Requesting a sales call review due to being mislead and to have my contract terminated without cancellation fees.

[Stuka]

Hello, I have been trying all of the helpful advice and suggestions to maximize my data with Hughesnet.  I have tried everything I can find and have called tech support who did give me some free tokens but was unable to fix the speeds I was getting that were 90% slower than what is indicated in the fair access policy.  I realize that Hughesnet is not required to meet their stated speeds because integrity is not a quality that our legal system enforces.  However, I was told during my sales call that I would be able to stream movies from Amazon and to play online games ( and yes, these are standard movies, not HD).  The reality is that even before our data is used up streamed movies buffer several times a minute and any attempt to play a multiplayer game results in being kicked out due to lag.  As stated I have tried various advice I found on this website and from the tech support calls to no avail.  It is frustrating to try everything you can to get a service you pay for to accomplish what you were promised and make no progress at all.  At this point I am requesting to leave my contract without early cancellation fees or a sales call review to accomplish this.  Thank you.

[debbie.jean.bro]

Hi Stuka!

I'm just a regular customer like you, but I wanted to pop in and let you know the official reps will be back Monday morning and will certainly be happy to review your sales call. They are really great and always do everything they can to resolve an issue to your satisfaction.

If the sales rep indeed told you that you could play real time multiplayer video games then you were misled. HughesNet clearly states that you CAN'T do that because of the time it takes for the signal to make it up to the satellite orbiting the earth and back. It doesn't matter how fast your service is running, it is the laws of physics. This "ping" time can't be altered; therefore, you will always lag behind players who have cable or optic fiber internet. There is a disclaimer that the sales rep must read if you state you want HughesNet for multiplayer video games. It is also in the contract you sign. IF you said you wanted to play multiplayer games and IF the sales rep didn't read the disclaimer, you may be entitled to cancel your service without ETFs.

About streaming Amazon movies: even if you're using standard definition you can set it to even lower resolution. The best thing to do, though, is to set your download manager to download the movie during bonus bytes hours and then watch it the next day, still in the lowest definition possible. This only works with movies you buy. If it's a free movie with your Prime, or a rental, you can't download it. But by setting a movie to play in the lowest resolution possible, you will use far less data than just choosing SD.

Can you tell us exactly what the "various" things are that you have tried? Also, have you run tests to see what your download and upload speeds are? If so, can you post results? If not, can you run them? Use testmy.net. Your movies shouldn't be buffering like that. I watch ~90-120 minutes of video per week in the form of documentaries on YouTube and PBS. I set them to the lowest definition possible. They almost never buffer and I always have data left over at the end of the month.

The official reps can look at your system and figure out why your speeds are consistently slow, if indeed they are. HughesNet does not guarantee or promise a specific speed; they advertise "speeds UP TO" a certain number. That's not misleading, it's advertising. No different than car commercials that advertise "up to" certain MPG on the freeway and city, or weight loss programs that advertise you could lose "up to" so many pounds the first month..

Nevertheless, if your speeds are consistently that slow, they will definitely do their best to make it better. As I said, the official reps here are great! They really, really want to help.

So hang in there! Help is on the way! :-) In the meantime, run some speed tests. The reps may ask you to run some other simple tests. These are important to do so they can figure out why your speeds are so slow.

Blessings,
Debbie

[Stuka]

Thank you for the thorough reply Debbie.  I did call tech support about my slower speeds, after a total of two hours between two calls they gave up and threw some free tokens at me.  We did the speed tests using the wireless router, we did them plugged directly into the modem, jumped through all the hoops.  They confirmed my connection was abnormally slow and could not do anything about it.  I do not still have the results but I am prepared to jump through all the hoops again if needed by the rep.  I hope I am not coming across as unappreciative, I really do appreciate your response, I have just really reached my frustration tipping point with this service and even tech support not being able to make it work properly.  I gave this service a honest chance, it has been no where near what was advertised and I just simply would like to move on because I am done battling whatever is wrong with my service.

Thank you again Debbie, but I am just done at this point.

[GabeU]

Stuka,

First, with regard to the reps listening to your sales call, it would be good idea to post either a case number from a prior phone call or the serial number from your modem so the reps can locate your account.  They may not be able to do so with your sign on info, so one of these two pieces of info will help.  DO NOT POST your SAN (your account number), just a case number or the serial number. 

Secondly, with regard to the speed tests, you should head to testmy.net, create an account, and run some tests under that account.  Running the tests under an account you create will save the tests in one central location so they can easily be looked at.  When running the tests, please make sure to use a single device connected directly to the modem with a LAN cable, NO ROUTER.  Please be sure to use the 12MB manual size for download tests and the 2MB manual size for upload tests, though the download tests are the more important of the two.  When you run a batch of tests, it's best to run three to five of them, and space the tests at least five minutes apart (so five tests would take at least 20 minutes).  Also, if possible, it's best to run a batch of three to five tests a few times a day, preferably one batch in the morning, one in the afternoon and one in the evening.  Again, though, that's not always possible, as we have to work and such.  LOL. 

When you've run some tests, you can post the URL of your results page.  When signed in at testmy.net, click on "Results" at the top right of the page, and copy/paste the URL in the address bar of your Results Page into a post on here.  Remember, though, you have to be signed in to the account you created when running the tests for them to be saved where you can easily see them.  It's better than posting each individual test, and having them in a centralized location also allows patterns to be seen in the speeds, which can be very helpful in determining what the cause of the slow speeds are.  The URL will look similar to the following, but with YOUR user name where it says "yourusername".   

 http://testmy.net/quickstats/[yourusername]

Good luck. 

[Liz]

Good morning Stuka,

Welcome to the community and thank you for posting. We can certainly look into requesting your sales call for review to determine whether the sales rep set the appropriate expectations. I'll post back once I get the results.

Your patience and understanding are much appreciated.

Thanks,
Liz

[Stuka]

Thank you Gabe & Liz.

[GabeU]

You're very welcome. 

[Liz]

Hi Stuka,

Thank you for your patience while your sales call was reviewed. The results are as follows:

- The customer states that they would be doing streaming from Amazon Prime and some online gaming.  The agent informs the customer that they could expect about 15 hours of standard definition streaming per month with the service, but that it would work.  

- The agent probes to what kind of games the customer would be playing and the customer responds with ‘Dark Souls.’ The agent asks, “Do you play anything real-time response?” The customer responds, “No, I don’t do any MMO’s or anything like that.”

- The agent reads all final terms and conditions in regards to streaming, gaming and data.  The customer does not ask any questions after the final terms and agrees for the order to be processed.  

There's a good chance that any sales rep you chat with is not that familiar with gaming, so they may not be clued into what type of gaming you'd be into. Our sales agents all ask if one will play real-time response games, and if the answer is no, then the rep will move onto the next subject, under the impression that one doesn't play multiplayer online games.

Regardless, the sales agent disclosed the terms and conditions including the parts about gaming before the sale was closed.

-Liz

[debbie.jean.bro]

Hi Stuka,

I just wanted to check in and ask if you've been able to run those speed tests on testmy.net? If you can post the URL to your results here, then the reps and others here can figure out why your speeds are so slow. :-)