Hughes
reviews and complaints

We also took the promo plan at first with GREAT DISSATIFICATION! After talking to a english speaking American sales person, and then a english speaking American set-up person it all was down hill from there. WARNING: DO NOT GIVE HUGESNET YOUR BANK CARD NUMBER, THEY WILL ABUSE IT! They have distroyed our bank account with mutible billings.
They have shut our service off because of a $ .54 balance and continued billing us on a service that we were not using.
We have mailed them a money order for $20.00 to cover the .54 balance and then was told by some [censored] some where that we had to wait seven to ten days for processing even though the did receive the payment. There excuse was that the computerized billing system is set up that way. After threatening to rip this system out and they can pick it up out of our front yard they some how managed to retstore our service. Amazing is'nt it ?
When contacting billing or tech service we always were speaking to some foreigner who could not speak or understand plain english ( I believe this is to frustrate you a just give up).
The only plan they have to come close to high speed internet is their ELITE PLAN at $120.00 a month for which we finally had to go with but the our monthly billing jumped to $190.00
a month plus.
Some how or some where there must be a federal communication agentcy that can and should investigate this scam!
We constanly check our usage and find that some how we go over our mega bite consumption even at the hours that our pc is not even on. We took to unplugging the HugesNet modem
( there is no on and off switch on it) when we are off line, but still we accumulate mega bite usage.
In short, HugesNet is not what they advertise, period!
Where we live we do not have cable service, we've had dial-up but as eveyone knows how slow that is and its worse for us becauce we live in farm country and the old telephone lines
makes it even worse. Cell phone reception is nil. If there is another satalite system available that is honest and dependable we certainly would like to know of it.

Hughes has sunk to a new low in service. They were upgrading the email this weekend. It turned into a downgrade. We still cannot send or receive emails form our Outlook accounts or from their horrible webmail account. It's now 3 days after we were to have new and improved service.
With their technical support so bad why did they attempt anything remotely technical in nature.
After failed attempts to fix a problem, their tech support guy told me to go to Google and see if I could find the answer myself.
The problem was as simple as a pop up blocker interfering with accessing the Hughes satelite. A Linksys rep helped me with that bit of info even though it was a Hughes issue.

you folks got off easy when i had hughes net installed it was 7hundred dollars for the equipment and 175 dollars for the installation. I was forced to recently upgrade and within 1 year the system died a rep came out and repaired the dish wich then died 3 days later. I called em bk and the rep refused to even come out unless i upgraded again. So i was looking at another 125 service call 49.99 upgrade fee and an aditional 9.95 to my bill each month. So needless to say i am now waiting for dsl to become available or another sattelite company to take hughes place no i will not recomend hughes to anyone even if i dislike the person i wont lol

The aircards have limited usage too, and have their own connectivity problems and overage problems...buyer beware!

I dumped them and got an aircard from Sprint that is as fast as DSL for $59 a month!

I don't necessarily say Hughes is a scam. I have had satellite internet for well over 5 years and since Hughes took it over the service and quality is much reduced. I am considering changing to Wild Blue. Even though there are problems with Wild Blue as well from the feed back I ahve had from neighbors who have it as well as a couple who have changed from Hughs to Wild Blue it is a step up.

Right now my transmitter is going out on the dish and it will have to be replaced. The cost exceeds the change over so it makes sense for me now to change.

What my main compliant is Hughes FAP. Until recently I had only once or twice went into the FAP prior to Hughes taking over. I believe they lowered the threshold. I do know now when I wish to down load some packets and software the files are larger though. But in the past when I exceeded FAP at least I could continue using the internet. Now however I am essentualy out of service for 24 hours.

This is my prime interest for going to Wild blue. The FAP on Wild Blue is based on a 30 day average and from looking at my usage I will never get to their FAP limits. I average 200-250 MB down each day, yes I am an high end users. But this means about 2 to 3 t imes a mount I exceed Hughes FAP and I cannot afford to be out for a full day.

The only thing I can see from my research into the differences with Wild BLue and Hughes is the FAP issue, both have problems, each are about the same cost, each is my only alternative but the FAP issue tilts in Wild Blues favor.

