HughesNet Satellite Internet

HughesNet: Unlimited Internet Access for everyone

I've been living with dial-up for about seven or eight years. About a month before I started college, my parents decide to get satellite internet for me since I had an online class, and also I live out in the boonies. We ordered it, cancelled our dial-up service and we waited for the hook-up guy to swing by and install the dish.

We waited and waited and waited. Finally three hours later than he was supposed to he finally showed up and began to install it. He was kind of a douchebag. He'd interrupt me when HE asked me a question that I was answering, stuff like that. He even told me, and I quote, "You should probably download some porn on that thing. Y'know... to get the virus detector on there some practice. It works like like an immune system." No, it doesn't. *sigh* Anyway, he got the thing jury-rigged on top of the roof, 'cause apparently he ran into some "trouble" during installation. But, I didn't care. I had my satellite HIGH-SPEED internet. I was happier than a little kid in a room full of bouncy balls.

I immediately watched my first Youtube video all the way through (I used to have it sit for about an hour or so to have it fully load on dial-up). Later that night, I wanted to download a movie. So I Pirate Bay'd a movie and let it download overnight. The next morning, the internet was slower than dial-up for some odd reason. It did this for a few hours, so I decide to call HughesNet, which their tech support is in India, like everything else. So, I was talking to some Indian guy who had poor English and talked about 349.23 MPH, and he told me that if I download more than 200 MB per day, my internet speed will decrease to speeds LESS than dial-up for twenty-four hours.

Ever since then, I've been living with internet that restricts me rather than other ISPs that let you download as much as you want.

I decided to look online about some complaints about HughesNet. I found thousands. Apparently, my internet speeds are going to keep getting slower and slower until they hit dial-up speeds once again. It'll take a few years so I'll be moved out of my house by then, but I really don't want my parents paying out the ass for piss-poor internet service. Its not like you can cancel out of their service either. You sign up for a 24-month contract and there's NO WAY you can get out of it.

This is my internet download/upload speed and latency:


Take these totals, divided by 8, and you get:
Download speed: ~126 kbps
Upload speed: ~39 kbps (its actually going pretty fast today, its usually half of that)

Sad, huh?

Pros:
+ High speed internet... for a limited time
+ Detects weather, so it'll use more power during storms so you can still have internet in bad weather, which is nice

Cons:
- 200 MB DOWNLOAD LIMIT PER DAY, OH MY SWEET JESUS I HATE THIS THING
- Likes to go unresponsive, and takes up to 15 minutes for my router to finally get it back and running
- Horrible customer service
- Horrible installation
- Will eventually go slower than dial-up in a few years
- Latency is HORRIBLE. Its worse than dial-up. (This is understandable though, since the signal has to travel to a satellite and back)
- Extremely pricey and inescapable contract

Would I recommend it to anybody? No.
Would I wish this on my worst enemy? No. I wouldn't want anybody to go through this pain.

HughesNet: Unlimited Internet Access for everyone (Not Unlimited HIGH SPEED Internet Access)

---

TL;DR: HughesNet Satellite Internet is horrible, both in product and customer service. Don't get it. I'd rather stick with dial-up.


That's my rant for the day.

Wow, I had always thought that it would generally be a good deal, as I have DISH satellite for TV at one household and it works better than anything else I've ever used. I guess satellite internet is a few years behind...

Sorry for your bad experience, that's really awful.

Oh man that sucks but coming from a guy who used Dial-Up for most of his life as well, I am glad I went with DSL instead of satellite internet.

We can't even get DSL where we live. Its pretty dank, lemme tell you.

Wow... Screwed for 2 years... that's gotta suck.

HUGHESnet suucckkkss! we got in only because we use Directv for television. HUGHESnet practically tells you not to buy it in the advertisements though. "...as long as you have a clear view of the southern sky" how many times out of ten do people in Kansas have a clear view of the southern sky? 2? 3?

My suggestion to you. Abandon your house and move in with me. You can share all my internets.

I got my stuff packed and I'll be there in a jiffy.

let's do it! you live like, what? a mile away? that'd be the cheapest U-haul ever!

You wouldn't even need a U-haul. Just get like a bike with a radio flyer wagon hooked on the back.

My modem was acting up, so I called technical support and they sent me a new modem. Well, I got the new modem installed and it didn't work so I called them and they told me my dish was screwed up so they wanted to charge me $125 to repair it, but now that I plugged in my old modem its working fine now.

GG technical support.

Blah sucks bro.