now unplayable I have cancelled the service. Looking for another provide and dialup wont work so for now I have nothing but the city library. if you want to compensate for all the 1 star ratings. just do the math and subract the 1 star for all 1 star posts.

I have had Direcway/Hughes.net for four years, because I have no choice. I live in a rural area, where DSL and Cable are not available. The service is spotty. I never knew the term "latency" until I had a satellite dish on my roof. Unlike its companion service DirecTV, which is a clear challenger to cable television, the internet service is slow, even with the fastest, and very expensive, modem you can get. Frequently, I get peculiar error messages indicating satellite outages. And, it is expensive. If I had a choice, any other choice, I would trash the satellite and hook up with the dreaded telephone company or a finicky cable provider. The bottom line is Direcway/Hughes have a pretty red-headed girl next door pitch-woman that makes its service sound like the best thing since corn flakes, but the reality is more like an ugly wallflower that only gets to dance when there is no-one else available. D.

i install and they suck

Hughes Really sucks. I could go on and on but, I am sure it is the same with everyone. You all know what hell it is to deal with them. I too, have NEVER recieved my promised credits for poor and no service. Unfortunatly they know they got us and they stick it to us!!!! They know that most people that have Hughes have no other choice. Therfore they will continue to take advantage of us. I am looking into WILD BLUE any thoughts on this?

Although their download and upload speeds are good their service is terrible. I've been trying to remove a dial-up service option for the past 6 months and am still getting billed for it.

I have huges net and it is unreliable at best. My speeds range from proper to crawling. The customer service personel are no better. After numerous complaints they finnaly admit that the bandwidth in my area is subject to fluctuations and they can't do anything about it. Bunch of crap! I just got the number for their corporate offices and are now dealing with them directly. The speeds should not range from 800&125 to 600 and 25. Happens all the time.

we are VERY pleased with HUGHES.NET!! I suspect those having major difficulties with signal loss in rain, etc., have a poorly aligned antenna dish, resulting in very low signal strength. They should blame the installer, not Hughes....and get that installation re-verified by the installer. To determine your actual signal strength do the following:

Open your internet browser and type 192.168.0.1 into the address field---NOT into the search engine, the ADDRESS field. Press enter.

Click on "System Status"

Note: It is a round button on the Drop down menu, probably illuminated in GREEN if your system is working properly.

At the top of your system status display is your signal strength--the closer it is to 80 the better. They say that anything over 55 is adequate, but it must be over 31 just to connect with the satellite....sooo the closer to 80 you are the better!

If it is a low number call your installer and have them re-align your antenna if you don't know how to do so yourself.

My signal strength is 77-78 and it is a cloudy rainy day here today. I have NEVER lost my signal, even during recent torrential rains and Tornados which came through our rural area in Tennessee.

Good luck and happy surfing!

HughesNet Is a VERY bad company, Hughesnet is the old DirecWay, I have a blog post referenced to info about them located at http://snoff.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/hughesnet-may-get-sued/

HughesNet Is a VERY bad company, Hughesnet is the old DirecWay, I have a blog post referenced to info about them located at http://snoff.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/hughesnet-may-get-sued/

HughesNet Is a VERY bad company, Hughesnet is the old DirecWay, I have a blog post referenced to info about them located at http://snoff.wordpress.com/2007/12/25/hughesnet-may-get-sued/

You don't know why everyone is so down on hughesnet because you don't realize you are being ripped off just like everyone else. Hughesnet is a lousy company because they sucker people (through false advertising) into thinking they will be getting a service that will meet their needs and then some. When in fact, if you wanna do more than jusy check the weather now and then you're sol. And you better forget about updates, or streaming video, or any type of useful downloading you might do. Fap, was made up to rip people off. Most people were already customers when it came about, and never signed anything agreeing to any type of fap limit. They were never given a choice, and they can't cancel because of contracts. If you can't deliver the service that you advertise, then stop advertising that you can and do. Most of us don't have the time or money to waste on lieing cheating companies like you.