This is a big scam ... because the first thing that I asked to ( hughes net representative ) was that if it is unlimited high speed internet ...and he said ...YES! But the next day in less than 30 minutes I had no internet... or 99% more slower than dial-up! I tried to return it ...because I pay $420 for the dish and modem and $125 for the installation ...so the total was $545 for something that does NOT WORK! and I have to pay $59.99 each month! ... AND HUGHES NET SAID THAT THEY WILL NOT RETURN MY MONEY ! THIS WAS A BIG MISTAKE! and I will take this legally and try to sue you ! because when you buy a home you have AT LEAST 3 days to cancel the business and get your money back!
not only your lies about unlimeted high speed internet, ... also the right of the customer to return something that DOES'NT WORK!

My Phone requires regular updates through iTunes. Hughes pretty much suspends my service before even one update is complete. After that, not only am I unable to finish my update, I cannot even send an email to complain; I am pretty much locked out for the next 24 hours. I certainly cannot get anywhere talking to someone in India, either.

The sales pitch was that, being the only user on my computer, I would never reach the threshhold. This a blatant lie. I would NEVER recommend Hughes to anyone. If there is any possible way to get out of this contract I will do it.

Especially when you are paying over 70.00 a month I think it is wrong, and cheating the consumer as well. I just got hughesnet I was with aol and I do web design and alot of uploads and downloads, and wasn't aware of this FAP as they call it.

Fair Access Policy, and if I was aware of it, I would have never signed up and paid 181.00 plus another 133.87 to have the pole installed. Yes, its a bunch of unfair practices, when you are paying triple the amount for theirs when you can get the same service at aol, or netzero.

316.00 for tabbed access...really wrong and cheating ways to rip the consumer...now I cant do no work until 24 hours, boy is my husband going to be mad.

Agreed, today is my 30th day for the "satisfaction guarantee" and I'm cancelling and I'm sure will get the runaround from Hadgi in India. The installer was a ### from the word go, couldn't even bury the cable properly and didn't tighten one single nut or bolt on the dish! Thier "basic" is a total SHAM! Standard modem with dialup is much faster. I called about "upgrading" and they said I would be double billed the first month of the upgrade...yeah right Hadgi, go steal your money somewhere else! DON'T GET HUGHESNET, TALK TO YOU SAT TV PROVIDER FIRST! Chances are you will get a local installer who is American and you will most likely always talk to english speaking AMERICANS for cust svc. HUGHESNET IS A RIPOFF! DON'T GET FOOLED LIKE MYSELF AND SO MANY OTHERS HAVE!

I went from Starband to Hughes.net in hopes of getting better service. I am presently paying Hughes.net 130.00 a month for Business internet. Yet, my speed test just showed; 42.5.
I paid in the neighborhood of $1, 200 for set-up.
I think all satellite internet services are a sham. A joke! I have (2) choices where I live; a 26.4 modem or, a satellite connection that works part of the time. How can they legally sell business class internet. It isn't as if I work on and off through out the day to match my connection. I have set hours, so I expect my paid connection to work for me! It doesn't!
In fact, I did the old school download last night. I wanted to watch a youtube video so I requested the download and than drove into town to run errands, came home and watched a movie on my tv, took a shower and than waited an additional half-n-hour for the download to complete. It was a ten minute video I was waiting for...

They should be sued! Their service is worth at most $8 a month!

I am considering purchasing a laptop and driving to a location for internet service. The laptop, gas and alternative internet will still be cheaper than this crap!

If you want more download capacity subscribe to a higher package. This service has a specific application in rural areas where other forms of internet are not available. There is a free zone between 3:00-6:00 am to download whatever you need.

YOU STATED
'The installer left no paper work or instructions."
DID YOU READ THE CONTRACT THAT YOU AGREED TO WHEN YOU SIGNED UP AT INSTALLATION via the computer? IT OUTLINES THE FAIR ACCESS POLICY. HOW IS IT HUGHESNET'S FAULT YOU CAN NOT READ WHAT YOU SIGN?

I use HughesNet at my business in a network with 5 computers. We have never bypassed the Fair Access Policy. Subscribe to a higher package, or don't use the service. Obviously, you don't have other options or you would have DSL, or Cable.

Last, if you don't like the service you can always go back to dial up ;) -or- Get WildBlue...they will throttle you down for a month when you bypass their Fair Access Policy! And their service is slower, less reliable, and lower download capacity.

This is what you get when living in an area without cable, or DSL. Be happy there is some form of service available. Quit complaining, and move back to civilization if internet is that important to you!

