Absolutely Useless.

[jey65]

I have had HughesNet for close to a year now, and have been disappointed with it from day one. I just work so dang much that I haven't had the time to do this until now. Simply put, it just doesn't do what I was promised when I signed up. I was told that my initial package purchased would be "plenty" of data for just 1 person in the household. B.S. I was told that it would stream "HD" movies with no problem. B.S. When I called to complain, After "Checking out my service" the "Technician" i spoke with told me "Oh well", and that what I was getting was the best I could get in my area with the current plan. I was talked into the 30gb plan and told it would have faster download/streaming speeds and would DEFINTELY be enough data for one person. Neither of those statements turned out to be true.

Here's the truth of the matter: After around 15-30 minutes of connection failures, I can usually limp thru a movie (usually Netflix) streaming at a video quality just below 1970's rabbit ears, with it pausing to buffer every 3-5 minutes or sooner. The only e-mail I can send without it timing out is text only. No attachments. When I try to get on the internet, I have to go thru numerous "Unable to connect" or "Website too busy" screens before it will finally load the webpage(and then very slowly). The statement that the 30gb plan allows for 45hrs of HD streaming is complete and utter B.S. If I watch 6-7 movies a month, a little YouTube, and download a few emails, the data is gone. I am one person, who works all the time, and still run out of data every month. Its not like I'm sitting around burning thru the data all day and night. Oh, yeah, it somehow manages to use data even when all my devises are COMPLETELY turned of.

As far as i am concerned This service was a complete and utter misrepresentation at best, and a down right scam at worst. Judging by the other posts I have read on here, I am far from alone in this belief. I have not been given what I was promised, not even close, and plan on terminating my subscription due to a failure to provide services promised.

Digital blocking, constant buffering, and blurry video is NOT "HD". Getting mad and turning of my electronics is not the way I want to spend my precious few hours off duty.

[maratsade]

All the stuff you mention is because it's satellite internet, not cable. It's a more limited technology in some ways that can't be changed, and if that's a problem for you,  maybe you should go with a different provider.

Unhappytoo wrote:
100% agree with you. Not enough data, not enough speed, too expensive for what you get.

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[Dis-satisfied]

Some people only have ONE choice of Internet providers and HN certainly takes advantage of this fact, seeing that they charge exhorbitant prices for next-to-nothing bandwidth.

[GabeU]

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@Dis-satisfied wrote:

Some people only have ONE choice of Internet providers and HN certainly takes advantage of this fact, seeing that they charge exhorbitant prices for next-to-nothing bandwidth.

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Satellite internet is the most expensive form of internet, per capita, to both provide and maintain.  As well, the majority of HughesNet's 1.3 million customers seem to have no problems with them, or at least they don't indicate so online.  

Plenty of bandwidth here.  

If you have an issue, take advantage of the HughesNet SUPPORT Community and ask for help.

[Dis-satisfied]

Lol, that's EXACTLY what they indicate- slow speeds, constant buffering, etc.. and for people on fixed incomes, there is only ONE choice.

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@GabeU wrote:

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@Dis-satisfied wrote:

Some people only have ONE choice of Internet providers and HN certainly takes advantage of this fact, seeing that they charge exhorbitant prices for next-to-nothing bandwidth.

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Satellite internet is the most expensive form of internet, per capita, to both provide and maintain.  As well, the majority of HughesNet's 1.3 million customers seem to have no problems with them, or at least they don't indicate so online.  

Plenty of bandwidth here.  

If you have an issue, take advantage of the HughesNet SUPPORT Community and ask for help.

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[GabeU]

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@Dis-satisfied wrote:

Lol, that's EXACTLY what they indicate- slow speeds, constant buffering, etc.. and for people on fixed incomes, there is only ONE choice. 

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"They" represent less than one half of one percent of HughesNet's customer base, and that includes complaints of all types, such as those regrading data usage, which make up a large portion, and which are rarely ever the fault of HughesNet, and duplicates.  And the blame for other providers not offering their services is on those providers, not HughesNet.  

And again, as stated, if you're having an issue, take advantage of this SUPPORT community and ask for help.

[Danny89]

Eh, count your blessings, I was on DIAL UP until I got HughesNet. Lately ive been in rough shape for speeds, dont know whats wrong

But before that, it was amazing. I was able to download stuff even on throttle near 1mbps, and watch fairly high quality video

Even with these horrifically slow speeds, its better than dial up. If youre on Hughes youre probably a rural person, and its the best we'll get except for if Elon Musk really gets that SpaceX stuff going

Anyway my advice, just watch stuff at lower quality. 480p is standard television quality, and I can stream that on Youtube right now without problem. In fact, I sign into my buddy's Amazon Prime to watch movies, and I can watch on their good quality with a little bit of buffering(like 10 second every 5 minutes) and my download speed is currently 26k on Steam for a game download.

Ive also never seen a website failed to connect message. Im thinking you should probably reboot your modem, and call techsupport again. Could be your dish or modem is messed up bad and needs to both be replaced or reaimed

[DougMac]

I haven't been to the community for a long time and decided to check it out.  I ran into this post and it got me thinking now that we've been with Hughesnet for a couple of years.

We live in rural Georgia. We had ATT&T dsl, but on a good day it was 760kbs.  They finally di.scontinued our dsl service because we were actually too far from the slick. We went to the Verizon program where they used a cantenna on your house and you connected to a microwave tower.  It was buggy.  Left with no other choice we decided to try satellite internet, although we were aware of the limitations.  Reviews led us to choose Hughesnet over Excede.

From a service standpoint, we've been very happy. We rarely have technical outages. Bad storms interrupt service, but it is just the nature of the beast.  We bought the 50 gig package and it has been a good fit.  We also got VOIP and it works OK, though latency takes a little getting used to.

We made the decision to go with satellite service after thoroughly understanding the limitations. We modify our usage accordingly.  The system is good enough for her to use Web-X to teach her online courses.  I sometimes watch YouTube videos, but we get other content through Dish and Netflix disks.  Yes, I'd love to have gig connectivity, but I wouldn't trade it for the gorgeous home sitting on 13 acres that we have.   I'm happy with the service we get from Hughesnet.

[Lester]

I had the same experience as far as data usage. I unplug my modem when not using and it made a world of difference. Hughes net will tell you not to do that but it works. I t won't help the slow speed but saves a lot on data.

[GabeU]

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@Lester wrote:
I unplug my modem when not using 

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I've done the same since the day I got HughesNet in Dec 2004.  When my desktop computer gets turned off, the modem gets unplugged.  I don't do it for data reasons, though, but only because I don't want it on when I'm not using it.

[maratsade]

Late to this party, but my modem is on all the time unless there's a power outage. 🙂

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@GabeU wrote:

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I've done the same since the day I got HughesNet in Dec 2004.  When my desktop computer gets turned off, the modem gets unplugged.  I don't do it for data reasons, though, but only because I don't want it on when I'm not using it.

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