we have concluded, that Hughesnet is perposely capping their bandwith daily for about 7 hours… They will never admit to it, but it is happening to most if not all customers, I did hear back from Level 4 Support, But they claim it is just maint. on the satelite transponder. But i know the truth behind it… anyways thats all! take a look at my last blog post, in comients, Aparently some kind of Hughes Dealer contacted us. i left a followup comient to that as well.

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33 Responses

  1. Welcome to the club! Hughesnet or Direcway, whatever they want to call themselves today is doing the same thing to a lot of us. I am on the pro package, paying a considerable monthly fee to be on the system. I have been with the service for over 5 years now. The first year was rocky with a lot of billing issues and a couple of tech problems. Then things were ok, not the best, but ok for a few years. The start of 2008, makes me want to scream. Nearly every day they are grounding me for 24 hours for FAP. I have not changed one thing about the sites I visit and use on a daily basis. Yet, for the last serveral days I keep getting grounded for 24 hours.

    Upon talking to a not so good speaking english person who refused to listen to what I said, it was like she was reading from a tele-promt or something, I finally just had a few choice things to say to her. She insists that I have been hacked or that I am just downloading to much stuff. So to this I unplug the modem for a complete 6 hours and wait.

    After six hours I plug the modem in and get online. I check my usage, guess what? It shows usage when there was no power to the modem at all. The only thing that could have happened is the system got cloned, or they are messing with customers. I feel it is the latter of the two!

    If you can, when you retreat for the night, unplug the modem, make sure no power is going to it and in the morning check and see if they are showing you on the internet when you know very well that you were not and there was no power to the modem.

    Good luck dealing with this company, I am desperatly seeking an alternative.

  2. Hi!

    I’ve had nothing but problems with speed and pleeeease…. it’s not my modem, router or settings and I’m not about to go through that process again.

    Customer service, we’ll they might as well just put the instructions on the web site for trouble shooting because these technician are reading a line by line trouble shooting guide, not understanding or listening to my problem.

    My speed is great on the weekend and early early morning, up to the 700 kbps as promised. During peak hours I average 45-110 kbps and it stays this way until after 9-10 p.m. (by the way, there website says during peak hours speeds may be reduced to 500-600 kbps)

    I’ve heard from level 3 & 4 that “new” satallites are going up which will relieve congestion, I’ve heard that the “network” was down, so this is temporary, bla bla bla.

    My friend had perfect speed until his “one month” obligation was over, THE NEXT DAY he lost his bandwith. Now he is in the same boat as I am.

    I tried cancelling, they refuse to forfeit the $300 cancellation fee, I tell them they haven’t lived up to their promise with the slow speeds, they then try to transfer me to a level 1 technician. I guess I’ll have to cancel my credit card.

  3. I’m using the Hughesnet ProPak Plus package, and the only time I have problems is when I download over 425MB, or I wait 20 days for the hughesnet repair people to come out and fix their sattelite dish transmitter that spontaneously died right after 6AM.

    On another note, to “stepheny”, I was offline for approximately 20 days, the modem unplugged and the sattelite dish not getting any connectivity, and no bandwidth shows up for those 20 days. Are you sure you’re unplugging the modem?

    I find it hard to believe they pick customers at random to pick on, unless you’ve done something to annoy them.

    Seeing as I live out in the “boonies,” Hughesnet is the only thing next to dial up, and dial up is a lot slower than hughesnet for downloading. Not to mention that most linux distributions other than the “click click done” type distributions don’t come with any dial up tools, so Hughesnet is making Linux a viable choice for me now.

    I’m not getting most of the issues you guys are getting. I find it funny that they have tons of different numbers though. You call Hughesnet’s support line, get transfered and put on hold dozens of times, only to receive a phone number, then when you call that phone number, find out that they’re closed until the next day.

