Hughes review: terrible service! lies and more lies! 100

I've had Hughes Directpc for over 14 months now. I'm 60 years old and have been involved with computers since 1979.
Hughes service leaves much to be desired. Two glaring contradictions in Hughes advertising and their contract are, 1. Download speeds of 512k per second with uploads of 128k per second. 2. F.air A.ccess P.olicy or FAP for short.
On #1 In the 14 months with Hughes service I have never experienced download speeds that ever exceeded 97k per second. If you are downloading from two sites simultaneously, the 97k is split in half down to a download speed of 48.5k per second. If you do several sites at the same time, then your download speed of 97kps is divided by the number of sites your downloading from. This is done in real time, using real data sites and not from a select "speed test site" which is a "lab perfect" not real world application.
On #2 The "Fair Access Policy" or FAP seems to be more of a ruse than and actual bandwidth / data gathering policy. I believe that its real intent is to allow Hughes to sign on more subscribers then its satellites and other related equipment can actually accommodate at any given moment, i.e. "milking the system". Milking the system is and old way to increase profits without spending the needed money to upgrade equipment to handle (in real time) the volume of subscribers any given company signs up for its services.
This can apply to not only two way Satellite services, but also power, phone (include wire type Internet) and or any other business where its customer base is not aware of the true volume (potential users) which includes the very company that institutes FAP or other similar polices.

And example of FAP using Hughes, would be the following...
Lets say that your account is tampered with back at the NOC in such a way that the "acceleration coding / algorithm" no longer functions correctly.
This prevents you from "browsing the web" using Hughes service. Now lets say you call tech support and over a half hour period get the tech to correct the "acceleration function".
However unknown to you the correction is done by Hughes sending down many megabytes of data to your modem (which you did not authorize Hughes to send). The sending of this additional data sends your account into a FAP condition. Would you say that was FAIR? Or do you think Hughes should eat the extra bandwidth and leave your account untouched?

I feel they should eat it. So based on that feeling is Hughes in violation of its contract and / or has a fraud been perpetrated on one if not many of Hughes own customers? I'm personally going to sue Hughes here in our local courts under the (Consumer Protection Act), if I win would any of you like to join me in a "Class action lawsuit" (to join is FREE) to anyone who has experienced like wise problems with Hughes Satellite Service.
Love to hear from any of you out there.

Piece of ###, Rip Off, Sham, They send someone out to your rural home, after they tell you installation is free. The guy shows up and says it's 125$ to secure the satellite...o.k. thats fine. Then they tell you that the packages are 59.99 & 79.99 per month. Of course you want the really faaast internet just like the people you see on the commercials... So you go with the 79.99 deal. But you find out the next week that they didn't mention the 20.00 "RENTAL" fee per month for the "EQUIPMENT" . And for your 99.00 per month you get the sloooowest ###ing service since the PONY EXPRESS. Not to mention the tech support, which is non-existent. Actually, it exists, but only in some country whose inhabitants, unfortunately, can't speak ###ING ENGLISH. Which causes a problem for all of us who live in AMERICA. PLEASE, SOMEONE COULD SURELY DO THIS BETTER THAN IT'S BEING DONE. I'M ON THE LOOKOUT FOR THE COMPANY THATS GOING TO BUY YOU OUT AND MAKE A LOT OF MONEY GIVING PEOPLE THEIR MONEY'S WORTH. Again, stop ###ing these people out of their hard earned money, because your service sucks.

No that does not mean that u have virus. It means that u must be typing the password wrong or u need to get it reset. May be u can take help of the technical dept of hughes.

Folks don't buy into this joke. Dumb me upgraded to the 7000 about 45 days ago and ever since had problems. I send email that the web accelerator would not stay operational. They said they could not trouble shot with out me calling in to the no help tech support. Finally I did and all they did is run something in the background and said they would have to send a tech. to my house. I am on the express plan so it cost me $29.95. Note this is what it cost me for a tech. on something that has not worked since install. Also, the hing they ran in the background to see that I REALLY have a problem could have been ran when I sent the initial email. I did not need to call in for them to find this issue. (this is per a tech) Another way to get a dollar from you. I have been a customer for 5 years and the service and product continue to get worse. They hang you by getting you in a 2 year contract. - I suggest someone looking at this as a solution look for something better. Don't go the Hughes net way.
They need to get there support back in America.

