HughesNet

Current Resident received a brochure from HughesNet today. It says they offer 25 Mbps download and 3 Mbps upload speeds. A note in small print says actual speeds may vary and are not guaranteed. My internet provider advertises .75 Mbps download speed and half that in upload speed. I'm always looking for something better. My problem with this offer: They don't list the prices. When I log on to their website, they suggest that I visit the local installer. I'm leery of providing much information to them. It seems like they are unwilling to provide info too. Does anyone know whether they are a reliable provider?
Butch

My brother had them for three months. Several years ago. Worst service he had ever had.Constant failures no help from the home office.

I've had their satellite dish service for a few years and during heavy clouds, heavy rain, sometimes I cannot access, but for the most part, I don't have any complaints. costs around $100 a month for their faster service. I don't run out of data very often, but I did last month.

They are just as Billy said, we have them because out only other choice is a mobile Hotspot and cell phone service. Every time there is a cloud in the sky it slows to a crawl or stops and in the best of times they will barely move the speeedometer needles on my speed checker App. Service involves a half a day run around. If you have a y other reasonable choice go with it.

Run as fast as you can away from them. We have HughesNet because it is our only option. Data limits, latency delays, and slow speeds are constant headaches.

We have had them for about 5 years. Yes storms, snow, heavy rain are a pain. Our only option. No cell service.
Fairly good customer service.
They wanted us to go to Gen5 for $20 more a month, we said no, well stay at the $45 we are paying.

We had them; they were so bad; i paid for them to leave early! worse disaster ever. they contacted me again thru dish. told me how they had fixed everything. I said i'd let them install if i had 90 days to decide if i wanted to keep them! No Way; if we install, you pay for 2yrs. I told them, them must not think very much of there service. UScell is my high speed carrier and will do just about anything to keep us going strong!

Where I live the cell phone service is hit and miss, mostly miss if at all. The land line is old copper wire, no DSl, too far out for UVERSE . AT&T could care less, said that’s what you get for living in the boon docks. I worked for the power co. I said how would like it if we only gave you 87 volts to your house, you would be screaming like a stuck pig. I went with Hughes net some years back and not sorry at all, I upgraded to Gen 5 when it came out few months ago, I like it.
I might have a little slow down on a really heavy down pour but so does the direct tv, this winter we had over 100 inches of rain and I never had much problem. Now the snow can be a pain for both the internet and TV. Might put some heat strips on them. Never had any trouble with clouds. The customer Service has been very good, only needed it twice in years.
Here are the speed tests between Ma Bell and Hughes.

Thanks, that's quite a difference. How much does your plan cost?

Thanks for all the replies. The problems that were mentioned here reminded me of the reason I didn't sign up with HughesNet twenty years ago. I was hoping the HughesNet Gen5 had straightened out some of the kinks in its system.
Butch

The Gen 4 plan with 5 Gigs was $83.00 a month with 50 Gigs between 0200 and 0800 hrs. The Gen 5 upgrade was a promotional price for one year at $79.00 a month with 20 Gigs and the same off peak usages then back to some price, I don,t remember what but I guess I will know in 8 months.
Here was the Gen 4 speed. Still beats the crap out of Ma Bell.

My local power co. teamed up with "Wi-Power" ISP to provide a land-based-radio broadband service. MUCH better than satellite-based (no latency problems), variety of plans. Two major outages in five years. As someone else said, price you pay for living in the boondocks. But I don't think I could ever live in a city ever again.

Thanks. I wondered about the price.

What kind of latency problems? What is latency? My current ISP is a line-of-sight tower 7 miles away. No other providers can get their signal to us.

I have Excede by viasat (same as hughesnet- digg company).
It is expensive for relatively slow internet with data limits.

ONLY GET IT IF IT IS YOUR ONLY OPTION.

That said: it is way better than dialup and it is far faster than it was 3-5 years ago. I CAN stream stuff now.

they went under once, i had years back only choice and what a bad choice. they refused to come get there hardware which in writing it stated if not happy after 2yr they give dollars back and come get hardware. they never did so they started filing against anyone who had hardware. finally got them gone, they were at that time worked thru major phone companys. fog, snow rain weather it was joke.