Btw, I signed up on this site just so I could post this comment so you know I have a little interest in this subject. In case you couldn't tell already.

I dont know why everyone is so down on Hughesnet. The only other option out where I live is dial up and that really sux. Hughes has been for us a very good system with much better speeds than we had before the technician was very professional. It is expensive but much cheaper than paying the cable company $40,000 which is the only other choice we have for high speed. Thank you Hughes Net

I dont know why everyone is so down on Hughesnet. The only other option out where I live is dial up and that really sux. Hughes has been for us a very good system with much better speeds than we had before the technician was very professional. It is expensive but much cheaper than paying the cable company $40,000 which is the only other choice we have for high speed. Thank you Hughes Net

In 2005 we purchased a home in a rural area. So rural in fact that DSL or cable internet connections were not an option and likely will not be available for many years. My husband is an applications programmer who telecommutes. I perform contract graphics work much of which is web based. Obviously, we needed an internet connection for more than surfing. We opted for purchasing a Professional Level connection through HughesNet (which at the time was in fact DirecWay).  We very rarely see "Broadband" speeds which the FCC defines as 200 kbps and up.

Then came their "Fair Access Policy". They claim this has been put in place to insure all customers have equal access to internet down/upload volumes in a semi-equal playing field. Nonsense!! What it means is that they are overselling a product and service they can't deliver and can't/won't spend the money to upgrade. As a result, since HughesNet has limited access to satellite time and has to spread it over an over-sold subscriber base... the customer takes a hit. If you exceed your assigned maximum in any given 24 hour period, you are penalized by being locked down to 8 - 10 kbps for the next 24 hours. This is ludicrous for a professional who needs large data volume and bandwidth capabilities. For those who signed a contract prior to this policy, you are, in effect, SOL. Apparently they can change the original service and the consumer has no recourse.

Weather is a HUGE issue. With light rainfall, you get fade-out and significant signal degradation. If there is real storm, forget it. No internet connection at all. When it snows, even a light dusting sticking to the dish will terminate your connection for as long as it takes for all accumulation to melt away. When you call for help, they'll tell you to climb out on the roof and spray the dish down with "PAM". I'm embarrassed to admit we did try it... it doesn't work.

Their technical support is mediocre at best. The support staff are 99% Indian; often with a limited command of the English language. They will apologize a dozen times during your call but have apparently minimal training and ability to actually help.

For the everyday web surfer... it's barely better than dial-up and far less reliable and not at all cost effective. For the individuals who need to up or download large amounts of info... don't bother. You will NOT be able to watch video (forget about Netflix Watch Now or Reel.com), or email large pictures (you'll have to try sizing them down or zipping the file). Streaming video or sites with large Java applets or Flash will take forever to load.  If you have any kind of home business that requires the internet... forget it.  This will not work.

The bottom line is that HughesNet does not and apparently cannot deliver what they advertise. As a matter of fact, much of what they imply and promise dances dangerously close to false advertising if not fraud. You will pay 3 times the cost of DSL but get considerably less.

It appears that either the FCC and FTC are unconcerned or enough people are not filing complaints. Or perhaps the fact that Hughes Technologies is a HUGE company with enormous government contracts has something to do with it. I don't know. But I have never felt so blatantly and incredibly ripped off by any purchase I've ever made.

It should be noted that DirecWay (originally an offshoot of DirecTV) sold out to HughesNet for a reason. You can locate the particulars of this deal via Google.

I can only assume that if they do not upgrade what is now abysmal service and develop some truth in advertising, their days will be numbered as more and more outlying areas obtain access to DSL, fiber optics and cable.

when i bought my house about 5 years ago i was not in an area that offered dsl so i reluctantly decided to use direcway. not only was my service only slightly faster than dial-up, but at the beginning i was paying about $100 a month. i still have that grotesque receiver in my back yard as those useless pinheads never picked it up after i discontinued my service. direcway is so bad i would rather go without internet service than get their service for free.