Long Story Short. Paid for the service, too slow, upgraded to PRO... After months of paying $91.00 month. My son's dial up is faster. We will be canceling this service in the near future. What a joke... should be a law against selling a service that doesn't work...

My problem is they told me it would cost 99.99 to have the service turned on. i go and check my bank records and the took 169.88 out! now they only want to give me 57 back because the 99.99 was to pay the installer! hell thats their problem they should pay him not me! they lied and stold money from me and now they wont give it back! wht kind of [censor] is that?! im pissed!

We have endured reduced or non-existant satellite services provided by HughesNet for a month. I have contacted their Technical services via telephone to reach a center in India. The first time said there was a problem with communications between the satellite and Germantown, Maryland. The second time they said I had a strong signal and it had to be a software issue. Never did they tell me what the transfer rate of data was. The third time I tried to contact tech support via their web page/e mail. Sadly I could not send it as service was not available. They sent me twoo surveys for the first time I used the telephone so I cut and pasted my e mail in the surveys. Yesterday (11/19/2010) I was called by an Indian. He asked if my service was better. I said no. It was intermittant still. Fails to work on a sunny day but is good in a snow storm. That is a question they like to ask. Is the weather bad? An easy cop out. I told him I was not going to pay for service I cannot use. HE HUNG UP ON ME! I had the satellite installed to get away from a phone line and very slow dial up. The usual dial up transfer rate was 19 KBS. The best was 26.5 KBS. As bad as that was, it was better and more reliable than HughesNet for $60 a month. A service call is $150. I will cancel my service and save the $150 plus $60 per month and HughesNet will lose a customer! And I will tell 10 people, and they will tell 10 people and word of mouth will get around that HughesNet is an inferior product with poor customer service.

we are a family of 3 ...1 son does on-line schooling ...1 is a teen with restrictions and Me (the father) does check mail and minor viewing. We apparently exceed our 'Free Space' (which slows down to nothing) even when we are ALL gone during the day w/work x2 and school for the other. Now dial-up is BETTER under these terms!...The good news -we have had it but for less than a week and already decided this was crap...and NOTHING like we expected. The teen was disappointed immediately when the tech told him he wouldn't be able to play real-time game with his friends! Clue #2 as to raising red flags was that ALL business and support and complaints go to INDIA where people work for $2.00 per day ...Some Service.huh?...W in Rural Texas

I totally agree with the Robby. We have 3 computers and 2 teens. They are on the internet a lot and we didn't realize that if they were on a little too much we would be able to do anything when we got home from work. It sucks! And like Ronny said, we are under contract so what can we do. I heard that Verizon has an internet that we can get out here in the country but now I have to wait til the contract is up. I hate seeing Hughes Net commercials now. They are such liars! That is why they have you do a 2 year contract. Beware!

I have had nothing but problems with my email as well. To date I cannot get in and check my accounts. When I am in the formatting of the emails is so bad and broken that you can't read them. I have been trying to block unsolicited emails as well with no luck. I have over 300 spam emails in my box on any given day. I have made several calls to the help desk as well. I am really thinking about finding another provider although I am under contract, but this is not working for me. Hughes really need to make some major changes to its email system. I think we all are paying some nice money thinking we were getting a better service than dail up to find differently. It sad and we customers really deserve better than this.

I have never been treated like this! These men that you have to talk to treat you like you are nothing because you are a woman, well guess what I am something! It took me 30 minutes just to pay my bill over the phone yesterday because the man kept saying that it did not need to be paid. Then today is even worse I have went over my download limit so now my computer is slower than dial up! So after an hour on the phone with some jerk that will not transfer me to a Supervisor, all he wants to do is let me use some TOKEN that will let me start over on my limit for TODAY ONLY, I tell him NO, I asked to just tell me how much it will cost to just cancel my contract so I finally get transferred to a woman. She is in the middle of fixing my problem ( without being hateful or treating me badly) and we get disconnected so I call back and they refuse to transfer me to her even though I have her information, they also refuse to transfer me to a Supervisor again, they argue that they can help you, they repeat the same thing over and over again and they act like because I am an AMERICAN that I am stupid. I asked again the cancellation price, So they put me on hold for over ten minutes before I am disconnected again, So I call back tell the woman she cant help me let me talk to a Supervisor, and again I am told no, she informs me that she is looking at my account so I should just let her take care of it, 15 minutes later nothing, for the third time I ask for the cancellation price, finally they transfer me to a supervisor and she can't do anything either. She tells me that I am able to use it today because I have USED my one free TOKEN because even though I told that first man NO he still used it. So For the forth time I ask how much it will cost to cancel my service, how much is the early termination fee, this supervisor is trying everything to just not tell me, she is giving me free tokens and everything, after i am so PISSED because no will tell me anything she finally tells me. The way that I went about buying my equipment used (so I could have the older model because I travel) that I HAVE NO CONTRACT AND THERE IS NO FEE! They didn't want to tell me because they wanted me to think I was obligated to keep this service. The plan I have is the bid plan over $100.00 plus I paid 275.00 the day of installation, and I paid for my equipment. These people are ### who want to take your money and not provide a relable service!

