I only clicked on one star because there is nothing lower - which, in my opinion, Hughes Net is. Like others posting here, I have Hughes Net because I run a graphics intensive business out of our rural home and must have high speed internet connectivity.

When it works, it works. When you have a problem - good luck! My modem went dead 8 days ago and after several hours on tech support (which is overseas and totally USELESS), having my order for a replacement modem cancelled twice and ending up paying $199 to have a tech come to the house to replace the modem (supposed to be a 24 hour service but ended up taking 4 days) - the tech walked in the door, said "I bet it is the power supply, they know this particular power supply goes bad all the time" Yup, that was the problem. Hughes Net is obviousley aware of this issue and does not give a tinkers dam about it. I forced the tech to at least replace my modem with the new one he brought with him - after all, I had paid for it.
Hughes Net SOOOOOO needs a makeover!!! Horrid.

I have hughesnet and not trying to encourage anyone in anyway about chosing a satelite IP. I moved into a rural area where cable or DSL was not avaliable so, I went with hughesnet. Its got to be one of the biggest mistakes I ever made. This is a awful service. It took me over 10 minutes just to load this page for over $60/month. I'm not one to complain about much but, this one takes the cake. Customer service is somewhere across seas that will tell you to call a number the next day. Guess what, Its not a valid number or someone that tells you the same thing. I've put up with this for awhile now and encourage anyone not to do it. When the contract(big mistake) ends. This is one company I will not do business with again.

HughesNet is the absoloute worst broadband available. The advertised speeds are nothing short of a daydream. Customer service? What customer service? After your first call, and I promise you will call, then, you will agree. Check out the Hughes Net Forum on www.dslreports.com to see what other users are going through. I have warned as many people as I can about the false advertising and poor service of Hughes Net. In my area several new and promising alternatives are readily becoming available.

http://www.satellite-internet.cc Satellite Internet

Perhaps, the FTC, FCC and BBB all need to see complaints on the advertising practices. 1. They are capable of providing a Broadband Experience and refuse to. 2. Their ads go well beyond the puffery exceptions in my opinion. Don't expect miracles, but the more complaints they recieve the more apt they are to do something, normally nothing the consumer will interpert as justice. However if nothing more than causing them to change the ads would prevent more people being victimized by this Company (Hughesnet)

Hughes net is the absolute worst. They charge for everything - refund NOTHING!!! I have had to cancel my card because every time I turn around their story has changed and they have hit my card again. So far $548 in 4 days. I will be reporting them to the FTC and my bank Fraud Division.

Oh, boy. Where do I start? This whole thing was so bad it's hard to even describe.

1. Don't expect reliable service.
2. Don't expect customer service.
3. Don't expect help.
4. Don't expect support.
5. Don't expect them to care.
6. Don't expect a refund.
7. Don't expect fast speeds at any time when you might actually be online.
8. Don't expect them to stop billing you even after you cancel.
9. Don't expect to be able to download anything much.
10. Do expect to be ripped off.
11. And just in case you missed that last one... Do expect to be ripped off.

Poorly managed, poorly run, disgraceful customer service, and possessing a criminal rip-off attitude toward their customers.

I have a small business and would like to add my two cents to your et blog. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER trust this company. Everyone problem I have had Huhges always has a different answer for. When I cannot get a signal, it is blamed on the weather, or a bad connection, they never take the blame. Then they tell me that I am using up the alloted time/space for downloads, (this is after I returned from vacation and was not on it for a whole week). Every time I called to report the same problem I was given different reasons for the interrupted service, every tech. had a different answer, except they all told me I needed to up-grade my account and I would have no more problems. Like a fool I decided to try the up-grade which would cost me an additional $20. a month and the cost of the new dish. After waiting three weeks for an installer to come out (he was suppose to be here within three days), I finally called and was told that they had the record for the order, but it had never been placed with the installer, ooop's were so sorry. So I had to start the whole process again. I wait another two weeks before the installer finally arrived. When I placed the up-grade order I was told when the new satellite was in place I had to call and cancel the old dish. So I call as I was instructed, AND now they tell me I will have to pay a disconnection fee. This was NEVER mentioned or disclosed when I ordered the up-grade, in either of the two phone converstions that I had when placing the order/orders. We go around and around, that was three months ago and the issue is still not resloved. I want also to mention that after the up-grade I continued having the same problems that I was told I would no longer experience once the up-graded was in place. MORE BS! Now the corker comes tonight......My "hughes webmail" account seems to have disappeared! OOOOOOOP's they forgot to mention that sometimes when you up grade you loose your web mail address, unretrivable.............all your contacts are lost, all your save information, they're so sorry! I was told I could go back and sign up again and they will let me use my lost web address, but all my stored information is gone forever. What a wonderful company to do business with! They're a bunch of snakes and will twist you till they get every bleeding dollar out of your pocket. Real rip off artists! My question is; Is their anyway this company can be brought to heal by a class action suit???? Be smart and stay away from HUGHES,............I am changing companies ASAP, and I advise all hughes.net users to do the same. Sooner or later they will get you! As for the rating, forget it, they don't even deserve a raspberry! (I can't submit this without giving the a them a star............but they sure don't deserve it!!!!