As I see by other comments, I have to agree that this service is truly a rip-off. Support is essentially non-existent and the troubleshooting tree they use is a farce. I was asked if there was snow on my dish after telling them it was a sunny day in the Northwest. And, if you survive the help desk fiasco and they send a tech (took several months without service before they agreed to send a tech), it can get interesting. They change service companies as much as they turn off customers! My last call (they had to send several techs over several days) resulted in my being asked to remove several 90 foot fir trees as the installer aimed the dish between the branches and the trees must have grown. Now, in fact, the trees are close to 90 years old so I didn't understand why it became my problem. After all this, my Indian friends said I would get a credit for the three months I ended up being without service - any takers on betting if I saw the refund?

Agree this company should be investigated and have their license to do business in the US revoked. Hughes used to be a solid American company, now its a name with no business ethics. Call it Hughes or Directway, they are the same. At least some new providers are showing up for those of us who live in remote areas.

DO NOT GET THIS SO-CALLED SERVICE! It will be the biggest mistake you've ever made. Everything they advertise is a lie, I don't know why they haven't been indicted by the FTC or FCC. The speed is comparable to dial up, and you need not call customer support if you don't speak east Indian. And support tells you there are no supervisors! You will spend long hours on the phone trying to cancel, we reversed the charges on our credit card, they turned it over to NCO, a collection agency, immediately. The only thing that worked was turning them in to the BBB, we were credited a full refund after sending the equipment back. But there were many hours of frustration wasted trying to deal with them and them passing the buck, apparently no one is responsible for anything their business does.

Absolutely awful. Expensive mistake and the most unhelpful customer service reps ever. Have reported our problems to the BBB. Do not go with Hughesnet. Would cost us $700.00 to terminate service contract even though our service is awful and slower than dial up service was. Kids now use dial up instead and we pay for Hughesnet each month for no use. Stay away....wish I had read reviews first. Costly mistake.

Horrid. Don't call customer support unless you've taken 20 hours worth of foreigh language. Dallas installer was nice, even set it up in rainy/cloudy conditions and it works great (the TV goes out before internet!). Way overcharger for far too little product, constantly hitting FAP on the home plan (200 MB per rolling 24 hour period) which is next to nothing, all ports are blocked unless you pay 20 bucks for static IP, browsing speed is below diplorable but file download is decently close to ratings, if it works it works, if it doesn't, it's dead. absolutely nothing there during peak hours, i could go mow out 1 acre front yard in the time it takes to load a page. But in non-peak times it's decent.

bad service, if you're in the boonies like us and it's your only choice, take it. The second our contract is up our stuff is hitting ebay and we're switching to a local company that runs on RF signals (whom we had before HN till they had a long term service outage that prompted us to go to HN).

Ridiculous FAIR ACCESS POLICY, very expensive for low bandwidth and pathetic customer support. Chatroom support weasel tried a backchannel port 80 hack into our network during "tech support Q and A". Network was not even at the satellite location andthe butthead hacked in anyway. Probably looking for resources and things to liberate. I really can't say enough bad things here.....Find somone Else, anybody else

I’ve had issues with Direcway/Hughesnet from day one of installation.  I was told by Tech support that I was exceeding their FAP (Fair Access Policy).  I reviewed my FAP report and notice that I had usage when I wasn’t home or when I was asleep.  You can view your report at http://customercare.myhughesnet.com/frm_usage.cfm. 

I disconnected the power source from the modem unit overnight and continue to have high usage on my FAP report.  After reporting this to help support they connected me to higher support.  The higher support issued me a new customer account number.  Everything worked great for several months.  Now the issues have started all over again where I cannot access online due to high usage of FAP. 

This past weekend I was gone from Friday thru Sunday and had high usages on my FAP report.  How can that be when I’m not home and the unit is unplugged?  Try this some time if you’re having issues with the FAP. 

I’ve contacted help support several times and they’re no help at all.  Help support will tell you that is not possible to have usage when you’re not home.  They don’t listen to your issues.  I told the guy to come and take my modem for several days and you’ll see what I am talking about. 