i think i will go back to phone modem.i never know from day today what the speed will be.it took me 5 min just to get to this site.what a rip off.next time i will try something that works

I absolutely agree. Hughes.net service is the pits! I've called twice now and I've gotten the same guy in India both times. What are the odds!?!?!?! I wouldn't recommend Hughes.net to my worst enemy!
Sedalia, Missouri, USA

Slow hughesnet, That is a understatement. I have had hughes for about 2 years, they are the worst thing I have ever done. The Truth about Hughesnet is that they are a scam. Selling slow speed net for crazy prices.. I wish I could sue for false advertising...

This is the worst company we have ever dealt with. Had them for over 5 years because no other service available at the time. Paid over $600 for the equipment, then $60 per month on top of that for very very slow unreliable service! All the comments about dealing with non-english people is true. You can barely understand them! Then AT&T finally offered DSL in our area, so we tried to get off Hughes Net back in the summer. They would not cancel us on the date requested, told us to call back on the exact day of cancellation. DUH! Why couldn't a computer company cancel on the day we called?! We got on AT&T and kept getting bills from HN. Tried one more time to cancel and they charged us $117.98. We Finally paid it to get them to cancel and we were told that would be payment in full! Got another bill for 43.98 plus a $5 billing fee. We called again and let me mention that no one NO ONE is willing to work with you! Kept us on the phone nearly an hour each time on numerous occasions, could not find supervisors, etc etc. They are a joke. Today, I spent another hour and the idiot and the supervisor would not get the 48.98 taken off because they said we have to pay for the service even after the cancellation date because they will not and I mean WILL NOT completely cancel on the date they said we are paid in full---with the explanation of saying that we have to pay all the bill thru the last billing cycle! WHAT? So again they were charging us for service we did not need and had cancelled. DO NOT deal with this company. They are horrible and complete rip offs and have no intention of working with you. We are not paying them another dime because two people said it was paid in full with confirmation numbers and names. AWFUL AWFUL COMPANY!

Yep. I see I'm not the only one. HughesNet is the only internet available where I live in the high desert of Arizona and they take advantage of that. Everytime the wind blows, my satelitte dish stops working and they need to send out a tech to re-align it for $125 a visit! And that is if I'm lucky enough to get a call back from the service technician. Currently I have been calling everyday since April 3rd, when the wind blew down my dish. It has been almost a month and no one has called me back. Furthermore my bill is still charging me a internet service fee although I have called their hotline in India many times only to get their empty promise that I won't be charged a service fee. Is there any way all of us could do a class action lawsuit and at least get out of our contracts? It would be nice to get back all the money we put towards the crappy equipment too. I wish I saw this site before I ever signed up with those @$$#*!&s.

We’ve been with HughesNet for what seems like an eternity. If I had another choice – any other choice I’d change in a second. I’ve had little or no service for the past 15 days and have waited, taken time off from work, lost business and more while waiting on “advanced customer support”. I’m not real bright but given the level of customer support I’ve gotten thus far “advanced customer support” can’t be better than mediocre. I have a collection of incident numbers and pseudonyms for people who have names unpronounceable in the English language. Eventually some company will come along and provide average customer service and the fine folks at HughesNet will be out of business and I’ll laugh as they go down the tubes.