As like most of you I would not give Hughesnet one star if I was not made to do it so I could tell you never never use this company.
I work from home and use the internet for work ie: email and vpn to my company server. My company got a new server so from my past experience with FAP I called two months before the server change and was assured if I upgraded to 375 MB of download I would be all set. Well that was not the case as all. I went over the FAP. I called Hughesnet and tech support just kept repeating that there was nothing they could do for me. I spoke with a manager who assured me he would do everything he could to ensure that I had internet the next day to work really what he he was saying is I am tired of listening to you so I will tell you what you want to hear. When the next day I still had no internet and called back they had given me the wrong case number. The next four people they put on the phone insisted that there was not a single person on the face of the earth that could help me. I was told over and over there was no one in the building above the floor supervisor to speak with and that they could not give me a call back as they were an inbound call center they would not even give me a name to contact. When I asked to speak to someone that could help me I was told to write a letter to their main office? This is not customer support it is blowing smoke at me. I had to take a full day off work because I did not have internet but you bet I was charged full price for the month.

1. They Suck 2. They Suck and finally... 3. They suck I mirror the comments and experiences on the lies, the idiotic customer service and the terribly slow speeds. Reluctantly had to give them a star in order to post a comment.

ONly go with HughesNet if you have NO OTHER internet options. I live in an area that doesn't provide DSL and other satellite options would require cutting down several trees. HughesNet required us to install a pole (which meant digging a hole and putting in concrete) because they wouldn't mount the dish on our house. Then installation and cost of the dish ran about $500. After that, it costs about $65 a month for me to get service that costs my friends who live elsewhere $9.99 a month (it's not as fast as DSL, and is marginally faster than dial-up), so is a rip off for the amount of money they charge. You can only download a certain amount (200 MB) per 24-hour period (more if you pay more), which NO ONE told us when we signed up. I only keep the service because I have no other internet options and I need some kind of internet hookup. During peak hours, it can be really slow, and sometimes the satellite goes down. The customer service reps in India have been somewhat helpful, so far, other than always asking me to unplug everything (as if I didn't already try that before calling them). THey don't know anything about Mac computers, so don't even bother calling for help if you have a Mac.

Hughes Net is a SCAM!

I paid them $215 per month for the business plan ($30 of which was for 24-hour tech support on-site)

Connection went down - they wouldn't come out - tech support by phone SUCKS (staffed by functional retards)

I was so pissed off I just cancelled the service and went back to dial-up.

Avoid Hughes or their resellers like they plague. They lie (tell you anything to get you to sign up) and they will NOT honor their contracts.

I'm surprised the FTC allows them to stay in business.

Hughesnet bites the big one! Terrible customer service! Snails move faster than the internet service they proivde. I stuck with them for several years, purchased two receivers (3000 and 6000)and I swear the upgraded service and receiver were slower than the first. I truly feel I was robbed, raped and thrown in a ditch! RUN FAST AND RUN HARD THE OTHER WAY!

I have HughesNET. Tonight I'm reviewing the different comments for a friend who is considering Wild Blue. I originally checked on them and they have a 1.7 out of 138 comments and looking here it's 1.3 out of 38. I'm wondering if 38 people are leaving feedback because of the bad experiences or if there are actually more than that. Wild Blue seems to have more comment. I want to be fair. My aunt has DSL so I'm quite well aware of how fast internet can be. I've used dial up and would never go back. We have cell phones so we cancelled the home phones to be able to afford the Satellite internet payments every month to Hughes net and for the most part (two years into this almost....and we're happy with the service) with the exception of the customer service from India with people we cannot understand. Most of the time they are polite and it is annoying to repeat yourself over and over. We've upgraded too because of FAP problems as there's nothing like wanting to check your email and having NO SERVICE at all and having to wait 24 hours for a reset but we've learned to limit our downloads. They can never tell us how many songs or photos that would mean in our language where we can understand. If you can get DSL go with that but this is way better than dial up. I have no clue about wild blue but it does concern me with just how many wrote in about them.