In the fall of 2006 we moved to a rural area of southern NM with no other internet option than dialup and satellite. We got HughesNet, not having any idea of the FAP policy. The installation was a long process but eventually got it working. The speed was alright, not great, but we got so many outages! Where it would go down and not work at all - not FAP but outages, either from weather or whatever. Then out of nowhere it would slow to a crawl, slower than 28kbs dialup. And stay that way for a day! We only found out about the FAP when we called the 2nd or 3rd time. Customer service was a nightmare - can't understand the thick Indian accents of their call center on the other side of the globe, and most of the time they couldn't accomplish ###. One time service was straight up out for days and days because their stupid modem had fried. We had to wait 2 weeks for a replacement and then go through hours of hell with Lakshmi on the phone getting the new one set up. And paying $70 a month for all of this. After a few months we cut and run - refused to pay for it any longer. They wanted $700 in disconnect fees which we only paid when they knocked it down to $300 just to get some money out of us. And after that, our only option was dialup - slow, slow, but reliable.
We moved to Maine last year and have enjoyed high speed cable internet for the past year - the best internet we've ever had. BUT...in January we are moving to a house a few hours away, in the boonies...and no cable or DSL available. There is another satellite company, WildBlue, but it sounds like more of the same. There is Verizon Wireless Broadband available there, but they have a 5GB/mo. cap. Still think that may be better, since they don't have the hundreds of $$$ in installation, activation and disconnect fees. Has anyone else tried wireless broadband?

I recently purchased Hughes in late August. The very 1st day I had hit this so-called "FAP" in which I was never told about. If I had know this, I wud've never signed up for this piece of ###.
I tried to cancel within the so-called 30 days and never could get that to happen. They would always tell me to upgrade, upgrade...yea, like $80 per month wasn't enough?
I constantly had to watch the usage to make sure I didn't overstep my bounds in that area. I surf a lot every day, that is part of my job...I watched a 30 minute TV show and immediately was in FAP.
I canceled 10/31 and 3 days later my checking account was minus 140.00. They had taken out over $800 from my account for cancelation and equipment charges. Needless to say I am pissed and now had to borrow money to bring my account above water and to avoid NSF fees. What a joke!
I intend to file a suit against them with the AG and the BBB.
I do a lot of blogging and it will be interesting to watch my new blogs in the future re a certain satellite provider.
Hopefully, I can get the word out on these rip-off/con artist with their deceiving and manipulative practices.
Since cancelation, I have been on dial up and as dial up goes, I guess I have no choice, but it is acceptable for now.
I am not a very happy camper right now and will continue to pursue this company until my death.

Hughes net is a ###in ripoff. All you get is a bunch of ragheads answering the phone for tech support that cant help you anymoe than you can do yourself. The FAP is bull and I constantly cant get online even though the damn thing says everything is running right. 5.oo just to get a paper bill is another ways of robbing us. I had Embarq where I lived and it was faster, cheaper, and reliable. I cussed out tech support so many times I cant stand to call the idiots anymore. I have 1.0 but Im not paying anymore for there crappy service than that.

Hughesnet sucks. My bill runs at $112 month, after the equipment charge, the express repair (which sucks too by the way), and the pro-plus plan. Their FAP is a bunch of baloney. How is it they can charge this much for their crap, but DSL only runs $40 or less a month and you can download all you want.

And Don't get me started on their tech support... when you can half way understand them they take you through the same steps over and over and over... but most of the time you get someone middle eastern that you can't understand a word he says, (how convenient) all they know to tell you to do is "go to the little blue man" and call out 20 different numbers, then they will tell you they will give you a call back-- which they never do... I had went without service for a month, a light was off on my modem, they wouldn't help me, they took me through the same steps, I asked them to send someone out, the person never showed up (I missed a days work) then I had to pay $125 for an express repair, then the guy who came to the house told me the problem wasn't my equipment it was on the Hughesnet NOC... who is basically like CIA or something because you can't contact them whatsoever.