I’ve consider of upgrade my home plan to the Pro plan but why should I pay more per month if I don’t even use what I have?  Maybe that is what they want you to do.  Hughesnet is ripping their customers off!

My advice to anyone thinking of buying their product….DON”T!

Hmmm.. What can i say about this company? Well where should i start i had it installed in my home. And canceled my service 2 hours after the installer left my home. Because well it worked fine until after he left then it went to shit. The people that installed it didn't want to say much good about the company, should have figured it out then. But i didn't i know i'm gonna be sorry because i tried to reason with them i just offered to return all the equipment and count my losses but that wasnt good enough. the woman i spoke with at hughesnet wasnt to friendly i asked to speak with her supervisor but only got put on hold while she claimed he was on the phone for 30 min. So i just said forget it and spoke with her more only for her to tell me there wasn't nothing they could do about forgetting about it all and just return everything. so now i guess it will go against my credit but oh well, i guess. After not getting there money the sent a paper in the mail saying that the service was going to be canceled but we already did that same day it was installed.. lol no loss there... So STAY AWAY from this company it is BAD NEWS i hope they get shut down soon before more victims fall into there trap....OH YEAH... they said when we called them about the speed, that they DIDN'T GUARANTEE SPEED!!!! SO DON'T THINK YOUR GONNA GET WHAT THEY SAY U WILL !!! one more thing i also thought that if you didn't like it you had 30 days to try it and cancel it but i guess not. Yet another lie from them.

Ripped Off! I called to schedule new service. I had all necessary equipment since I had purchased the home with the DirecWay system installed. I just wanted to have it turned on. I explained all to the person on the phone. "No problem". Once all my personal information and credit card info was given, I was told that I would need to have a service representative come to my home to "aim" the dish. Seemed it could just have been turned on. I was given the names of 2 local service representative. Neither was willing to come to my home to set me up. I offered to pay them a service fee. Both turned me down and explained that they make their money on the install of new equipment. Out of frustration I signed up with StarBand instead. My wife pays the bills and asked me about the Hughes Net monthly billings she had been paying for the past 1 1/2 years. I called to stop the billings and tried to get a refund for the fees I was charged w/o ever having the system set up. The bills continued for 6 more months! after numerous calls. I finally wrote a letter and spoke with someone that confirmed that I had never received any service. Still no refund would be forthcoming. More complaining and they eventually agreed to credit my card for half of the amount billed. Still 6 months later and no credit. I was ripped off!

Direcway broadband is the crappiest of services...Not only does their product not perform, but they had the balls to lie about the DW4000 units not functioning last January, citing numerous programming issues. After 7 days of phone calls, I came across a news article, stating that Direcway had lost its right to a European based satilite license. The loss of the rights to use this satilite would cost any customer currently using a DW4000 to have to purchase the new system, DW7000. Although, if by some chance you get to speak to someone and by some chance they speak english, you would likely be told a lie.
***

My advice would be to stay away from this company...They're crooks!

FYI...They could care less what people think...I don't know how they stay in business. I'm feel bad I had to give them a 1 star rating...They should have a negative star rating.

This company is the worst of the worst. You better think twice before signing a contract with Hughesnet. Once you sign they've got you and you will go crazy trying to deal with them. In my 57 years on this planet I have never dealt with a company this bad. Don't believe their "high speed broadband" sales pitch. The poor unreliable speed plus dealing with incredible bad customer support will drive you nuts. Buyers beware!

If there were negative ratings for this service I would give it.

Have been a customer for 3 years, and if continuous outtages, slow downs, and limited downloads are what u want - then you'll have IDIOT tattooed across your forehead like me.

Have DW 4000 series, and upon different conversations with tech/sales support - say the answer is the DW7000, but upon further investigation from their own sales dept, was advised that there would always be service degradation during peak hours (oh, by the way, it took 5 minutes for this site to load on 2/13/07 at 8:00 pm CST) and would still be limited by FAP downloads.

PLEASE PLEASE hear my confession of HE-- with DIRECWAY/HUGHESNET - I would not wish this on anyone with a choice, and hope this might save someone the frustration of Hughesnet...