Reading other posts of bad experiences made me re-live mine. Have been in business for many years, and if I treated my clients as bad as they do, I would have gone under first year. Worst of it is they know it and do not care. Desk people are obviously trained to put you off, not help.
Bottom line is, they do not have the ability to provide the service they charge you for. This is theft. Ripe for class action lawsuit!!
Anyone else game?

Before I start, the 1 star rating is inaccurate, it should be -10. I have had this service since Jan 08, because at the time, it was the only service I could get and I needed something faster than dial-up. I contacted Hughes Net and they made all kinds of promises about speed. Truth is, the US Mail service is faster. I have to use a VPN in my work to access my Home Office. They promised me this would be no problem. Well guess what, it is. Most days, I cannot get thru it at all, and other days I get thru for a little while and then get kicked off. I have a AT & T wireless card that has been very very useful lately. I have been known to drive 15 miles to town and steal the internet service from one of the local motels just to get some large files uploaded to the Home Office. I have finally gotten a new wireless service in my area with a new tower installed and I can get wireless service that is 250 times faster than this crap of Hughes Net. I am going to take the early termination hit and cancel this service with Hughes Net next week once they install my new wireless service. I would not recommend Hughes Net to anyone. I have called customer service numerous times just like all of the rest of the Hughes Net subscribers and have become so frustrated that I just hang up. I cannot understand the language of the representive if that is what you can call them. They know absolutely nothing. They told me to operate my computer is safe mode !!!! How ridiculous can that be. How many people out there operate their computer in Safe Mode ??? I knew then it was time to hang up. I hope nobody else ever buys Hughes Net.

Hughesnet is by far the biggest joke ever... they promise speeds that you will never come close to and it costs a ridiculous amount for dial-up speeds. and don't even consider calling techincal support because trust me you know more then them and they are extremely rude. To sum it all up Hughesnet has pissed me off enough and the technical support has literraly made me racist against indian people...

Hughes Net is the worst...their customer service is miserable...I hope no one else has to go thru what I have trying to get reimbursed for equipment when your connection speeds are too slow....really want to rate lower than one

I'm not one to make a public complaint about most things , fact is this would be my first time ever to do so . But after four years of promises not being kept and watching the service deteriorate while the cost has gone up I guess I've had my fill of Hughes net. At first I knew it wasn't all that they claimed it to be , however being the first internet service I ever had I just got use to how things were . But today ? Well that's a completely different story . I almost never exceed this FAP time limit and yet if i wish to watch a one minute video on the nightly news , well that takes about 7 minutes to load up on a good day .

I guess what makes me really sore at them is , I've fallen for most of the crap they have told me , I believed them if you can imagine being so naive at my age . The light kinda came on when it was suggest to purchase more fap time to speed up my service even though I wasn't using the time I had already bought. I suppose to a service tech in India or god knows where that must make sense in some strange way .

My advise would be if you don't need to sign up with Hughes than don't , for those like me who if they want internet connection who don't have any better choice because of remoteness , well for the time being even a piss poor service is better than nothing , However Hughes is sure close to nothing these days if you ask me .

Brett Nybo --Southern Utah .

I've had Hughesnet (Direcway) for about 4 years. The first 3 years they provided good service, then about a year ago my transponder (satellite channel) signal strength suddenly fell from 70 to 46 with corresponding lower performance & page timeouts. That is when the trouble began. I complained to Hughes about the signal drop (min is supposed to be 53) and low performance and was assigned a new transponder. The new one varies all over the map as far as strength goes. I have seen as high as 70 and as low as 38. More recently in the past 6 months or so, the performance has become dismal and many webpages will not even load without several page refreshes. I have traced the network stream and 90% of the problem is due to nonresponse from the hughes server! The server may start sending packets, but then refuse further requests halfway thru a webpage load. In other words, the server queue is very likely overloaded. I pay $70 month for "professional" level service, but as far as I'm concerned this has degraded to worthless junk! I have an MSEE with 30+ years in computer engineering (now retired). I became a certified hughesnet installer so I could install and maintain my own equipment. I have 5 computers on a WLAN, which are always highly optimized and virus free.

