I am in Grass Valley CA and also on beam 55. Through August 2017 the service was somewhat acceptable - at least I could reliably play World of Warcraft. Then the 1st week of September began having all sorts of internet problems and speeds became slower and slower. So far have placed 4 to 6 support calls and there have been 2 technical visits. First visit ended having a new modem installed. That company would not go on the roof to check the dish because their safety line was too short even though a Hughes Net installer put it on the roof. The 2nd visit was by the installing company and they verified the dish was only slightly misaligned. The telephone support calls were helpful and they always found something wrong that when fixed resulted in better service for a few hours only. One guy even said he increased the speed of the service - for what it was worth (SIC).
Now I am in FAP with 4 days to go. Download is 1 MBS or less and upload 400K or less - actually about what many of the normal service days have been experienced since September. I too am investigating alternate service solutions and might ultimately install my own pole so a local broadband company can install a repeater on it.