It's rediculous I would recommend anyone who is considering Hughesnet, to just stick it out with dialup because if you get Hughesnet you might have a fast connection for a couple of hours but as soon as you exceed your bandwidth, you'll be wishing you had your dial up back, because the speed they drop you to, is 10 times slower than dialup. You have to constantly check your usage to see how much you have left.

Their customer support is rude, right after I got my installation and called customer support complaining about the reduced speeds, instead of even trying to help me she started reading me out the early termination fee agreement, and at that one moment I wasn't even considering letting it go, I was just wanting to know what was going on because I hadn't even heard of FAP.

If you download a few songs, watch a few youtube videos, and just common web browsing, you can kiss your high speed bye in less than 2 hours.

I have been charged $5.95 for 18 months for the repair service that I had requested be removed in Feb. 2007. I thought it had been removed, but since my bill is paid by my credit card I had not noticed that it was still being billed. I contacted them about my slow and lack of service and they said they would have to send someone out and I would be charged since I did not have the repair policy, but in researching I found out that I was still being charged for it. I requested again that it be removed and that I be refunded for the past payments and they still charged for the month of August. They have now removed it and refunded August, but not the previous months. Service stinks and speed is slow, plus they overcharge. I just wish there were something else available where I live.

hughes is a joke. i have had them for three years .now a download limit. tec suport no english
they are just full of lies. they need to be sued

I have been reading a few other complaints on Hughes and I cam across CB saying we should have read our contracts or gone online and researched the policies or some such bs. My contract has nothing NOTHING about a FAP in it! I personally couldn't pull up Hughes policies until I had access to the company's pages. They a ripping everyone off plain and simple!

OMG what a bunch of ###! Hughes net has to be the biggest scam company providing internet access!The FAP that conviently goes untold to new customers is a load of crap! If you are thinking of satellite internet think about using any other company! I am currently in my final week of having to deal with there bs and glad of so I am spending my time TRASHING these ###s on every site I can! BBB will not do anything so heres a BIG ### YOU HUGHES NET!

Well, at first I was not going to submit a comment and I sure wish I had looked earlier to see what the truth about Hughes.net was. I have had Hughes.net since it was Direcway and I thought at that time it was great. I believe Hughes and Direcway were the same company, perhaps not, and I am not sure when the service turned to crap but at least of everything, that has been consistent. It is crap every day, night and day. Then there recent upgrade to the email system was the end for us. We changed, just today in fact, and after I finish managing to get all the email they lost, I am going to call them to tell them how below par the service has become. They are guilty of false advertising and if someone decides they want to do something more than just complain on here, then count me in. I am going to make a formal complaint if possible with the state of Texas and how Hughes.net is doing business here. I have paid $60.00 per month for more than four years and bought my own equipment which to me is now as useless as a troutline weight, perhaps even more so. When I moved in 2006 they gave me nothing but problems, very little if any support and I actually paid an outside technician to get me back up and running. They were rude on the phone and generally made me want to quit dealing with them then. The FAP is crap. I pay $60.00 per month, and I have to deal with a Fair Access Policy that effectively stops me from using much of my service. Then why am I paying $ 60.00 per month. Well, I am not anymore and I sure am glad so far.

Hughes has never cared about customer service, it is basically non existent. They have no regard for their customers even though we pay more then any other internet provider charges. They know that we wouldn't even use them if we had a choice. Guess what! cable is now on my rural road and just in time. Thank goodness for choices. If I didn't know that I wasn't stuck with them I'd be even crankier then I am already. Sorry to all of you who are still stuck with them.

Upgrade +48 hours and counting. Hughes' is sorry for any incovienence. How these clowns can put a working satillite in space is beyond me.