I'm with Xplornet(Hughesnet) in Canada, the speed is CONSISTENTLY POOR with only brief moments of reasonable speed, and the download threshold of 200Mb/daily
can be used up in an hour on "facebook" or "Youtube" and then an already POOR service degrades very quickly. On my second day with the service I downloaded a couple of Windows updates and by the second hour I was down to an average download speed of 7.5 kbps. The best speed I've seen ever is 80kbps for less than 3 seconds at the beginning of a download which falls rapidly to about 39kbps. The service SUCKS....the old saying.."you get what you pay for"......Not with Xplornet(HUghesnet)

Carrier pigeons would be faster.

Screws net is horrible. FAP hits your internet when you do nothing except doing an update. They treat watching a video as if its a syn, and you need to take forerun languages class before even talking to customer service. Signal strength is as weak as can be since a couple of big clouds role in and.. boom, no signal. If I had internet available where I am that had no FAP and 1 MB a year I would pay alot more than I have to. The bottem line on screws net is MY DOG'S FLEA CONE WOULD HAVE BETTER SIGNAL STRENGTH!!!!! :)

We have had this service for 2 weeks and will terminate our contract on Monday. This is a complete rip off. Thank goodness we have 30 days to cancel. We have spent a bundle of $ to get this hooked up but we will not throw good money after bad. I don't know how they can legally say their speed is comparable to DSL. If this is not false advertising I don't know what is. This would be a great class action lawsuit. Any lawyers out there?

I've been nothing but frustrated with this service. It's very expensive, and has a couple of major issues. The most heinous issue is their fair access policy: http://tinyurl.com/2hqbb5 . 200 MB per 24 hours is pretty unusable for modern internet usage. I'm constantly accidentally hitting it when doing updates, etc. The other thing I find pretty inexcusable is that they constantly send me links to broken web pages. They're an ISP! As one example, I tried to fill out a customer survey (which they ask me to take nearly every month), and the page wouldn't let me submit my answers. Add to that the fact that they try to charge extra for services they should be providing anyway (such as repairs within a couple of days), and the inherent issues with satellite (1000ms+ latency, speeds around slow DSL, etc.), and this service is just not worth the price. If we had any options other than this for high-speed where we lived, I'd take the $700 (!) early-termination hit and switch to it immediately.

You guys are a crock of doo doo. You know that? Those that have no choice know that they have an option and that is to either choose Hughes Net or Wild Blue. Yes, the satellite service is not the best and can be expensive but who asked you to buy their service? I hate reading the reviews and hear these whiners complain it's slower than dial up. No it's not. I had dial up, cable modem, dsl and satellite. Yes satellite service period sucks, but it can not be slower than dial up. If you live in the boon docks area. Live in the freaking city and learn to modernize. Stop living in the cave area and making babies within your own family! If you're griping about the technology then move with the technology! For pete's sake! Get a T1 connect and pay $359 a month at speakeasy.com. Internet service is a luxury not a priority. If you're griping about faster speed because you live in a trailer home or out in the forest where Tarzan lives. Then why not move? Nuff said.

They deserve a rating of (-10) in my opinion. Slow service, when it works at all, misrepresentation of "unlimited high speed internet" BECAUSE IT SURE AS HECK ISN'T HIGH SPEED BUT YOU MOST CERTAINLY WILL BE LIMITED IF YOU TRY AND DO ANYTHING: you can not play online games, download music or watch any type of streaming video. I was told by the technician who installed the system this WAS all possible and the system would be "excellent" for my family to do so. LIES. I have had nothing but trouble with these folks and I am filing a complaint with the Maryland Attorney General to see if they can ask for a refund on my behalf. I can't go through another several month stretch of crappy service, I can not deal with these people anymore. I just want some money back after all the trouble I have been put through.
http://ripoffreport.com/reports/0/308/RipOff0308652.htm

Hughesnet. Over subscribed, but better than nothing. Loaded speeds are about twice dialup speeds and the delay multiplied by the bit rate product, an engineering measure of link performance, is worst than dialup. It is used by rural gas stations, construction companies, and convenience stores. If you are private user, then you are on the bottom of the speed and service queues. Buy the equipment used and pray for cell phone wireless Internet access or in my case a WISP that covers your area.

