Eric, Bridget and all, I am so glad your experience has been a good one so far.
For the record, I am NOT out to scam HN. I, to be perfectly honest, ALL I WANTED WAS NETFLIX!!! I live in the boonies. my internet provider admitted to me that they could not give me anything faster then 3 megabits per second (on a good day).. so, netflix was out. I searched satellite providers and came across HN. I read good reviews, I found some negative, and some positive, and I gave them the benefit of the doubt. The sales rep was smooth in his talk, very fast speaking and truly, I am an educated person with a college degree, he spoke in terms that I was unfamiliar with. If he did mention or speak about the "reset days" in the beginning of my service, I missed it. I DO KNOW, I spoke at LENGTH about my desire to have NETFLIX! And, that sales rep was all too savvy in saying, "Of course you will be able to watch Netflix with THAT speed!" Never once mentioning or explaining to me about data usage!
All that being said, my install went well, however, the next two days were spent calling customer service trying to understand why my speed was not even close to the advertised speed. The entire experience was frustrating to say the least. Needless to say, I gave up, and immediately starting telling friends of my difficulty with HN customer service.
Then, pretty smooth sailing, until we were throttled due to using too much data. Nobody mentioned to me about "watching" my data. I just bought the next package up! Keep in mind, I am still NOT using netflix because it buffers so badly... my speed is too slow. Yet, I am still over my data??!!
Smooth sailing for another few months and then throttled again, this time for going over my data limits, not by a little, but by an UNREAL AMOUNT! basically 46GB in 20 hours. I spoke to 4 different customer services reps, numerous accusations made by all, but one, of them, basically saying it was my fault. Some of the accusations were rude, and clearly off base, I will not go in to details here again. Then....I FINALLY FOUND THIS ONLINE GROUP, literally stumbled upon it!!! THIS is where my problems began to be solved and Chris (rep) gave me tokens! I had NO IDEA those things even existed! With the help of Chris and Amanda on the HN site and all of the wonderful people (customers) in here, I have learned a LOT about data usage! DO YOU KNOW, that it was in this group where I first heard about the Data Usage meter!!?? Not one of those 4 customer service reps mentioned it to me. With the knowledge i have learned in this group I have ALSO now realized that going thru 46GBs in 20 hours is pretty unreal and this has still not been solved... MY THEORY... it is something "bigger" then all of us! ..............ALIENS! (Just kidding!!!! haha) Seriously, I DO THINK it is a BIGGER problem and I do NOT think it is my system or my household of 2 retired people! I think there is something going on either with my dish, or even internally with HN. I have NO FACTS, I HAVE NO IDEAS, I just know that we did not use that much data intentionally or even un intentionally.
SO--- my point is, I do NOT think HN, in its current state, is a "user friendly" product! I think the user needs to be educated about data usage and how it applies to them. This takes some education for any person, especially those who are not computer savvy. (I consider myself computer savvy) I hesitate to say, there are many people who will not and can not understand things about the computer. I have a neighbor, none of this makes any sense to her, so, how do you educate her? (I am a retired teacher). I mean, look, even GabeU stepped in and helped his parents and I know he will educate them! However, what if GabeU's parents didn't have such an awesome son?? How would they learn (and understand) about the data usage and how it applies to their system?
Anyway-- Eric, I suspect you are young, and still learning (as we all do through out life) as you grow older, you will understand that not everyone is out to scam something, and there are different levels of intelligence in the world, and with time... You too will have an issue with HN (or something), and you will run in to the same unfair situation I found myself in these past few months. Hey, it happens.
So---I didn't join HN to scam them, (I have never once asked for a refund, nor tokens that I didn't even know existed) I didn't join HN with my eyes closed, I had done research, I tried to ask questions of the sales rep, clearly stating my want of netflix, etc. YES, I did hand over my CC and entered in to a contract, however, I did so, believing I understood what I needed to understand, and expressing clearly what My wants and needs were.... I could go on and on.
BOTTOM LINE even IF my internet speed ALLOWED streaming movies, it is truly not obtainable for us under the HN system. What was it that I wanted, that I stated in the first paragraph? NETFLIX!!! Do I have it... NO! Will I get it with this current system? NO!!! AND--- even if my internet speed allowed it! I would use too MUCH DATA!!!! So... I am back to where I basically was with my original internet provider... yea, the speed is a little bit faster... but, again, not the speed I needed. HOWEVER, thru all of my data measurement... I believe I have discovered, that I don't NEED the increased data package that I so willingly bought that first time my internet was throttled!
Not Happy with HN, but, I signed a contract and I will pay dearly for the consequences,
Kim