Everytime I see that Red Headed lady on TV saying "Your Welcome" I flip her off - I'm sure i'm not alone.

I have read all these posts....suffice it to say.. I agree with them all! Direcway is THE WORST Internet provider out there! NO CUSTOMER service and if there is a rain cloud in the sky...well.. forget getting on the net. 2 long hard frustrating years of this BS and I'm done. Fortunately, cable just arrived in my neighborhood and the "CABLE GUY" will be here today! I'm not trying to rub it in to you folks who may still be stuck with these losers..I'm just posting this in case you are smarter than I was and you may be doing your homework BEFORE you get screwed!!

I contacted the BBB and here is my report Now it is time to contact My State Attorney General. This worked for me when I had problems with Direcway / Hughesnet.

Filed against :
Johnston Communications
320 E. 3rd Street
Villisca IA 50864
&
WildBlue Communications, Inc.
Greenwood Corporate Plaza, Bldg. 1
5970 Greenwood Plaza Blvd., Suite 300
Greenwood Village, CO 80111

WildBlue Communications, Inc
P.O. Box 4427
Englewood, CO 80155
1-866-WildBlue (945-3258)
Complaint Description:
I signed up January 5, 2006 and the automatically took the money out of my account for the dish. I have been waiting over a week for an installer. I contacted them on my installtion date which was set for the morning and they later changed it to the afternoon. Then later that day I called in and they said they would not make it due to weather. So they rescheduled me for the following Monday. If it takes this long to get an installer out here how long will it take if I have technical problems!? I later called them and told them I wanted to cancel and they told me they would not refund me the money for the dish which they took out of my account the day I signed up for $299.00 and I would still have to pay for a full year of service which is another $264. I have a problem with a company that takes your money and takes there time installing and telling me that I broke the contact. They never lived up to their end of the agreement. WildBlue is another Directway HughesNet. Now I am stuck with a dish and no service since they will not refund me the money. I would never do business with WildBlue or HughesNet again. I called in yesterday and they said someone would get back to me. I was never called!! I called today January 16th, 2007 and they told me the same thing. I paid for this service and now I am obligated to pay for another 12 months when they never lived up to their end of the deal. I am tired of the run around. They told me when I first signed up that if it is scheduled on a certain date then the company they have doing the job will be out because they hired them to do so!! Thank you,

Your Desired Resolution:
Either install or refund the money
They later came out to repair my dish and less than an hour I was back to the same speed and booted offline every 30 minutes.
I called Johnston Communications and the supervisor Jennifer started yelling at the top of her lungs chewing me out for contacting the BBB. She told me it was installed properly..LOL. And that I was over my usage...yeah 3 days $69 a month for dialup speed. This girl was very rude.

SO MANY LIES, IT MUST BE FRAUD
if you work from home, dont be fooled into thinking you can count on these scumbags! I cant even belive hughesnet has the nerve to advertise 24/7 tech support, its a complete and utter lie. at 9:00am sunday morning, "24/7 tech support" turned out to be an answering service. yes, an answering service. not a hughesnet receptionist, not even a company voice mail system, but an outside answering service, like what your local doctor has. is it possible anyone could really run a billion dollar company this way??? the phone rang 10 times before some rude gal answered with the words "please hold." I had to hold for 3 minutes for the priviledge of leaving a message for tech support to call me. after 2 messages and 5 hours, still no call, and no way to call tech support directly. this is the quality of service we get for $199 a month business pro package. you would think that since these theives made 600 million dollars in the first 9 months of 2006 alone, they could use some of it hire someone to answer the phone or hey--heres an idea--offer actual real tech support 24/7. hughesnet has customers for one reason and one reason only--no other options. the second i have any other broadband choice, any other choice at all, i will kick them right to the curb.

OMG...just OMG for anything over $2.00 this is rape

Bad would not describe Direcway, which is now called HughesNET. I have had a problem for 6 months now and they can't seem to figure out what's wrong. I have probably been on the phone for 10 HRS. Does anyone know anything about WildBlue satellite internet?

