Forum Discussion

Moodeeb's avatar
Moodeeb
Sophomore
8 years ago

New Customers Beware. Relaxed Bandwidth Marketing Tactics and Losing your High Speed Data

My sales rep was beyond friendly.
My installer was one of the most professional people I'd ever met in his line of work.

Even the customer service reps are nice.

Sadly, so far, it appears to be lip-service.

 

So, one of the sales and marketing tactics you'll probably hear, is "for the first 20 days, your internet will reset every night." or (depending who you talk to) "Your internet will rest each time you run out for the first 20 days." - you even get an email stating exactly that.

 

I live in the country, with very limited internet options. I had a solution with my cell phone carrier for 40 gigs of high-speed data, and I changed that plan (irreversable, as it was a 1 time deal they made me when I switched cell carriers) so, I'm kinda stuck with this path I'm on. When I get great service from a company, I am one of those customers who tells everyone. Likewise, if a company does not follow through on promises they make, or uses shady marketing tactics, I ALSO tell everyone.

 

I've been out of high speed data for 2 days now. I've had hughesnet for 3 days. This is because a huge hype-point they make, is that you can use all the data you want for 20 days to "update your equipment." What do people actually do with this data? IDK. Download movies I imagine? Myself, I am in the tech businesss, and I have been waiting months to update and download production software. So I burnt through my data, after having 3 people at Hughesnet tell me my data will reset during my "relaxed bandwidth" period.

 

I am out of data, and the phone reps just keep spinning their wheels. I feel bad for them. I tell them not to take my call personally because my problem is not their fault, but they work for hughesnet, and so they are tasked with being on the receiving end of my calls. I don't think these people actually work for hughesnet. I'm not sure hughesnet even has a dedicated customer service team. Maybe they do, I don't know, but I do know that their customer service reps seem unable to do anything to help me. 

 

God help me if I ever have a problem with my service, because if this experience is any indicator of what getting a resolution will be like, I'm frankly scared. I probably should have done more research before committing. There are other satellite services. Maybe not as fast, maybe not as modern, but if they can offer consistent, reliable customer service, I would gladly take reliable service over the bright and shiney hughesnet Gen 5, that comes tethered to a customer service department that seems unable to help their customers, regardless of how nice they are on the phone.

 

I've only been with Hughesnet 3 -4 days. When I had internet, it was consistently at 15-16 mbps. This is with Gen 5. I live in a very open and clear sky, so I don't know what they are taking about when they say 25 mbps. More lip service most likely. If I were you, I wouldn't expect 25 mbps, I would expect 15. And I wouldn't expect any relaxed bandwidth, or you, like me, will be without intenet. :( 

 

To be continued...

 

 

  • Good morning Moodeeb,

     

    Our engineers have resolved the issue so your data should now be resetting as it's supposed to be during your first 20 days. I do apologize for the inconvenience, it certainly is not normal for your data to not reset as a new customer. Thank you again for reaching out to us so we can take care of this for you.

     

    If you have additional concerns, please don't hesitate to return to the community.

     

  • Good morning Moodeeb,

     

    Welcome to the community and thank you for posting. I'm sorry to hear this, your data not resetting in your initial 20 days of service is the first I've ever heard, so I've escalated your case to an engineer here at the corporate office.

     

    I'd like to understand more about what is happening. Are you saying that you used up all your data in the first day (Anytime and Bonus), and since the first day your data has not reset? During the relaxed bandwidth period, your data resets daily, so if you do happen to use everything up within a day, the data still won't reset until night. I want to say the daily resets happen at midnight, but I'm not 100% sure, so I'm having that confirmed by engineering.

     

    Once I get any update from the engineer or have further questions, I will let you know. 


    Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

     

     

    • Are you a new customer with HuhesNet or did you have Gen4 service and just upgraded to Gen5?  I know some say upgrading from Gen4 to Gen5 you do not get the relaxed bandwidth period.  With that said, I previously had an older system and upgraded to Gen5 and I got the relaxed bandwidth.  I found mine to reset every 2-4 hours for the first 20 days.  I didn't watch it all day every day but when I would check it was back up to 100% multiple times during a day.  Some times I would use a decent amount of data but never near my 20 GB plan limit.  Also have you checked you system control center to be sure everything is good.  

       

      Even if you have used all your monthly data you should still not have any problems or issues using the internet. You should still get 2-3 Mbps download speeds which you are able to do pretty much anything.  It will just take longer for larger downloads to complete.  Some videos might buffer longer.   When I used my 20 GB I was still able to watch videos and download programs at 3 Mbps.  

      • C0RR0SIVE's avatar
        C0RR0SIVE
        Associate Professor

        wildcats198308

        I suspect that the OP is on an HT1100 as he is seeing ~15Mbps and Liz stated the reset happens around midnight...  

  • Good morning Moodeeb,

     

    Our engineers have resolved the issue so your data should now be resetting as it's supposed to be during your first 20 days. I do apologize for the inconvenience, it certainly is not normal for your data to not reset as a new customer. Thank you again for reaching out to us so we can take care of this for you.

     

    If you have additional concerns, please don't hesitate to return to the community.

     

    • Moodeeb's avatar
      Moodeeb
      Sophomore

      Liz,

       

      I would love to believe that this was horrible timing, and that I just happened to join Hughesnet while a serious issue existed, and the engineers have fixed the issue. 

       

      Was I the only one affected? Why did no one know what was going on? And why did it seem like the only solution was to raise heck her on a community message board to get the problem fixed?

       

      I really hope the engineers have fixed the issue. And for anyone that stumbles on this message board, I will say that my data HAS reset. Which is good, and I'm happy it seems to be fixed. For a new customer, who is getting nowhere with customer service, who looks deeper and finds that there is a pleathera of poor reviews and people complaining about the same problem (customer service's inability to fix anything) spanning years... It's really not exactly a comforting thing.

       

      I'm going to come back every couple days, and update this thread. If things continue to go well, I want people to know it goes well, because trust me, there is not very many good things said about hughesnet out on the internet, and if they really have turned over a new leaf, and my situation was a very bad set of circumstances, I want people to know. 

       

      I'm tired of people getting the bad end of companies over-promising and under delivering, and if my experiences have to be a warning to others, so be it. However I would much rather my experience be one that is positive so others can see that instead. That's in my best interest afterall.

       

      To be honest, the only positive thing I've read about hughesnet, was "Liz was helpful." 

       

      Let's see what happens. 

       

      Thank you,

       

      Heath

      • Liz's avatar
        Liz
        Moderator

        Hi Heath,

         

        Thanks for your reply. As C0RR0SIVE also mentioned, this is the first we've ever seen anyone NOT have their data reset and you are the only customer we know of who had this experience, so thank you again for bringing it up. The community team works closely with the corporate engineers so with one off cases like this, we are able to put it right in front of engineering for their assistance.

         

        I'm glad our engineers did pinpoint the cause of your data not resetting and fixed it. Do keep us updated if your data does not reset, but I don't expect that to be an issue any longer.