The ETF would be about $295 at this point. Regarding the equipment not being satisfactory, I can honestly say that in my many years in this Community and the one before it I've not seen a single time where a customer was charged because the equipment returned wasn't in satisfactory condition. Not a single time. They don't expect it back in pristine condition, but rather in used condition, but in still working order. And after 9 months how much 'damage' can there be to the modem, its power adapter and the radio from the dish assembly? Those three things are all that has to be sent back. They don't need the dish assembly itself, just the radio from it.
You should try asking for help here. The reps here are corporate reps, and their abilities to help tend to be better than what's available on the phone or via chat, as they're not only more knowledgable, they have direct access to the engineers. They also have more leeway in what they can do for you. And though there's no guarantee to this, it's entirely possible that they could offer a more amenable cancellation option if they ultimately can't help to get the service running properly.
It's ultimately up to you.
BTW, regarding the video games, real time action games tend to work very poorly with this type of service because of the high latency. That is if they work at all. Unfortunately, nothing can be done about that, as most of that latency is due to the distance the signal has to travel, which is upwards of 90,000 miles or more for the four legs of travel (up then down for the transmit, then the reverse for the return). Nearly a half second of latency just from distance. Add the ground based infrastructure and it's ultimately 600 - 650ms on average. That latency makes real time games unplayable. Turn based games tend to be fine, however.
