poor lamb
I ran into a acquaintance of mine at a local tavern the other day. He was very excited to tell me that he just had satellite internet installed, and was going to get Netflix, and would also be abl...
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Wow -- that was quick! I don't want to ruffle any feathers by asking, but what did he dislike so much in such a short period of time?
I have had a good experience with both HughesNet and Viasat/Excede, excepting the one time my brother streamed some dumb video over and over and went over the 15GB cap on the classic plan and squawked to me about it being slower than dial-up and I said I can see by the Windows Task Manager that it is downloading at like 2-3 times dial-up speed yet. That really set him off....
MrBuster wrote:Wow -- that was quick! I don't want to ruffle any feathers by asking, but what did he dislike so much in such a short period of time?
Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.
gaines_wright wrote:Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.
10 gig data plan!
I am behind the times!
I thought their minimum plan was one of those “unlimited” plans with 35 or 40GB priority data now and that those caught up would not notice until after a couple of weeks when they had chewed through all the data and experienced deprioritization so I was surprised it took less than a week -- I guess the antenna trouble has reduced the offerings.
The low data plans can be painful without the old free zone in the morning hours. Of course, their plans vary a lot by area so maybe that is a busy beam for them with nothing on the new "bird" to offer. Although none of the plans are suitable for extensive high definition streaming....
I believe that the Liberty Plans are still available in some areas. And, in reality, from what I've been reading on their boards, the Liberty Plans are still better than the Unlimited Plans for those on the big beam, and even more so with the people who got the Unlimited Plans with the higher data threshold before Optimization kicks in. That antenna issue really hurt them, and offering Unlimited Plans when they were fully aware of it was just plain stupid. Those lucky enough to be on one of the high density spot beams do well, but most can't get that.
I really do feel sorry for those with said plans. Speeds dumping into the double digit Kbps range in the evenings, and sometimes not much better during the day? No thank you. You can barely even open a basic web page with those speeds these days. :(
MrBuster wrote:
gaines_wright wrote:Well, he was talked into getting Viasat in the first place by what was IMO deceptive marketing. I.E. telling him that he was going to be able to get rid of his satellite TV bill with a 10 gig data plan. This guy has zero interest in the internet other wise.
10 gig data plan!
I am behind the times!Well, I probably misspoke. I think he actually told me it was a fifty dollar a month plan. I have no experience with Viasat, I just assumed it was 10 gig.
I considered Viasat shortly after my problems with gen5. I called my tech company, and they told me I already had the best deal that was available with Hughes.
gaines_wright wrote:Well, I probably misspoke. I think he actually told me it was a fifty dollar a month plan. I have no experience with Viasat, I just assumed it was 10 gig.
In that case, it's most likely the Unlimited Bronze 12 Plan, which is $50 for the first three months, then $70 after that. It's an okay plan, but one would do a lot better with HughesNet for the price, especially with the major speed issues on the big beams with the Unlimited Plans now.
Edit: I see MrBuster mentioned a Basic 25 Plan, as well.
gaines_wright wrote:No offence intended, but do you have any first hand experience with this happening? You seem so sure about it.
No, I do not have first hand experience with this, but I know those who do. And yes, I'm 100% sure about it, as that's what happens when a person has something go into collections. Credit rating agencies are nowhere near as lax as they were 40 years ago. Nearly everything that's negative affects credit ratings these days. Even late payments.
And I got your basic point, but what happened to your friend is more on the agent than the company, though I know that the company is ultimately responsible for what their agents say and do. The agents aren't supposed to do those things, though I'm sure they feel pressure to get the sale and sometimes lie in order to do so. It's very unlikely that ViaSat instructs their agents to lie, or even implies that they should. It's not at all to their advantage to have them do this, as the impact to them from doing this can be far worse than the profit made from the subscriber. Talking up the service is one thing, but flat out lying is another.
As for holding the ETF over their heads, this is true, but not when it comes to sales agents lying about something with the service, as we've seen with a few of the results of sales call reviews on here. I'm sure ViaSat has something similar in place. It may be a requirement by law, though that I'm not sure of.
The bottom line is, people should research what they're buying before they do so, especially if it's a service with contract. Unfortunately, too few people do.