We just had Hughes installed. After Three years of Dial up it was our only option and I guess being as desperite as we were to get in tune with the rest of the world we pulled the trigger.

After paying $499.00 for the install,plus an additional $125.00 to have it placed on a pole. On would think that the installer would have done a top notch job..
1. I was stood up Two times by the installer Third time he was 30 Min late.
2. Didn't use the lock washers included in the kit.
3. my pole is not level.
4. He wasn't going to buried my cable. (Four feet from my house) How do you mow around that.
5. The hole he drilled to run the cables was gooped with cheap Silicon.
6. The cable run inside the house was not forethought.
7. I had to install my own old work gang box.
8. He did not use a wall plate with cable connectors.
9. Thankfully I cut the hole in the wall.
10. I buried the cable so I don't chop it with the mower.
11. I installed the wall plate and cable couplings.

after calling his boss, I quickly learned that he is as stupid as the installer himself. For the amount of money I dropped on this I would expect a top grade intallation, not a hack job. However, I had the same issues with any Cable/Satellite installation. I guess this industry just attracts this type of Circus Freak rejects.

If only I could have done this install myself in the first place! and saved a few hundred dollars. Instead I had to clean up his mess.

So far I am happy with my up and down speeds. I just hope nothing goes down in the future.

Okay, so I wasnt quite smart enough to check out this site, before getting involved with Hughes. It is really nice to know that I am not totally computer illiterate! I thought I was going crazy...hours and hours of tech support with someone that I had to make repeat every word. Everything was always blamed on the clouds, Internet Explorer, Windows or McAfee. After purchasing many programs that correct errors, in each program, I found this site. Thanks so much for restoring my sanity. I am a very trusting person. Tech support told me that upgrading would now solve my problem. "Okay, I will get back with you," then I came directly to this site. The upside... my contract was up on Aug 28th. This door is about to slam. Thanks so much for all the input.

Many problems with modem. Customer service is awful.

This is a terrible company. Extremely poor customer support, technical support. I regret ever doing business with this company. BUYER BEWARE!

huges net direcway is the absolute worst you will live to regret getting service. bad install the dish was literally falling off our house spent 12 hours on hold and with "tech support" in the mid east, no help, no compensation but they made sure they stopped our service the very day after payment was due with no warning, and took 2 days to turn it back on. NEVER GET HUGHES DIRECWAY

Purchased HughesNet hardware and service over three months ago. Has worked aprox. three weeks since. Have called fifty plus times, written letters, and sent emails. Spent ten plus hours on hold. No assistance in resolving my service issues whatsoever.Requested refund and was told no, instead they would charge me a $300 early termination charge. I was told I needed to make a better effort at resolving the problem before cancelling. I was told if I didn't pay it they would send it to collections and my credit would be impacted. I have disputed the charges with my cc company and written the BBB and FTC. Currently unresolved. Far and away the worst most deceiving company I have ever dealt with or even heard of. I strongly advise against contracting with this company.

Ill add my nickel to this endless list of complaints as an attempt at therapy and a sign of solidarity. Like many others I live in the boonies and had no other choice but Direcway. The system was installed in 2003 and we had several minor problems which were corrected after much phone in ear time with various support techs around the globe.

In December 2005 the really good stuff started happening, the system went dead. I called the Customer disservice number and got a case # which was followed by a service visit after a month of waiting. The service tech, who showed up mid day with his girlfriend on a road trip had a spare modem and could fix the problem in no time at all he said. Ha! Jokes on me turns out the modem was configured to work in the Chinese hemisphere and was useless in Colorado. Another month and the correct modem was sent to me and after lots of multi-hour calls to various tech support experts the system did work again but very slowly. Often Id use my dial-up number because it was faster.