  4. Hi Everyone,
    Today Hughesnet is the bane of my existence. The service is for the minimal internet user better then dial up, however the speeds are not what they profess, I have “timed out” like a naughty child countless times. Customer service is useless, rude, and completely inflexible. I upgraded my modem a little over a year ago. By some stroke of luck cable was finally run on my rural road. I jumped on the chance to have a bundle service because my directv. and basic telephone combined with the pricey hughes net cost was a bargain. I have to tell you all that the road runner service is so much faster then hughes. Just a weekend ago they were “upgrading ” their email program and because they are so unprofessional it left us with no email for four days! No apologies, no discount, no credit to your account. This company REALLY does not care about it’s customerwhat-so-ever!!!!!!! Don’t think for a minute you matter to them. I’m heading out to the pharmacy now to take my blood pressure. Just thinking about my conversation with them this morning is making my blood boil. I guess you can tell by my rant that I’m being charged 300 dollars to cancel my account. Directv didn’t seem so sad to see me leave either even though i’ve been a customer since 1995 with them, but at least they were somewhat pleasant, and spoke english. I think that we have been taken atvantage of because of where we live. I’m sure some savy lawyer out there could come up with a class action suit. I’m in if anyone decides to persue it.

  5. I am luckier than you guys. I saw immediately that it was a joke. For three days i attempted to send a 370kb jpeg. It took 5-10 minutes. always. When I hooked back up to my dial up, i was able to send the same file in 2-3 minutes. I too had to deal with the very poor support team from far far away. I just said.. I’m outta here. Does anyone know what happens if I tell them to come get their crap ??? good luck rj

  6. We live in a very rural area and have had a lot of problems with Hughesnet as well. Being a woman and calling the help line is even worse. I find if my husband calls he at least gets some respect but no real help. We average the speed test at 56/53 with pages timing out. It is very frustrating. We have the second to their highest plan. We hardly ever hit fap but our system is still very slow. We are stuck with them for the moment but I would tell anyone else looking into options to choose something else.

  7. I’ve been a subscriber for years – with direcway and now hughes. Being in a rural area leaves me no options. I suffer with being a bad person and them turning me off when I exceed my “limit.” They never tell me when they do this; it just happens, and I lose a day of work, trying to solve problems – spending HOURS trying to fix THEIR problem. I wish I had another option. I PRAY to have another option. Anything would be better than Hughes – maybe even dialup.

  8. Been a subscriber for years. Upgraded to the HN7000S modem about 2 years ago. Was great until Jan 08. Between 1500 and 2359 hours every day my speeds all of a sudden drop to below 100kbps download. I get lots of uplink queing erros, RTT erros, downlink errors, you name it. Then like a miracle at midnight my speeds jump to about 900kbps which to me is acceptable. I have been all the way up to advanced technical support and have done the 3 day speed test several times and have gotten all the overseas help they could provide. It seems that everyone at the company is brainwashed to say the exact same thing every time. No one wants to say what is really going on. I am convinced that the company oversold the capabilities of their satellites and they slow everyone’s speeds down during peak times. They just told me I could buy out my last 2 months for $140.00. Wow. What a bargain. I’ve been with the company since it only offered 1 way direcway service and it is obvious they could care less about customer loyalty. Cable here I come.

  9. All I can say is ditto to all of the above. There is no customer support at hughesnet. The speeds at my house, at least, are never what I was promised. I can’t download OS upgrades at home because it exceeds bandwidth or times out somehow. Hughesnet’s inability to live up to its promises has compromised my son’s internet-based college courses and prevented him from completing an internet driver’s safety course. I’m hopeful that someone with deeper pockets than me will sue the stuffing out of these crooks.