Absolutely correct, on all fronts, each and every complaint. I live very rurally as well, and until last week, thought HughesNet was my only option. It sickened me to think I was stuck with them. Well, when I ran headlong into one of those insidiously stupid Hughesnet tech support reps on teh phone because my modem crashed, I got fed up, and called an alternate satellite internet provider in the area. She told me they were backed up for three weeks, BUT, that I should give my cell phone provider a call, see if they offered wireless internet for the home, and that most did now. Soooooo...

For the record, I am cancelling my Hughes Net account (I was accidentally smart enough to not renew the long-term contract when it expired after 15 months), and switching to my cellular provider's (ALLTELL, in this case) Wireless internet. Not because it will be faster or more reliable - it won't be.

BUT, what it DOES offer is the following - and I am sure that any other cell phone provider wireless service (Verizon, Sprint, etc.) will do the same:

1 -- I can drive up the road for hardware replacement, if necessary.
2 - The Tech Support reps all speak English - and not as their 5th or 6th language.
3 - They actually CARE if your hardware isn't working. No begging for help required.
4 - When I called ALLTELL's Data Dept. to inquire about their home service, the guy on the phone was honest about the speed and connection issues they had. HE did tell me, however, that before year's end, as he understoood it, they were going to be increasing their speed 3 times over. I wasn't sure what that meant exactly (he was comparing their present speed to DSL), but, time will tell. I'm willing to risk it, if it means I never, ever have to talk to Hughesnet again. Ever. HA!

The pitfalls:

I have been "kicking the tires" on this wireless svc. from ALLTELL for a few days - I have a 15-day grace period to decide if it will all work ok. Here's what I have found:

1 - Just liked the dreaded "Dropped Call" issue with cell phones, you will get a "dropped connection" from time to time.
2 - It isn't much faster than Hughesnet, if at all.
3 - It basically works like your cell phone (see item #1), in that if your signal degrades, so will your connection.

Bottom line, I haven't had any real problems since Saturday, and when I switched the location of the USB access card to a different location, it has stopped dropping connection altogether.

If you live somewhere without DSL or cable access, as nearly all of us do if we were unfortunate enough to have to hitch our web-wagon to HughesNet, seriously, look for cellular provider-based alternatives, and, at the very least, sign the MINIMUM contract Hughesnet requires, then don't renew. Leave the door open so you can gleefully throw them - and their idiotic idea of tech support - right through it.

Good luck all. And Hughesnet? Good riddance.

I'm over in old Kentucky, I've had the same problem with them for two weeks, I get the entire run around from Tech Support. They wont transfer me to Advanced Tech Support, And I have to deal with all these non American speaking fools. Even went to Customer Support to try to get help but nooooooooo, THEY WILL NOT HELP THEIR CUSTOMERS! If your out looking for a Net company, DO NOT get Hughes Net, Their probably the worst one out there.

This is the crappiest company ever. Your story could be mine exactly with just a change of location. We actually put in our pole per the specs from HughesNet and the installer came out and said the pole was the wrong size and charged us $150.00 to put in a pole. I have had several outages during sunny days and since I have two home based businesses I lost a a lot e-mails and some customers. I can't send e-mail with picture attachments or the recepients receive them 100+ times. They freak out because they think I have sent them a virus. HughesNet is the only deal in town for me right now because I live in a rural area. It is severly limiting my business growth and causing me unnecessary stress. During the last outage less than one year from the date of install a transmitter was fried. They told me the transmitter was covered under warranty but the labor was not. The guys that cam out to make the repair to me it was covered under waranty and that I did not owe them anything. Well HN took $125.00 out of my checking account for the labor! This was an unauthorized debit and when I called to give them he** of course I got someone that does not understand English. I truly hate this company. It is almost worth moving to be able to have DSL. I am so sorry that others folks have ahd to deal with the craziness.

Last weekend Hughes net took over the direcway site and I've had no email or use of email. They asked to wait but I'm loosing money because I can't get my email. I've called and called and been given case Numbers but I still have no email. One way for me to work is through agencies that contact me by email. Yes they use phones but the first to call back gets the job for that shift. I work Trauma and have for 31 years. It's my life and my email was fine till hughes took over. Now I have not been too work for almost 5 days. This sucks! I hate hughes.net. I have a contract for 15 more months because they said to buy the DW 7000 and it's supposed to make things better . Wrong! It's worse than ever. I hate Hughes.net and I don't know what too do?

i was scam for 178 from hughes and not given account number my card was charge2 time with out me knowing i was lie to about my service toally does anyone know how i can get my money back please help me bust these liars =(

