bkeeper -our last discussion ended with upgrade and cancellation options. I have private messaged you about upgrading and what I can do for you.
Amanda
Another bad weekend. Wife says to have patience, but I am getting tired of the slow speed. We have been downloading (a lot of) movies during the times when the speed is somewhat acceptable, so that we (have a choice) (can watch them) all the way through without the constant buffering. BUT this means that I have exceeded the expected usage for this data cycle. Thank goodness I had a backup of tokens. It will all work out. I am not giving up on Hughes and you yet. Any idea of how much longer? You must have quite a mess right now. Smile, it could be worse.
Thanks,
Cliff
Is there anybody still working on my case? Other that the e-mail about "upgrading to Gen5 - I have not heard from anyone for weeks. I would appreciate an answer.
After reading the information about Gen5 -- it is not for me at this time.
We do have the current speed problem which has to be solved.
Hughes spends so much effort and money advertising for new customers it seems to me they would be better off doing a little more to take care of current customers. Then they wouldn't have so many unhappy with their service!
AND right now I am VERY unhappy.
:mansad:
Bkeeper
Still no improvement – Really SLOW in late afternoon till midnight.
The answer I was given to ("upgrade to Gen5") doesn't solve the problem. I might get more speed with Gen5 - but, I am currently on the ULTRA PLAN (which promises “up-to” 15 Mbps download speed) and really, what difference am I going to see between the 15 Mbps (I am supposed to be getting now) -- and the 25 Mbps (supposed to get - not guaranteed – how do I know the same problems won’t occur?) on Gen5? In the meantime allowable anytime data would drop from 50 G currently, down to 20 G on the Gen5 plan before a major slowdown. Please read the fine print!
Also, I would have to pay more (a lot more!!) (My monthly bill would go from approx. $90.00/month to $115.00/month for the next 12 months - and then to $145/month after that) for less service? That is an EXTRA $960.00 over the next two years! WOW!!
If I am mistaken in any of the above – please let me know.
I have been a customer of Hughes for years and (with one exception) I have always found them a decent company to do business with. However, with this last problem, there seems to be little or no effort to help. It has been weeks since any of the “technicians/moderators have bothered to respond to any of my posts or emails, and I feel that they are just hoping that by ignoring me and the problem it will go away. I am beginning to think this "slowdown" everybody seems to be experiencing was a deliberate action by Hughes to get customers to "upgrade?"..
bkeeper1,
Not sure what Hughesnet can do, the Ultra plan no longer exists, and Jupiter One is "at capacity", which mostly means that it has been oversold. The only thing you can do is wait things out and hope enough people on your beam/gateway assignment decide to jump to Jupiter II, or wait to see if Hughes offers Ultra like plans on Jupiter II.
In our consumer business, we ended Q4 with 1,036,000 subs compared to 1,018,000 subs at the end of Q3 and 1,035,000 subs at the end of Q4 last year. As you know, Echo 17 continues to be at capacity in many beams that's constraining growth in the North American subscriber base.
Source: http://finance.yahoo.com/news/edited-transcript-sats-earnings-conference-022824375.html
bkeeper1,
In response to your last PM and this post, if you choose to opt out of upgrading, I cannot force that upon you. I did get the latest update from engineering this week who let me know there was maintenance done to improve performance on your beam and it was completed on March 1st. Aside from that, there is nothing further scheduled. If the service is still not satisfactory and an upgrade is not viable, the final thing I can offer you is to cancel your service without any early termination fees.
Thank you,
Amanda
TO anybody,technicians/moderators;
I wish someone had told me the first of March that all that could be done – had been done! Communication has not been good.
I have been with Hughesnet since the early part of 2009 (with the exception of a few years when I tried one of their competitors). Most of the time I have been very happy with their services. We did have some problems two years ago, which Liz was able to solve. My feelings about Hughes have always been (up to the present) that they cared about and did all they could for the customer (subscriber) and nobody could ask for them to do anymore. I was very much a Hughes “booster”! Unfortunately, after the last few weeks I do not feel that way. I no longer can recommend Hughes for internet service to anyone.
Amanda, the offer of waiving the early termination fee means nothing since my current 24 months is up in just a few weeks anyway. And, I intend to remain with Hughes and hope that the present situation improves. It is unfortunate I am unable to upgrade to Gen5, but I cannot afford to pay an extra almost $1,000.00 over the next two years. The only way I could afford to upgrade would be to a much smaller plan which at this time I do not think would fit my needs.
Thank you for finally getting back to me. I will be posting regularly in the months ahead to let you know what is happening.
Bkeeper
Have you upgraded to Gen5? If so, has your speed time improved or is it about the same? We have Gen4 and have had it now for about 3yrs and what we've found out, about the slow Prime Time streaming is that, alot of it depends on the site you are streaming from. Good example, if you are streaming a show from say PBS, it doesn't seem to have a problem, but if it is from Youtube or a very popular site, there is a MAJOR problem. Lots, and lots of buffering which does get quite annoying. We live out in the boonies and for us, satellite internet is the ONLY game in town. I've talked with others in the area and they are with one of the other satellite internet companies and they all seem to have that same issue. I am not sure if there are any companies out there, anymore that don't have buffering issues or not. We use to have DSL, about 5yrs ago, and it also had buffering issues when we use to try and stream videos/movies while on Amazon, but there again, alot of it depended on if the show was one of the popular ones or not. If it wasn't there would be no buffering issues, but if it were one of the popular ones, you can get ready for lots of buffering. We don't have cable or satellite tv either where we are, just over-the-air antenna, so we do a lot of our missed tv watching early in the morning and there is no buffering issues. The worst times, for the buffering are between 4p-10p, I guess that is why they call that the "Prime Time" and that is when a lot of people are online. Anyway, we still have never converted over to the Gen5. Is that any better??????
I am a brand new Gen5 user and I love it. Watched a video from Youtube with no buffering during prime time. I do have a word of caution though. This new technology is not as simple to set up as say Direct TV or Dish. It uses Spot beams which are specific to your area and the dish must be aimed very accuratly. Your installation technician must be well trained or your service "may" be erratic. Once its set up correctly you can experience very fast download speeds in the 15 to 35 MBPS range. I highly recommend it.
Though I don't do much streaming, aside of Youtube, I did stream a couple of things through DirecTV's On Demand service when I first upgraded to Gen5. The things I streamed through On Demand were flawless, and the Youtube videos through current have rarely buffered, only doing so two or three times since I upgraded at the end of March.
One other thing of note is that, with Gen5's increased FAP speed, people have still been able to stream when they run out of their monthly data alotment, though only in the lower definitions. There's no guarantee of this, of course, but it has worked for those who have deliberately run out of data to test such and have written about it.
Just for reference, I disconnected the DirecTV receiver from Hughesnet after my On Demand test as their receivers can use data for things other than On Demand, and due to it being uncontrollable it's recommended that people don't connect a DirecTV receiver to the service.
It will also use it for some of the guide searches. I found that out the hard way.
Unless you're ordering a movie, extra service (like Sunday Ticket), watching something on-demand, or use the on-screen apps there is absolutely no reason to have the box connected.