Agree... I researched this last year when I was fixing up our house for retiring. Very rural area, satellite is only thing available. I went with Excede and really have no regrets. Little pricey, but works all the time, even in bad weather. If you go over your limit, it just slows down, doesn't cut off. My up and down speeds run about 1.9 Mbps.

I had Exede for over three years. It was a good ISP. Mine was fast for doing downloads but a bit slower just looking at webpages due to the inherent latency of having to go up to the bird and back down. But it was the best for the price at the time. I have no complaints outside of the data limits. They are launching a new bird that should be online later this year or next year. It just got dsl when it came available or I would still be with Exede.

Yep, that's good advice. When you live out in the country, you don't have many choices.
Butch

THIS IS SECOND HAND BUT IN MY AREA ALL I HEAR IS SLOW, POOR SERVICE, and very costly no one likes them so that says a lot.

Hughes was my first provider after dialup. Since then I have been through several suppliers. Currently with Dish (with sat. TV) and Exede. Running 2 rigs tells me what's going on when one's down, gives me an option to use the one that's up rather than do without, and I can get 2 low rate suppliers cheaper than one high rate.

Mark,
Are both of your supplied by satellite? Is weather ever a problem?

Yes. Thunderstorms block the signal when between your antenna and the satellite(s). That's the only thing. I'm told that my satellites uplinks are in Eastern Colorado. So thunderstorms there could be a problem there also. However that's a small percentage of your usage and as soon as they pass you are back on the air.

We once had Hughesnet and it was lousy...We now have had Exede for about 4 years and its good..

Don't they get $600 for the receiver and dish antenna? Seem to remember that. Or do they just roll it into the monthly cost?

I've had Tmobile off a cell tower for 5 years, $35 for 6gbs. 1mbps download, if I were 5 miles closer to the tower, it's 5mbps....$20 for the hotspot....

The offer I got in the mail said free installation for a limited time. It didn't say anything about the cost of equipment. A $600 charge would be a rude surprise.
Butch

I chose to buy my equipment from then and at the time it was $500 and the frequency was lower and the outside antenna was about 6'
across, not the hughe C band of earlier years, but large. You could pay a $10 monthly rental fee if you chose.

I used local suppliers with ground mounted equipment for awhile after Hughes, but trees started getting in the way on my end and theirs
so I quit using them. Nearest tx/rx unit was 3 miles distant mounted on a city water tower. Yes they were a lot cheaper but the reliability
was a real problem; not worth the reduced cost for me. Had the service tech who lived down the road. Sometimes it'd be 8'Clock at night
and I'd call him out to come and fix his stuff.

Satellite Internet service is transmitted from space in several beams, each area is isolated from the next one. So, the only way to find out how service performs in your area is to ask someone from your area, aside from issues dealing directly with the company. The satellites are ballpark around 25,000 miles away, with the speed of light, it takes time for the signal to go up and down, compared to very little time with ground based Internet. So when you click something, that click goes up, back down and then to the actual Internet, there's a noticeable delay due to the travel time, and it does cause some issues with certain uses, like gaming, secure websites like banks might be slower, VPN service/remote login/desktop stuff may work poorly, etc. They use technology to "hide" some of that delay by preloading some stuff/guessing what you are going to do. Also, VOIP/voice calls over Internet, there's a noticeable delay when you speak and hear someone on the other end. There is a monthly lease fee in addition to any price you typically see, also, they often advertise a promotional/temporary monthly price, sometimes only good for one year. The last lease fee I saw was $15 per month (don't quote me, didn't look it up lately). Hughesnet put up new satellites, performance now should be better. But, after it starts filling up, it WILL deteriorate, it does every time. I advise neighbors to wait until Viasat Exede is in service with their new one, possibly next year (less likely this fall).

There is no trial period at all, if you install it, you have a 24 month contract.

Viasat Exede has historically been the MUCH better company and product.

As others have said, typically it is a "last resort" connection, you want anything else even if slower. Unless what you have has serious issues.