Well its a terrible same I did'nt read these thousands of conplaints before I became, another victim of Huges net hell.
Huges makes corp. america look like kindregarten.
God help us if corp.america ever get's that bad.
I think it's nothing but theift by deception, u never get a straight answer from their complaint department. They try to send you to their technical department. What a joke, I ask this tech if he really was a tech, well he hem hawed around the question. He ask me to to rediculess things and when I told him I'd already been there and done that, this bozo tell's me to run speed checks for the next three days and to do them three times a day, unlike the last tech person I had talked to the lastime I'd called who said to do it for two days. (to keep you off their back i guess). Oh I might add this person was not good with the english language, India I would guess his home, as all their techs and customer service rep's are. Some more out sourcing the gentle words would be ( cost effectiveness ).
These people that work for Hughes as rep's and tech's must have a degree in lying and word trickery...and must not have trouble sleeping at night. Amazing what people will shrink to to earn a dollar.
Well I would'nt say your a dummy if you read this and still fall for their many games of getting your money, and if you add it up in a two year contract it's a tidy little sum. Not to mention the brain damage that goes with it.
I won't go into the cost as many of the people that have already mentioned in this forum, as it sickens me to think about it, but if your the type of person that likes to get a slap in the face to your intelligents, then you need to sign a contract with the money hungry liars and thiefs. If their is a God these people are in danger of Hell's fire. (personally I don't think so.) Beware of Huges net. the owner is most likeky the anti-christ. LOL
Oh and one more thing go to the web page listed here and read. there could be a class action law suit. Read this.

DirecPC must remove their "Fair Access Policy"

My company has had 3 Hughesnet accounts for 3 years(3 seperate offices). We have recently started using air cards and wanted to cancel our hughesnet service. I called on January 26, 2010 and after an hour (Yes, an hour to cancel service) and 2 service reps (the first rep didn't have the ability to cancel services) I was told it was done. Febraury no bill from Hughes so I figured I was good to go. March credit card bill comes and lo and behold 3 charges from hughesnet for service. So, today I called hughesnet and told them what happened and they claim I never called to cancel my service. They show a call was made for our account but they have no record of it being cancelled. After 2 hours on the phone and being transfered from supervisor to supervisor. I was called a liar and hung up on. They are so crooked that instead of dealing with a problem and apologizing and offering to refund money...they just hang up on you.

In my opinion Hughes is a crooked company to deal with. They have been a pain since day 1!

I have had Hughes.net for several years, with many service interruptions. Last Thursday I tried to call them to quit the service as I had it replaced with directv.net. Ive been unable to get through to have it canceled. I've been issued several caase numbers and then get transferred over and told to either call back in an hour or put on hold. I've held now for three hours on and off. It is now Monday afternoon and I find they have charged me for another month yesterday (Monday).
This is a disgustingly lousy company.
Mike Bonner

Our modem died and we called to have it replaced. The installer said that they no longer used the old modem and we would have to pay for an upgrade. He needed a credit card and my wife gave him hers. The account had originally been on my card. That was in November. Nearly a year later my wife and I were comparing notes and noticed that was Hughesnet had been charging both credit cards for the same service. Upon calling we were told that we had two accounts and they were charging us for both. We were told that we had to have an upgrade and that it needed to be charged to our credit card right then and there. We were led to believe that they were transferring the charge from one card to another. I guess because they had the two credit card numbers they could charge both of them under the ruse that we hadn't canceled the account charged on the original credit card. In any other circumstance this would be call credit card fraud and that it how we are approaching it. Master Card, FCC, FTC, BBB, and our attorney. They nicked us for $600 and we are willing to pay a lot more than that to pursue the matter. They get away with this because they can because nobody is willing to take it to the limit, even if it costs them more money. Thankfully I have some bucks so I'll put it down to doing my part to help put a little dent in this online... there is nothing you can do about it way we have come to accept as business as usual.

