Rattlesnake,
You sound like a pretty knowledgeable person when it comes to satellite internet service with all this talk about 'ping', download and upload speeds etc..and you obviously know how it works as you previously had service through Excede.
Personally you lost me when you all started talking about 'ping', haha (but that's besides the point)
...but anyways, I'm just curious, with you being as knowledgeable as you are, as to why you simply didn't go on to the HughesNet website and compare their 'advertised' speeds to that of Excede's 'advertised' speeds. I don't know what Excede's advertised download speeds are in your area, but in my area both Excede and HughesNet offer the exact same download speeds, which is UP TO 5 mbps (download) and up to 1 mbps (upload).
I'm also curious, if you had this service installed back in May, why is it that you are just now complaining about these speeds. You said yourself that your speeds were awesome for the first few DAYS of service..at which point they started to slow down. HughesNet gives you a full month before that contract kicks in...why wait until 3 months later?
I've only been a HughesNet customer myself for about 2 weeks..most days I get speeds upwards of 12-14 mbps (download) which is 2.5x FASTER than HughesNet's advertised download speeds for my particular area.
Needless to say...I'm ecstatic over these higher speeds..BUT, if my speeds were to drop down to between 1 and 5 mbps, I would not be in a position to get upset over this because HughesNet clearly states that the typical download speeds are UP TO 5 mbps download speeds for my area.
You said that these days you are getting between 1 - 5 mbps download speeds...it seems to me that more than likely you are getting exactly what HughesNet offers..