dr devo

I'M JUST GONNA TELL IT LIKE IT IS...THE PEOPLE THEY HAVE ON THEIR HELP DESK ARE FOR THE MOST PART "STUPID"...I'M SORRY, I HAD TO SAY THAT. THEY ARE IMPOSSIBLE TO DEAL WITH...EXAMPLE, HOW CAN I HELP YOU? MY SATELLITE HAS NO SIGNAL...DID YOU SAY YOUR SATELLITE HAS NO SIGNAL? YES...OK YOU HAVE NO SIGNAL...THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT I SAID....OOOH, VEDY SORY THAT THIS HAS HAPPEN, DOO--NT WORRIE, VE WILL FIX IT RIGHT WAY...I FIRST NEED YOUR NAME PLEASE...MY NAME IS BILL CLINTON...SORY, I DIDNT GIT THAT...BILL CLINTON (A LITTLE LOUDER) DID YOU SAY BILL CLINTON...YESSSSSSSSSS! OK, GOOD! DO--NT WORY VE WIL FIX YOU PROBLEM...CAN YOU BE ON HOLD WHILE I CHEACK YOUR RECORDS...NOTHING IS SAID AS I WAIT FOR THEM TO CHECK MY RECORDS, 1 MAYBE 2 MINUTES GO BY AND THEN THEY SAY...SIR CAN YOU BE ON HOLD????? I THOUGHT THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING??? OOOH, VEDY SORY THAT THIS HAS HAPPEN, DOO--NT WORRIE, VE WILL FIX IT RIGHT WAY...CAN YOU BE ON HOLD? AT THIS POINT YOU HAVEN'T GOTTEN PAST THE PRELIMINARIES AND ALREADY YOU WANT TO CHOKE THIS GUY. I COULD GO ON BUT THIS IS BASICALLY HOW EVERY PROBLEM CALL GOES, AND BELIEVE ME...YOU WILL HAVE PROBLEMS!!! I WORKED FOR IBM FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS, AND WORKED WITH MANY MANY HELP DESKS. THIS IS THE MOST INCOMPITENT BUNCH I HAVE EVER TALKED TO...AND THAT IS TRUE OF EVERY LEVEL OF THEIR ??SUPPORT?? OH YEAH, THE THING ABOUT THE FAIR ACCESS POLICY. I HAVE BEEN FORCED TO USE THIS SERVICE DUE TO LOCATION FOR ABOUT THREE YEARS....NEVER, NEVER EXCEEDED THE FAIR ACCES POLICY, UNTIL LAST FALL...ON A SUNDAY MORNING WHILE I WAS AT CHURCH...I CALLED THEM AND SAID THAT IT WAS NOT POSSIBLE, WE DID NOT EXCEED THE UPPER LIMITS...THEY SAID THAT IS WHAT THEIR RECORDS SHOW...I SAID YOUR RECORDS ARE WRONG...VEDY SORY...WE CANT BE WRONG, OR RECORDS SHOW IT...VE KNOW U WENT OVR LIM IT, OUR RECORDS SHOW IT...THEY SAID MAYBE SOMEONE TAPPED IN AND USED THE BANDWITH. I SAID I LIVE IN THE COUNTRY AND I KNOW THAT DIDN'T HAPPEN. I TOLD THEM THAT MY BOXER DOG SAID (NO SIR BOSS) NOBODY COMES IN THIS YARD. I TOLD THEM THEY HAD NO IDEA WHAT THEY WERE TALKING ABOUT, THEIR RESPONSE...VEDY SORY THAT THIS HAS HAPPEN, DOO--NT WORRIE, VE WILL FIX IT RIGHT WAY...ALL YOU NEED TO DO IS UPGRADE TO GET MORE BANDWIDTH...WHAT CAN YOU DO? THEY SAID I DID, I SAID THAT IS COMPLETELY INACCURATE...THEY WOULD NOT CHANGE IT, I WAS WRONG, THEY WERE RIGHT, CASE CLOSED!