  10. Same to all of the other previous blogs. Getting Started HUGHES NET SUCKS I have been with Hughes Net since January of 08, What was I thinking. Same as others, I live in the Boondocks where the Dial up that I had before this miserable service was actually faster and on top of that, only 11.95 per month. To bad for us DSL with my phone company just so happens stops about 1 1/2 Miles from my Home. So one day I heard people talking about how great Hughes Net was. Well guess what I should have known then considering some of the sources I overheard my information. I called and immediately there were so many great promises. We were actually excited about finally being able to keep up on the internet world with the rest of society. Yeah, What a joke. The evening my system was installed I was kinda disappointed about the speed. It did increase after a day or so, but when my first month was up Guess What TROUBLE TROUBLE TROUBLE even until now. I learned about the FAP (Fair Access Policy) that I was never told about from the get go. Since about Febuary I have had continuous problems with Hughes Net Service ranging from equipment failure, FAP, slower than Christmas service, interuptions you name it. Now my issue with them this month is billing. It just so happens that they can change something on their end as far as your account info. But whenever they are confronted about it they can’t seem to fix it. Go Figure. Very Poor Customer Service is another one of my concerns. Personally whenever I call any one for customer support , do you think I have time or really care to try to understand someone that can barely speak English? Yet I have not been able to speak to someone with the ablility to speak fluent English. Bottom Line is Hughes Net is one of the Biggest Rip Offs there is. I hope someone sues them for everything the company is worth. Maybe one day we will all receive a check from them for all of the B.S. they have put everyone through. Maybe eventually word of mouth will catch up with them. I wish that there was some way I could eventually get DSL here at my location, but who knows. I’m still trying to figure some way to get out of my contract with them that I have until January of 2010, other than paying out another $700.00 to break it. Good luck to everyone that has to deal with HUGHES NET. Hope you have enough Tylenol on hand.

  11. I just cancel my service after 6 month, although I have to pay the cancellation fee I’m almost glad to do it. What a joke, I have never been so misled by any company as with hughes (high speed internet) net. What a piece of crap!

  12. Here is the reason your speeds drop to <100kbps during the day.
    Yes the customer “service” reps won’t say they are throttling everyone, but it is stated in legalease right on the FAQ of their speedtest page. They are definitely throttling everyone back to <100kbps during the day. Why else would my speeds go from 796 in the morning and at EXACTLY 11am each day they drop to 75. I have 2 weeks of tests to demonstrate this happens Mon-Fri. I’m pretty sure the traffic doesn’t suddenly increase 90% at the same time each day and stay that high all day. That’s not how net traffic works.

    “In addition, HNS retains the right to condition the traffic and modify the system in ways to maximize the experience for the greatest number of users. Due to these factors, HNS cannot guarantee that the HughesNet services will be uninterrupted or error free and cannot guarantee the speeds of the service.”

  13. I am sorry you all are going through these problems but if it weren’t for your
    comments I would be in the same boat. I just placed an order for installation
    and am going to cancel before they even think of coming to my house. There are only two options at my address dile up and Hughes Net. Which means I am scr–ed. Someone needs to go to a lawyer that makes commercials recruiting
    more people with Hughes problems to make a stronger case. Then they will pay.
    Good luck and thanks for your helpful comments.

  14. I had endless problems with browser speed and FAP shutdowns. I finally was told that I needed to upgrade to the HN7000S modem and get the Pro Plus plan; this would give me speeds around 1000 kbps. And so I did.

    Guess what? My computer’s even slower than before the upgrade. I’ve been screwed royally; wish I’d found this website before I committed to the new modem/service agreement.

    If I didn’t live in a rural area with no other choice than dialup, I’d have dumped hughes a week after I signed on (3 years ago).

    If anyone has a telephone number for hughesnet at which you can get a real, American, knowledgeable technician, PLEASE post it!!!

  15. As Snoff already pointed out, the only thing that will compel HN to respond to these issues are numbers. By numbers, I mean a relatively significant volume of people. Letters and messages to editors of various newspapers, state legislators and municipal precincts would be the best way to register a sizeable response about the volume of dissatisfaction.

    The contracts from Hughes Net are remarkably thorough and extremely well-written, making them virtually unescapable and iron clad. The best way to generate valid concern for Hughes Net would be petitions and the high possibility of class action lawsuits based on “overselling and manipulative” tactics based not on the performance of service but vague disclosure of policies, particularly their “Fair Access Policy.”

    Organization and tenacity is the only way. Attacking the performance issues and their legally sound ability to manipulate bandwidth distribution would be futile. Their failure to properly disclose and communicate policies such as the FAP would induce dire concern. Administering and organizing collection tactics to pay for small advertising amongst possible future customers would generate a response. ie, radio spots, message boards, petitions, newspaper ads.

    A class action suit and a duration of pressure and exposure about Hughes Net would likely end their FAP consideration. The speed and performance issues, as I mentioned above, are legally sound from their end. A rumble and eventually a voice viable enough to coherently pronounce the multiple negativities could maybe prompt them to reevalute the efficiency of their dreadful product.