I canceled my service with HughesNet as each time the weather was less than perfect, we lost all service. Plus, it is was slower than dial up. I had to make two calls and spent over an hour on the phone with an account manager on 19 March trying to cancel my service. They failed to adequately follow all the steps on their side. Whilst they acknowledge I canceled service on 19 March, and their account manager did not do their job correctly - they continued to charge my credit card over $70 per month. Each time I called to dispute the charge, they told me the account was NOT deactivated. When I went to cancel, ultimately after what is around an average of 15 minutes hold time with the account manager, my call would be dropped. At the point where I am beyond frustrated, I finally stick it out and manage to have them confirm the account is deactivated but as far as the $400 in charges that were unauthorized, they told me "tough luck". I asked why I should be penalized for their staff error and they simply said the most they would refund is 1 month to cover their mistake. I demanded to be in touch with upper management, they simply put me through to the most obnoxious and facetious "supervisor" who called herself Alicia. Alicia REFUSED to give her surname, she REFUSED to give me the contact information nor guide me to anybody higher than herself to address my concerns. She just sneered and said I should have just kept calling each month after they charged my account and that she refused to help further. I had to scour their website just to find any type of email address where I could take this up further. Judging by the comments and complaints on this site alone, I see I am not alone in the appalling treatment of their ill-mannered, ill-trained, ignorant and arrogant staff members. I would strongly warn anybody to seek an alternate service provider - their service is as lousy, unreliable and frustrating as their staff - and YOU will pay for THEIR inadequacies. It would appear that their strategy is to keep you on hold for so long or drop the call that you will eventually get too frustrated to call back, and then they will fall back on the excuse that you did not go through ALL of the channels required in order to cancel your service. Be warned!

My complaints about Hughes net are too numerous to go into detail on all of them but one of the worst is that there is literally never a time day or night that you call them that you do not get the recording "due to abnormally high volume" and it will go on to tell you estimated time you are going to be forced to wait if you want to speak to them and it is usually anywhere from 10 minutes to 2 hours. This is unacceptable. Their FAP (fair access policy) is totally unfair if you decide to buy software on line and it is more than 200 mb you will be slowed down to about 1k speed for a day for exceeding their 24 hour limit of 200 mb download. What a sham that is. You cant even watch videos from YOUTUBE, etc. without getting hit with FAP. When I first got my 4000 system my download speeds ranged from 1mb to 2mb then they kept sending me emails asking me to "upgrade" to the 7000 system so I finally gave in and immediately my top download speed went from 2mb down to a mere 700k and they cap it at that unless you pay even more than the current 59.95 per month. One would say why don't you switch well I am in a rural area and my choices are limited but I think DSL is here now or coming so I will be switching soon. Hopefully there will be a massive class action suit filed against this company in the near future and it cannot happen soon enough.

We have Hughes net for approx.5 years. Four and a half of service was fine had no problems at all with service. Then we got the hn-7000-s its all been down hill since. Our webb surfing has been limited to about 4hours a dayof good service a day. thats not what we were told we were buying. after the four hours or so of being online the speed drops so low that you can't even get instant messenger to load, much less do anything on line. It's ovious to me that the hn-7000 is automaticly cutting my band with down when i reach 375 MB.
Making the service that I pay for worthless. By the time I get home in the evening It is useless. My wife uses it in morning. Not downloading just surfing internet. We never had this problem before they upgraded the receiver. It' no wonder they sent it free, because they plan on making their money on selling tokens!

WF Reinhardt

I have hughs net for 13 months. I have a problem with my hardware. I was a few days late calling so my warrnety is over. They wanted me to run "speed test" which took me 3 days and several hours of my time!
They said I needed a repair person at $125 for a diagnostic plus a repair person for work plus parts.
WILD BLUE is in my area now with local people, and a much better service.
For those who must have Hughes Net maybe you will have to do what we did-Pray and ask God for an alternative.
My advice: Do all you can NOT to have Hughes Net

Ug. I have been violated. I closed out my credit card so they can't steal any more money from me. I just got it today and payed 125 buck for a 'non-typical' installation... a six dollar pole and a six dollar bag of quickcrete.

I use internet connectivity for online game playing. Forget. This product is useless to me with 2 second lag. The C.S. and tech's have been trained to call it "Latency". 'Sorry for the inconvenience of the latency, sir'... B.S. It isn't just inconvenient, its unusable. No downloading, no game playing, no video watching or music listening. CRAP CRAP CRAP.

At least they can't hurt my credit. I got no disclaimers about not being able to do normal internet things... they just came out and hooked it up. I got no disclaimers about having such limited service. Man, I thought broadband was supposed to be a decent service. Well, satellite broadband definitely IS NOT!