BUT, I AM USING A VERIZON MODEM AS I TYPE (THIS WILL NOT BE FOR EVERYONE). I RAN A TEST EARLIER AND 1148 DOWN 330 UP, BUT YOU HAVE TO HAVE A VERIZON SIGNAL...AND I DO OUT HERE IN THE COUNTRY. AT THIS POINT I AM TESTING THIS VERIZON THING OUT, JUST GOT IT TODAY...BUT IT IS FAST! SO FAR I AM REALLY IMPRESSED...JUST RAN THE TEST AGAIN AND COPIED AND PASTED THE RESULTS AS FOLLOWS...Test details: 1577 kilobytes downloaded in 15.641 seconds. Receive buffer size: 35040 KB Upload speed: 335 kilobits per second. I AM LIMITED TO 5 GIG DOWNLOAD A DAY ON ZERIZON...BUT FOR THE DIFFERENCE IN SPEED! ANYWAY, THAT IS A LOT OF DOWNLOADING...I USE THIS IM MY BUSINESS ALL DAY LONG...5 GIG IS A BUNCH? TO SUM THIS UP, THEY LIE TO YOU, THE NEXT LEVEL WILL LIE TO YOU, ONE PERSON WILL TELL YOU SOMETHING AND THE NEXT WILL TELL YOU THE COMPLETE REVERSE. THEY WILL TELL YOU THEY ARE SORRY UNTIL YOU PUCK IN THE FLOOR. I CHOSE TO UPGARDE DUE TO MY EXCEEDING THE FAIR ACCESS POLICY...BUT I DID NOT SIGN A CONTRACT...I AM MONTH TO MONTH. ONE MORE THING...WHAT DO YOU SUPPOSE THEY DO WITH ALL OF YOUR INFO THAT THEY MUST HAVE...DO WE REALLY NEED TO BE TRUSTING SOMEONE IN INDIA WITH CREDIT CARD INFO...?

I wish I could give them a zero. They don't even deserve a 1. Horrible customer service from India. Major run-arounds. If you enjoy spending 12-20 hours on the phone with customer service that barely speaks English and has to provide teleprompted answers that don't fix anything, then this one is for you. Lies about the download speed you will get. I'm paying for 1Mbps, getting 80-200kbps. And I'm nowhere near going over their fair access policy threshold. Complete waste of money. Go somewhere else if you can. Anywhere else. My next step: Filing a complaint with the FTC.

I couldn't agree more with all of the horrible experiences below with HughesNet. It took me 8 months to finally have someone "FAR AWAY" tell me about the FairAccessPolicy (it starts with a "F" letter-getting close). I had their customer care tell me to use Internet Explorer, they told me to turn off my computer four times in one three hour "Helping" from hell period, and was finally able to check and find out that in Jan 08 I was on Satellite restriction each and every day. Yes, it was one of the largest mistakes, Having been on DSL for over ten years, the only solution would be to move out of a rural area and get back into the rat race for good service, and a reasonable price. I could not be more disappointed. Nothing was alerted at sign-up. HUGHESNET = NO, NO, NO. Note: I cannot submit without rating, since there is no zero one star is erroneously posted.

Very poor support from India. Billing errors. Very limited download speeds for large files. Poor customer care. Had two systems, dumped them both

I am a retired LAN Administrator from a large corp. I live in the woods and only have dialup or satellite access. I chose HughesNet satellite. It was one of the worst mistakes I've made. The time I've spent with HughesNet techs is too long to discuss on this complain. When my contract is over I'm going to dial-up. Sig.. Antonio M. My rating for HughesNet is a minus one star.

I have had a HORRIBLE experience with Hughesnet. The service has been slow--we did a speed check 4 days ago and our downspeed was only 2. I am paying 91 a month for this and am getting totally ripped off. Advanced support is not helpful and has lied to us twice. I am taking my complaints to corporate. The 866 customer serivce willn ot give you this number-they will tell you you have to write a letter to corporate. Yea-some good that will do. So, I used my slow Internet to find their numbers myself. Want to call and share your wonderful experience with their service?
corporate switch board in Germantown, Md 301-428-5500
some poor corporate shmo who is getting complaint calls from me 301-601-7315
Another shmo 301-212-1025
Enjoy!