I am also in IT and it somewhat surprises me that they have let this problem continue for so long. I understand that they want to implement new features, but we went from basic email to effectively no email at all. I do not understand the logic in that.

Note the gmail.com email account --- that's because my hughes.net account has been down since Saturday. Even when it was up, the webmail component was waaaaay behind Gmail, Yahoo, Hotmail, and just about everyone else. I had to install Thunderbird to be able to see pictures and other attachments. No spam filter that I could tell. Only reason we even have hughes.net is because where we live there is nothing else -- only dial-up. Hughes.net is a little faster than dial-up, but you have to compensate for the "earth-to-satellite" lag time. I'm in IT so I know upgrades can go wrong, but with proper planning and lab testing, you can minimize the "go-wrong" potential of an upgrade. Sounds like p!$ poor prior planning on this one. Glad the emal service is just an "extra"...hate to think I was actually paying for it. ;-(

This morning (monday April 27) Hughes said it's going to take another 24 hours with the email upgrade - wow what an upgrade ! Yesterday afternoon someone in India assured me it will be working by 6pm yesterday. Called again and talked to a guy from Hughes in the US and he told me that he doesn't give a crap what those guys in India assure me. They are unbelievable - who do they think they are ?

Worst Internet Service, Ever. Day 1, I ran the Bandwidth up in an hour, went to my system control center learned about the FAP that nobody told me about, I called them and played dumb like I didn't know about it. It was the first thing they told me to check and they made me do numerous other things before they told me what it was. I was pretty pissed, but I dealt with it because I had no other choice. Alright, so a few days later I buy an Xbox 360 and I'm thinking "alright, Xbox Live!". I was wrong. It wouldn't let me connect to Xbox Live. I called again and asked what the hell the problem was. They told me this in a Indian accent, "We do not support Xbox Live". I said, "excuse me, but for $80 a month you'll support whatever the hell I tell you to". Suresh was not amused and he proceeded to yell at me in Indian or Arabic or whatever the hell they speak.

My mother had this service as well and she has had numerous problems with their billing system including a $300 dollar cancellation charge when she went too long without getting on the internet. She told them to F*ck off and just quit paying for it.

Alright so in conclusion these are all the things wrong with hughes net,
An Idiotic Bandwidth restriction
Slow as hell from 12 PM to 12 AM (False Advertisement and grounds for a Class Action Lawsuit)
Does not support Xbox Live
Customer Service is Horrible
Billing system tries to rip you off
The ads lie and dupe you into paying for a horrible service (Again, False Advertisement and grounds for a Class Action Lawsuit)
and its too damn expensive

Now, I can understand a bandwidth restriction if I were paying $10-$20 a month. But I am paying $80 a month. I should be able to do anything I want for that much.

I have had to call customer service serveal time for connection problems. The connection problem seems to grow as each day goes by. Huges's Customer service employees that I have had contact with are very hard to understand. I am a easy going person. But when I get off the phone it seems I am pissed even more. They try to make me feel the problem is on my end. It never is. Its tough to only have dial up or Hughes net for a choice. Sometime I think i can walk to the internet faster.

Not only is their download and upload speeds terrible (sometimes as slow as 120/11). But they have the absolute worst customer service of any company that I have ever done business with. I would LOVE to join a class action suit.

They charge $5 extra to send a bill in the mail. Their reps until you get to level 4 cannot call back or Email you. Even at level 4 they are very unresponsive.

They have no respect for your time.

I just went to sign the petition and received 'Web Acceleration Client Error (506) - Suspected Recent Satellite Link Outage' - I literally cut and pasted it from the browser. That should tell you what we are dealing with. Hindsight being what it is I would use a dial-up because even when things are fine dial-up is only a fraction slower no matter what the advertisements, website, salesmen, etc. say. They do not tell you verbally during any transaction about this policy because they realize customers might not buy which should tell you about the unethical behavior this company uses as part of its normal operating procedures.

