pentangle wrote:
Hughes oversells its availability, then puts people through multiple steps to get out of a contract or get reasonable speeds. I have the service only because there are no other options where I live. My service is slow, just barely qualifies as broadband (25 MBPS) on a good day, is very expensive compared to other services I've had in the past, with a ridiculously low (30 GIGS) data cap. Yes, I know that I can upgrade, but only if I lock myself into an additional 2 years.
"Oversells" is a very subjective term. The only way they could guarantee that everyone would get at least 25Mbps at all times, barring outages, is by greatly reducing the number of customers and increasing the cost to those that had it. I highly doubt that many residential subscribers are going to pay anywhere from $500 to $1000 or more per month to even allow HughesNet to just break even, let alone make any profit. That's not happening. So, just like every other internet company out there, from the smallest to the largest, they keep accepting customers. But again, overselling a subjective term, as is the claim of such.
The commitment has nothing to do with "overselling". There would be a commitment period whether there are three satellites or one hundred three and whether they had 1,400 customers or the 1.4 million they presently have.
If you already have Gen5, upgrading or downgrading your Gen5 plan doesn't start a new commitment.
pentangle wrote:
It also cracks me up that on those rare months when I don't use all my data, it doesn't roll over. When I emailed a complaint about that the response was that they could not roll it over becaues then there might not be enough bandwidth for other subscribers. I'm not falling for that nonsense, since Hughes will SELL me all I want.
A local provider is bringing fiber optic into the area, I will drop Hughes in a heartbeat when that becomes available.
HughesNet doesn't offer rollover and never has, and system capacity/banbdwidth absolutely does have to do with why, regardless of your opinion considering such. It's the same reason they don't offer an unlimited high speed access plan.
pentangle wrote:
I don't understand why you "professors and such" continue to cheerlead and make excuses for a clearly overpriced and inferior service.
Because unlike those out there that complain that HughesNet doesn't offer what ground based services do, or for the same low price, I blame the inability to do the things on the providers of those services for not thinking enough of my business to bother providing it rather than blaming the company that actually does provide service. Complaining about what HughesNet can't offer would be like doing the same about an oasis found in the desert that contains regular old water instead of Perrier. We "professors and such" have had HughesNet for a long time. We use it within its means and it works just fine for our needs. Stating realities and refuting nonsense is hardly "making excuses". It's stating realities and refuting nonsense.