Listen, folks. Maybe it's because I had a competent technician install my system, but given the current internet access market, this is not a bad option. BTW, I had it installed March 2006 when the company was called Directway (or DirecWay, whatever). Typical sustained download speeds of 100 kbps, up to your 200 MB daily bandwidth limit. Yeah, there is a limit. But my connection is reliable with the exception of extremely heavy rain/lightning storms and very heavy snow. Lets face it - the satellite internet system is simply not capable of handling gigabytes upon gigabytes of information for hundreds of thousands of users. Compared to dial-up, this is great. Compared to DSL or Cable, it sucks. It's the middle ground, and that's the price we pay for enjoying a rural lifestyle. Every time a new technology surfaces, everyone immediately expects it to be faster, more reliable, and generally better. The unique way satellite internet has become available after both dial-up and cable/dsl imprints the notion that it should be better than cable and dsl. Obviously, it's not. Don't get me wrong, the companies stick it to you by building false hope with their fine-tuned rhetoric. This is evil of them, and I wish there were more strict laws regulating it. But responsible consumers should know better than to believe every word they hear from companies providing services such as this. And about the bouncing between call centers - welcome to the 21st century. It's cheap. And the demand is obviously omnipresent, so companies have no incentive to provide quality customer service yet. Once DSL and Cable penetrate rural America, you can bet the sattelite companies will start paying attention to their customers. That is, if they survive. But we won't be seeing that for a loooooong time.
So here's my recommendation: if you want internet faster than dial-up, but can't get cable or DSL, go with satellite. I've only ever had directway (hughsnet), so I can't compare to others. But I am happy with my service (minus the bandwidth limit, which is a necessary evil).
Take it for what it's worth.

I work for a cable provider but live outside of our coverage area. I am also outside of range for DSL. As most of you I was essentially forced to get satellite or go with dial-up. I have to concur with most of the reviews, compared to cable/dsl this service is horribly overpriced. They make you purchase the DISH and MODEM, unlike cable, dsl, or even satellite TV. Why? Because they can, they understand that they have a captive market without any options. Seriously, if someone gets satellite internet, they have NO other options, the service is so bad that no one would otherwise. Also hughes.net impliments a FAP (fair access policy) that has a daily limit on the amount you can download. Depending on your home plan, it ranges from 210 to 400+ MB. Yep, MB, you can barely download anything anymore that isnt in the GB range. Also, apparently, and if you download any somewhat large files you may have seen this, they have a threshhold "control" which will throttle back your download speed even before you hit the FAP. Essentially when you hit this FAP, as stated before, they modify your account settings for 24 hours and the speed literally drops below dial-up speed, making the account virtually unusable. Why the FAP, because they oversold their product and overloaded their Satellites. Hughes.net does give you a "free" window from 3am to 6am in the morning to download as much as you want, but who the heck wants to purposely stay up late to reach this? Also, Hughes.net does not provide an easy way to tell when you you are getting close to reaching the FAP limit, and after reading some comments from "anonymous" hughes.net techs, this is intentional because it "scares" their consumers from using too much bandwith and hitting the FAP.

Basically you can see if you have ANY other option, run with it, before you choose satellite. Check for microwave, wireless cards from cellphone provides, site-to-site, etc. If you have NO other option than I do, just keep in mind. Yes, satellite is faster than dial-up, but is mainly just for email and browsing. Latency is horrible so dont even consider fast action gaming (rts, fps, etc). Hope this helps.

I also would give them a zero if possible. I've had them a little over a year. At first, it was fine. I have the small business system since I work across it. I have had a problem for almost a month on the upload side and they can't seem to get it fixed. Their solution is to call me every 3 days and tell me the engineers are working on it. As a customer, you can't talk to the engineers and they won't tell you what is wrong or when it will be fixed. EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING. I asked to be switched to a different satellite while they fix the problem, and I can do that for a $125 charge. I switched over from Starband to get higher speeds and when I started having trouble with them. Is there a decent satellite company out there anywhere?

I would give them a zero, but they won't let me. Their download speeds are terrible. Service always blames hardware or wants you to increase your service plan. Don't use!!!!!

Hughesnet suck's. A friend of mine has cable when I told him my down load speed all he could do is laugh but the Customer service is pretty good if you like holding a phone up to your ear for 2 to 4 hours and get 1 millon case numders that change with every person you talk to. can anybody understand what they are saying. Hughesnet suck's.

and I thought WildBlue was bad . . . . thanks for the reviews . . . was thinking about signing up for HughesNet and leaving WildBlue but not after reading this stuff . . . guess I'm heading back to dial up

can not maintain download speed advertised except for about 6 hours in the early morning, then drops to around 100-150kbps download and 100-150 upload the rest of the time. service people cqn't even get me into some of their own web pages that require user name and password to view FAP.was told that upgrading plan would help download speed problem but it remained the same after bought more expensive plan.