I too purchased Hughes for a mere $495.00 and haven't had a day without poor service. I ran 26 on my dial up and cant get dsl so this was my option. I really hate the poor service and having to talk to someone in India who cant understand me. I had my my service less than a month and have been on the phone with them six times. I was never told until it happened that there was a max you could down load. I am totally frustrated with this service going to have try and get my money back. We will see!

I suspected the worst when Hughes.net sent me an email explaining that email service would be down on 4-26-08 for a few hours while they "upgraded" their service. My suspicions proved
valid. It is now Tuesday, 4-29-08, and I can't even log into their site, let alone receive any emails. It simply will not load. I get the
ubiquitous message that they are experiencing problems.

I guess so.

We live it a rural area, and this is the pretty much the only option we have. Lucky us.

Will they prorate this month's service charges? Will they ever get things up and running? I'm not counting on it. What am I supposed to do, text message everyone?

The whole thing reminds of a couple of years ago when US Air bought out America West Airlines. Even after all this time, it isn't straightened out.

Personally, I hope heads will roll at Hughes.net. I am not a happy customer right now.

In one day of service I discovered I had been scammed by Hughs net. The slick TV add telling me I was about to surf the net at light speed sucked me in. Living in the country with very limited options other than dial up I jumped on board. Somewhere deep in the contract was this absurd 200 megabyte fair access rule. Once I exceed this amount they reduce to me to something below my old dial up! 200 meg! That was huge in 1980. Today 200 meg is one down load. Even my hotmail account allows more space. Needless to I am livid. Hughs net will gladly increase the alotment if I double my payment each month. This company has no code of ethics they are heartless unproffessional rip off artist. I would suggest buying stamps before you buy Hughs net

Update on my last post. A tech was finally sent to resolve my issue, and keep in mind before he got there I had very slow service but was able to check email, after he arrived he sat at my desk like he might have been lost the tech arrived at 12:30 PM and left at 5 or 5:30 PM which is 5 hours in that five hours he took the siding loose from my house went out side replaced connectors and threw all of this in my yard never cleaned it up, and I was told the trees were blocking signal, next he had dig a hole and install a pole, then I had defective equipment part, and by this time I have no service and was expected to pay 125.00 service call fee. I take classed on line and made this clear when I called for service, well by the time he finished on Friday I still had no service and it was going to Monday before he come back, however I told them I did not want this guy back as he messed up the problem I went from slow service to no service and they said they would send someone else, well when Monday got here it was the same tech or no one.
Now they are sending me bill for 854.00, billing me for service and termination fee, from my previous post up until June or July they billed me for monthly service and the 125.00 service call.
Well as I see it someone rally needs to put these people in a reality check, because it appears they do whatever to customers without and consequences, us poor people who have no alternative for ISP are at their mercy so it seems.
Bottom line is no service, service man did not know what he was doing, along with trashing my yard and taking my siding off my house and did not replace it nor clean up his mess, oh yes I forgot to mention he stayed on the phone with the office more than he did any thing else.

I do not think it is right they do customers anyway they want too .

5 months ago I signed up for the hughesnet sat. internet. Not doing my homework I told them i wanted the fastest package available for on-line gaming. after the unit was installed i found out with the earth to sat to earth delay gaming is imposable. I called to have my package downgraded-who need 1.5 g per second on e-mails and she told me it would effect my home page - no problem. Effect was an understatement - not working at all. Call hughesnet for tech support - the guy worked with me for about an hour but the system would not work. he told me he had other customers and i needed to call back. I took it and waited several days and called back. The next guy went thru most of what the first guy did and then told me that i had a problem with my lan card and it needed to be replaced. I told him nothing had changed on my end other than the package speed - he would not proceed any further. I got a new lan card and cable at work and called back. same story - my lan card was bad. told him replaced with new and the cable as well. He spent 15 minutes and told me i needed to contact my computer manufacturer because it was defective. I was very vocal and dropping f bombs for several minutes - he said let me put you on hold - got back to me told me were to go on my comp. and it was fixed in less than 5 minutes. This is a scam - i am sure they get paid by hughes on a per call basis and the more times they have you call the more money they get. If you use hughes and start to get this kind of treatment put a stop to it from the start and save yourself multiple phone calls and being without service.

I agree with bird dog. I have had the same experience. What is the best download manager to use with Hughes Net?