My "scam" remark was in reference to one of the keywords in the topics title:
I have to agree with you on "communication" but having said that ... computers and networking are complex subjects in and of themselves. Then add in the additional complexity imposed by the ODU/Satellite/ Gateway equipment you now have a subject that is hard to define in very few words that can be understood by novice users.
You just can't wrap it up and deliver it as a "Unified Theory Of Satellite Communication".
I view having a capped service as a lot like being poor.
You can go "window Shopping" and gaze wistfully at all the "stuff" knowing you can buy some but not all.
Frugality is rule #1.
Rich,
When I recently called to have my parents connected the sales rep explained about the service in regard to streaming and game playing, noting that streaming should be done at lower levels of definition and even then, not a lot, and that any real time games wouldn't work with Hughesnet.
I think it's sad that it's come to a point that the majority of the population just expects things to work. So little research is done before someone buys a product or service that when they get that product or service, and it isn't what they expected it to be, they aren't very happy and blame it on the product.
Communication about the resets definitely needs to be improved, but even if they began to disclose the resets during the sales calls, you know as well as I that there would still be people who would consider it a scam because they would believe having the resets would not be representative of a typical month. Of course, watching data usage would make this excuse moot, but it would and will still happen.
And, of course, it's virtually impossible for the sales reps to explain everything in a sales call. They can only go over the most important aspects, and they do, with the customer choosing between plans based on the amount of data in those plans, and explaining that the data is divided between two time blocks. You'd think that with that being said, people would want to watch their data, but evidently, that's not enough. During my sales call, they even talked about downloading the Status Meter. I don't know what else they could do, save for saying "It's important to watch your data," but a lot of people tune out the disclosure, anyway, and others wouldn't even know what that means. The reps can only explain so much.
But, again, they could, and should, at least tell people of the resets.
I view having a capped service as a lot like being poor.How about government subsidized tokens? Heh heh.