My PC antivirus software and Java downloaded updates during the same period and I was locked out for 24 hours at less than dialup speed. The antivirus didnt finish because my PC was FAP'd and I cancelled automatic updates because I literally cannot update to my PC to the latest antivirus software now. More things they do not tell you - you cannot VPN unless you purchase an upgraded program and even then performance is reduced to what I would imagine would be less than dialup.

I feel sorry for people that have to pay for this service because they need internet access and cannot get it any other way. People that think this service is acceptable either work for HughesNet or have never used anything other than dialup prior to HughesNet so they do not leverage the internet the way its intended.

I've been wrongly charged for a satellite installation in another state for someone I don't even know. Numerous attempts at resolving the problem have been considerably less than satisfactory.

Even though they know that a charge of $494.47 is not rightfully mine they refuse to credit my credit card with the wrong charge. Instead, they say I'll have to go through "dispute" with the credit card company to have the money returned. This will take 6-8 weeks I was told by Visa and of course there's no assurances then.

As a result I've had to cancel my Visa to be assured they won't post any additional charges in the future. Cancelling Hughes Net service prior to the two year agreement will cost me another $300 and still won't correct the bogus charges.

My email was dissabled by hughes net. Unknowingly I called tech support 6 times they reset my password and assured me it would fix my problem. On the 7th call they informed me that my email was dissabled by them for receiving too much spam. I was told They would contact me about it in 2 or 3 days. I asked them to adjust my bill since I spent a week without email. There supervisor informed me that email was a free service provided by hughes net, there for they could not adjust my bill. I asked if tech support was free also but all i got was the run around I promply told them to discontinue my service which the did. had there service for two years never late paying my bill. The dish cost me 700.00 daollars plus. Getting a wirelless car for my pc I suggest anyone who has cellphone service at home to do the same thing!

Opps I meant to post as Jonathan Berkisczuk but I messed up! The above post is in response to James Weymouth.

I've never had FAP come into effect while just searching web sites... my mom can be on the computer upstairs for hours doing eBay and I can be doing stuff and I've never had FAP go into effect. by using the Hughes Usage page that tells you how much you've downloaded it usually never goes above 10 or 30mb per hour when surfing relular web sites and taking into effect how fast the "bucket" refills you'd need to be online a whole lot to run out your limit.

Not to say I agree with FAP I hate it! But currently it's the fastest solution for us rural customers.

i had hughes for a few months when i found out about this fap. all i did was cancel my credit card and stop paying hughes. i never got one call nor one letter asking to be paid, they just left me alone. if it goes against my credit rating i dont care, my score is good enough this will not have any impact. i suggest you all just do the same. when the money stops comming in there will be no hughes. one problem i did run into is the i paid 400.00$ up front for equipment and now i can't even give it away even though i own it out right. they will not acctivate the modem until the ballance is paid. well in the trash it went and i have recovered. i am now with my cell provider. i pay the same as hughes and i can take my internet with me where ever i go with my laptop. my plan allows for 4gigs a month and i use this thing day and night and all weekend and have yet to run into any problems. i am going on six months of a 2 year contract and if things keep going this well i will resighn and get a new usb modem i another 18 months. go wireless i love it couse im an internet junkie. gl all. hope yall can find a better isp.

Wildblue, should be called wild blows. Their service really sucks and they are not friendly at all. I have had them for 6 months and have had nothing, but problems. If you are considering them, consider going back to dial-up first. This company is over priced, over staffed with incompetent buffoons. You need to read the part in the trash policy where they treat you like a child and tell you afterwards that you are restricted to your download speeds and the amount of downloads and if you go over that, which is not clear to start because of a false since of this is a good company grace period. Your speed will be slowede to lower than dial-up for 30 days from the date that you went over. My suggestion is tell these people that to get into the 21st century and out of the stine age. I have seen so many people with this issue it's not even shocking anymore. Oh and watch for the early termination fees, it's just the remainder of the 12 month contract. Trash I tell ya, trash. So who's got a chisel for me to make some square wheel for these people. ;-)

Is it really the providers fault you don't read contracts. Remember under UCC you are required to read your contracts or you lose rights. You could always Blue line the contract then that part is removed. I did that on a sprint contract and they never disputed it and lost the ability to charge me a cancelation fee.