    I am more than prepared to seek customer lists and campaign for petitions dedicated to the failed and insipid sales tactics of Hughes Net. Based upon the large volume of dissatisfaction throughout the internet concerning Hughes Net, the ability to obtain large volumes of complaints would not be difficult. Intense scrutiny and customer feedback would spread like wildfire.

    I’m fully prepared to spend a little time each week dedicated to organizing enough people to shove back.

    Public exposure would not be that difficult.

    Let me know who might be on board.

  16. i want everyone to no that hughesnet works pretty good to me on downloading, i have the pro plan, but browseing is slower than, concreate, also the free 3 month trial of zone alerm, is not compatiable with vista, so i had to pay $25.00 to upgrade to a compatiable version for vista, the hughesnet toolbar also is not compatiable with vista, hopefully i will get my speed, to work better so the pages will showup sooner, lets hope.

  17. Well boy was I taken. HughesNet is slower than dial up and terrible for someone trying to run a business. They are deceptive and should be sued. I was within my 30 day period so I get some of my money back, but it still cost a pretty penny for installation with all of the additions. Live and learn and spread the word far and wide that this is a TERRIBLE service with no support. I called to cancel and they asked me if I wanted to upgrade..I did, right out of their service. If you are reading this and don’t have the service…DO NOT EVER GET IT!

  18. Anyone else screwed this last week???? Today is Sept. 7, 2008 and I have NOT had hardly any service in 5 days – no customer support – email & chat customer support disabled – & phone – call later. I’m really hoping for other options – I live out on acreage. The service has gotten progressively worse since the first of the year. My options are basically ZERO – other than the new satellite Blue Bird?

    I’m looking into Verizon Wireless…

  19. I can’t agree enough with the comments posted here. I have been trying to help my parents with their Hughes Net problems and now it all makes sense. My parent’s were told the same thing: You are downloading too much. But I put a monitor on it, and could tell that wasn’t right. Anyway, I’m going to recommend they switch to a different provider.

  20. Hughesnet has oversold their product, period! That is the main problem. I have been a customer for over 3 years and when I first signed up I was getting good speeds. About 8 months ago my transmitter went out and the tech that came to my house and charged me 125 bucks couldn’t find my satellite and pointed me to a different one that he was was “better” I was ok for a while but now I get 86K down and 33K for most of the day unless I stay up till about 1 or 2 AM. I am paying 80 bucks a month for dialup speeds. They just simply don’t have enough bandwidth to support all their customers and really they don’t care as long as they have your money!

  21. Just wanted to let everyone know…I am in the process of finding a class action attorney and filing a lawsuit against hughesnet. I also plan on reporting them to the FCC and BBB…I suggest y’all do the same…the more complaints the better. Also please contact me with your name address and phone numbers if you are interested in getting in on the lawsuit…the more people we have the better…You can send info to dtanner75@hotmail.com and as soon as I hear something and find an attorney I will send out an email to all of you with that attorneys information so you too can contact him/her with the problems you are facing with hughesnet…Thank you!

  22. Boy! I wished I had read all these before I got Hughes net- dial- up is cheaper and slower but it WORKS. Everything said has happened to us. I say we file a class action suit against Hughes net — I am tired of companies taking advantage of middle class and rual area individuals. I am contacting Dana Tanner to join her suit. Thanks

  23. Thank god Im not the only one experiencing problems with this unbelievably incompetant company. I just signed up for the elite package. 3meg download. The fastest speed I have obtained is 1.7. They seem to think that is close enough to 3 meg and will not do anything about it. UNREAL

  24. These folks have double billed me for three years and have offered me a two month refund. ‘Nuff said. They are unreliable crooks that promise service they cannot deliver. I am filing an official complaint with my states Attorney General with the hope that they cannot do business here anymore.

    The event that prompted this escapade was an independant internet speed test: 150k download!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  25. I’m yet another that agrees with everyone’s gripes.

    Verizon just called a week ago and said that I can get DSL here. FINALLLY! Next June when my two year contract is up I am SO DONE with HughesNet. I caled to se if I could cancel, but not without paying a $300 fee. Screw that! Come June I’m gone.