So I took the bait and up graded to a higher service level and a new and faster HN7000. I connected the cables and started the simple commissioning process (not). After a couple of hours of frustration I realized that the instructions were crap and called the Help Line. More crap the guy in India was reading the same bogus instructions that I have been reading only not as well. We went through the motions (power down, switch cables, check the network connection settings) to no avail. He finally passed me off to the next level tech, this time in Florida (better language skills but the same technical knowledge) repeating the above once again. The new guy decides that I need an on site tech to come out and re-point my antenna because that is the only thing it could be. When I asked him to explain how that could happen since the DW6000 was working just before I disconnected it and started to commission the HN7000 modem he simply restated the same thing the antenna needs to be re-pointed as if repeating it would make it so. I must be a little thick because I just was not getting the obvious point he was so simply explaining to me.

I wont go into all of the details but after investing 3 days and about 7 hours of phone time with yet a higher level engineering tech I decided to cut my losses. I suggested they reset my service to the old DW6000 which although slow actually worked and would not cost me a service visit. Well that cant possibly be done because I had commissioned the HN7000 unit and once you go there you cant go back. What a bunch of modern day snake oil dealers. So I said great cancel the service and send me an RA and return label for the modem (cant do that either). They hit me with an early cancellation fee which I disputed with my credit card company and followed with letters to the FCC, FTC and the BBB. Its an on going saga but I simply will not sit and be taken advantage. Save yourself time, money and frustration STAY AWAY from this Direcway/Hughes Net scam.

Hughes.net is worse than dial-up. DO NOT purchase their services... you WILL BE SORRY. Our company purchased their highest service... with the DW7000 series. Advertising says 2000 down and 500 up. If you talk to your salesperson, they should tell you that their "minimum threshhold" is 800 down and 150 up... at this point, I would be elated if we were getting even those speeds. We have been getting speeds under 100 down and as low as 37 up for almost two months now. I have had a Case # for two months, and I am continuously told that I will be getting a call the next day from their advanced support engineering. The problem is, every time I call in I end up being put on hold for anywhere from 30 minutes to 1.5 hours waiting for a superviser to talk with. I will be filing a complaint with the Better Business Bureau and with the FTC, as well as the State of Michigan. Sad thing is, they use India for their tech support. I thought the people of India believed in Karma? I would hate to see their payback in the afterlife.

I have had Direcway for four years. As with others here, I signed up as an alternative to dialup as I had no other way to connect. At first Direcway was pretty decent but over the insuing years, service and speed have diteriated. although I have not had too many tech problems, the times I did need customer service have not been bad. My independent phone company now has DSL, which I signed up for yesterday and I love it. My internet now flies at speeds near cable and at half the price of satellite. I will be cancelling my DW/Hughes service as soon as I migrate my email changes. If it is all you can have, I would still go with sat but anything else is better, except maybe dialup.

I couldn't agree more with the horrible ratings others have given to Direcway/Hughes. Since the switch from Direcway to Hughes, my service is down more that up, the instructions to change my e-mail service were such a joke I finally gave up and went to hotmail, and the system is slower than ever. If I wanted such crappy service I would have stayed with AOL!!! And they had the nerve to charge more than $700 to install!!! What a joke!!! Sure wish I had seen this site before shelling out all the money!

I would recommend Direcway/Hughesnet ONLY to my own worst enemy. The service is just absolutely terrible in every aspect. I would never recommend it to anyone else.

same experience as everyone else. want my mopney back. can't connect, trying to charge $600 to get out of contract. we need a class action law suit!

I have installed Direcway (now HughesNet) equipment for 5 years now, operating out of Gaithersburg, MD. I have gone on service calls and received both good and bad reports. Some of the bad ones really surprise me. I can't understand why it takes weeks/months to get someone out to your home to fix something you paid good money for. But customer service can be hit or miss in any company you deal with, depending on the time it takes to speak with someone and their expertise.
I believe this is a very good system if installed properly. Most of my repairs require a simple fix and a repoint of the dish. Sometimes the radio (on the arm) or modem fail and need to be replaced. It might take a week to get equipment for those but I sympathize with those waiting that long or longer to get someone out to take a look.
If you need service within 100 mi of Gaithersburg, MD, you can e-mail: gojupiter@verizon.net. Leave a phone number and we will call back and try to solve your problem.