Remember its your fault learn to read your contracts or stop complaining when something surprises you.

We signed up for Huges net in September, before we even signed up I contacted them and asked if we would be able to download, acess e-mail, and surf the web. They said that their services was the same as broadband if not better. We live in a area where you can not get any service accept dial-up. So we decided to try huges net. From day one we were not able to get on line, and if we did we could only go to one site before it would freeze my computer. we can download any thing. i have called tech service many times and they keep informing me that there is nothing wrong with the service it is my computer. I called and told them that I wanted to cancel and they said that they would charge my card $700.00.This is not right. I would like to see a class action suit filed against them!

bad bad...sham on them

I going to seng my bill smeared in dog crap every month...they lied to me about everything...they waunt to hit me with 400 bucks to cancell...wow...i have only been with them for 1 day and can see they SUCK.

I am going to take that disk and burn it...File bankrup on em...yea...i refuse to pay it!

Then I am going to place an ad in the local news paper and warn people...let them bring me to cort!

Jonathon or what ever your real name is, it must be hot in your country, the USA is cooling off. How much did the Hughesnet folk pay you to say what you did? FAP is crap! Dial-up is better than Hughesnet's POS service. Can't wait for contract to end.

I'm glad to see so many others w/ same problems. My email address is blocked because I am sending spam from it (?). I can barely use my computer! I have been bombarded with junk email and been filtering and deleting as fast as my fingers can move. But somehow something "lodged" into my computer and I am a bad guy w/ malicious intent (?). If any spam has gotten to others posting here from me, I offer my deepest regrets. I don't know if I did something wrong or if it's Just One of Those Things. Anyway, FAP is baloney, service is terrible, and I can't even download anything like Norton to try to protect my computer. I'm pretty illiterate about this stuff, but I do know there has to be a better way. Class Action is too good for them!

Beware of wild blue! I understand that you have issues with HughesNet, but Wild Blue will not be any better. I know from experience. At least you have connectivity. I've been stuck with Wild Blue for a year now and have been down more than 50% of the time. The rest of the time, the speed and lag are so bad that I might as well be on dialup.

Hughes Net is horrible when it comes to online gaming. I've heard people say that they have around 700-900 ms with it. Well for me, its usually around 2100-2500ms.. which makes it completely impossible to play any online game at all. Now I know that satellite isn't meant for online gaming, but no one bothered to tell me that before I bought it. "High Speed" psh.

I live in the NC Mtns and have no alternative to Hughesnet other than dial up. I want to puke everytime I see the redhead saying how everyone can have high speed. PLEASE - some attorney out there shut the biggest of all marketing lies Ive seen down. I dont want money - just hate being lied to and spending hundreds of dollars plus having some apparatus drilled to my roof for nothing faster than dialup. LIES LIES LIES - hope the owner rots in hell

HughesNet ###ing sucks dog dick! Nothing but a bunch of theives! Tech support ###ing sucks, customer service ###ing sucks, they don't give a red rat's ### about their customers! HughesNet isn't worth a tinker's ###!

My email keeps disappearing! All my messages from my inbox just disappear! If I get out of Outlook Express and then get back in a few times they will magically appear but I am afraid one day they won't. What the heck is the problem. I have a hotmail account attached to Outlook also and have no "disappearing" emails with it. Only Hughes.

What the heck.

We'll we have recently signed up for wild blue and although i do think fap policies are necessaries hughesnet fap's are ridiculous 200mb a day that is bs wild blue is 7500mb a month and my nabor has wild blue and she has been quite content with her system... but wild blue only does have 2 satellites in space so if everyone switches it would probably just turn into another hughesnet. we ordered are wild blue system on august 16 the satellite is still not her, thought they did inform me they were in a 'back order' and said it could take from 2-4weeks to get here so i have been waiting patiently and i decided to look around on there web page and they have stopped letting people order it for the zip code 6674... so they are trying to keep satellites from getting over crowded, last time they did the hold for this area they put a new satellite up.