    PS Hughesnet, I hope that your stock takes a beating in the market. I tell everyone I know not to buy your crooked, over-extended, bad customer service, not-long-for-this-new-economy garbage of a company.

  26. Hello,

    I have had HN over 2 years… And am on the Pro Plus plan (1500K down and 200k up), I have NOT been impressed with their service! At all… I will say that it is faster than the dial up that I am able to get… 20-28K… I do get close to my stated speeds at early morning and late at night… But the rest of the time I to have very poor service… any where from 90-300 ish during the day time… And this year only I have been subject to the FAP 5 or 6 times, don’t think I doing anything different….

    The last month has been horrible to say the least… I must say If I had any other options to get anything else I’m there.
    DSL is only 2 miles up the road… I keep begging every couple of months…

    Tech support (oh ya, big help there!!!) Only the techs out of the Florida office are even worth talking to. If you can get through to them…
    And just want to say to anyone that is not familiar to the Fair access Policy… What BS… and when they shut you down… expect no service to about 5K…
    They Omost had me convinced to upgrade to the 9000 series… being that it uses a new satellite and has very little traffic on it… But then I woke up… I’ll just wait for something else… Even considered using my cell phone, but found out that its FAP is even worse..
    To end this, my service was OK? for 2006-mid 2008. I mean not great, but far better than the last 4 or so months…

    Jon

  27. I want to spread the word, Do you want to talk to someone who speaks English? Do you want to really let Hughesnet know how you feel about their service? Let me tell you how, but first you have to read a little.

    I started as a DirectWay Consumer. I had no problems until the end of 07 beginning of 08. Speeds plummeted, I called tech support, I listened to the repeat of La Isla Bonita countless times. After dealing with someone in another country over and over I finally came to my senses and said to myself “Self, your an awesome webmaster and you know how to do anything on the web, why don’t you find out where Hughes is located” so that’s what I did.

    This is about empowerment, there are tools online to find out exactly what you want about anyone, any place, anything, you just have to figure out how. Domaintools.com is one of them. So I searched for HUGHESNET.com on domaintools.com and I found they were in Maryland, next a quick search on google maps of the town in Maryland along with hughesnet returned a UNITED STATES PHONE NUMBER… Wow I was getting excited just thinking about the possibilities.

    Now I’m going to STRONGLY CAUTION YOU… don’t shoot the messenger, I understand these people are just doing their job, and there are plenty of things beyond their control. So I stated my problem and they did their best to correct it… On multiple occasions. I still have slow speed between Noon and Midnight so I work around it, and you can call the same girls I spoke to see if they can resolve your issue. Chances are they can’t because they are not in control, however the most important information I’m going to give you is the Address. Yes a letter sent to a company says that YOU MEAN WHAT YOU SAY. Phone calls are nothing, I’ve worked in a call center before and after the call is over, with you yelling and cursing it goes in the logs NEVER TO BE SEEN AGAIN, but a letter, OH YES, a letter addressed to the CEO of the company well how are you going to dismiss 100, or a 1,000, or 10,000 letters delivered to your door? So I’ll caution you again, the reps you will speak to are in the USA and don’t shoot the messenger they are limited as to what they can do on the phone. (In other words please be nice, I used to be a rep for a similar company and there really was nothing we could do.)

    If you call dial zero, ask for someone in the United States that help you with your internet connection that the tech support line refused to help you resolve.

    So the information that you want is this:
    Hughes Network
    Pradman Kaul CEO
    11717 Exploration Ln, Germantown, MD‎
    Phone (301) 428-5500

    Remember a letter is always better than a phone call but only if you provide information for them to get back with you.

    By the way, Pradman Kaul CEO here’s his salary and what we are paying for:
    Salary $607,589.00
    Bonus $67,000.00
    Restricted stock awards $219,450.00
    All other compensation $114,658.00
    Non-equity incentive plan compensation $483,000.00
    Total Compensation $1,491,697.00

    Gotta love public companies, this information is all available online as well just do a search for Pradman Kaul Salary.

    Cheers
    Ken Can TOO!

    • So… You got the issues fixed? Thats great, but the fact that they feel like they can run over their customers until they complain to the wright person… Seems like a big scam…

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