WHERE IS ZERO RATING BECAUSE THEY DESERVE IT? I was customer from 2001 to 2007, and was very unhappy from beginning to end. Stayed with them because had to have internet access due to job. I don't even know where to start. They limit download access to 160 MB per 4 hours hours and if you go over they choke your connection to speeds much worse than modem. Another issue was the absolutely poor quality during peak hours, worse than modem. The only time it worked well was late at night, and even then downloads that were almost finished would dissappear. Since they limit downloads you'd have to wait 6-8 hours before you could start the download from the beginning again. When I cancelled (NEW WIRELESS COMPANY IN TOWN!!) on June 21, 2007 they required I pay through July 17 and said they would refund money which they never did even after I called in Sept 2007. Another issue is email. Three times during the 6 years my email account vanished and once recovered all historical email was lost. Technical support is terrible!!!! If want to be angry sign up for Hughes Net (formerly DirecWay). If you want to throw money away sign up for Hughes Net. If you want modem like quality sign up for Hughes Net. I am being honest, and not exaggerating.

Can I give them zero stars? I had their service for a year and a half, and just recently found out about their download limit (was not told when we signed up). Even though it wasn't a problem for a while, 2 weeks ago, we supposedly hit our limit everyday and they "suspend" your account for 24 hours so you can use it at all after your limit. For $60 a month, I should be able to use it as much as I want.

Their customer service is horrible, I actually was on hold for 2 hours the other night only to be told I had reached my limit for the day. I tried to explain to them that it was impossible for me to hit my limit considering noone is home during the day and I had both my modem and wireless router turned off. They refused to even look into the matter and simply stated "we have a strict policy". The manager actually hung up on me when I told him I wanted to speak to someone above him! I have cancelled the service and HIGHLY RECOMMEND that you choose a DIFFERENT INTERNET PROVIDER! The amount of time I could actually use the internet was not worth the amount of money...it also took quite sometime to load pages. If you have the option, go with DSL or Cable.

HughesNet is the worst service on the Planet! They know how to take your money but NO SERVICE or courtesy after that. They have been giving me the runaround for the Refund even though I cancelled the service not even 2 weeks after I subscribed to it. Never could log onto the Internet, their so called Technical Support is the worst that you can imagine - they don't even know how to 'ping' !! I am still chasing the refund --- I have transcripts from the so called CRAs saying that I would not have to pay 'anything' since I cancelled within the Trial Period but hell now they are holding me ransom for my own darn money -- can't seem to get it back from them.

My recommendation to EVERYONE OUT THERE CONSIDERING HUGHES -- PLEASE. .DON'T !! Their charges are outrageous and service SUCKS BIG TIME AND THEY ARE A RUDE BUNCH - YOU CAN NEVER EVER EVER SPEAK TO A SUPERVISOR -- COZ THEY ARE OUT IN THE PHILLIPINES !!!

Hughes net must be the worst of the worst. They choke you off if you download more than their minimum yet give you no credit for the time when you download nothing or minimal. Basically they seem to expect you to use minimal volume but keep paying for the full volume. In effect don't download anything just use it for email and you will be fine. And the moment you are even a second overdue on your payment they cut you off cold. THIS IS A RUTHLESS HEARTLESS GREEDY OUTFIT THAT YOU SHOULD AVOID AT ALL COST. I WOULD RATHER GO BACK TO USING SMOKE SIGNALS THAN HAVE TO DEAL WITH THIS VERY USER UNFRIENDLY BUNCH

Terrible service. I pay 80$ per month and am lucky to get 200kbp down. The programs I run depend on low latency. Dial up latency = 500 or so, hughesnet latency = 2600 or more. I called their tech support. Went through 3.5 hours of troubleshooting a brand new top of the line laptop only to get nowhere. A complete waste of time. They give you good speeds the first month to keep you, after 30 days they cut your speeds down due to some fair satellite act. Do yourself a favor - get a second dial up line - it's cheaper, faster, and more dependable

Three words come to mind to sum up Hughsnet. THIS SERVICE SUCKS! I live in a remote area where there will never be cable or DSL. I'm stuck in the middle of a two year contract. This service is about half again as fast as dialup and I'm receiving a strong signal. I have the so called Professional service. I't a waste of time to call customer service because I don't speak East Indian/broken English very well. This company must have outsourced its Tech Service to the mountians of Pakistan. If any readers of this comment know of a viable competitor to HughNet PLEASE LET ME KNOW! I'll instruct my credit card company not to accept charges from them anymore. Th