Report: Hughes.net
Category: Internet Service Providers
Hughes.net (formerly DirecWay) Fair Access Policy + Price Increase = Unhappy Customer Germantown Maryland
*Consumer Comment ..Mainly for Lori
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Hughes.net
Fax:
Germantown, Maryland, Maryland, 20876
U.S.A.
Submitted: 4/7/2007 4:38:04 AM
Modified: 4/12/2008 11:52:40 AM
Clay
Pollocksville, North CarolinaWhen my DirecWay DW7000 was installed (two years ago) I was not informed that there was a limit to how much I could download. Why? Because there was no limit! (Not to my knowledge anyway) 5 years ago when I had the old one-way system, there was no limit.
Now, without saying a thing (no email, snail mail or phone call) I have a cap on how much I can download. This gives me about 2-3 hours of streaming video per day. After that, I'm 'throttled down' to speeds slower than dial-up.
The real kicker is that the Hughes company is slow to give you this information, opting to instruct their 'service personel' (guys in India) to get you to check your system for problems first. (My system has never had a breakdown...knock knock)
I finally got a tech guy (in India) to tell me about this FAP cap that had been implemented. He said, 'Just wait a few hours, your speed will come back'. The Hughes website (I found) says this, too. But, they LIE!
Once I reach my limit, it takes a full day (24 hours) to get my 'high speed' back. Until then, I'm screwed. Just think if they did this with DirecTV. That would mean you could only watch TV for 3 hours per day! I wonder how many people would cancel DirecTV if they did that?
On top of this, my bill went up $10 per month after Hughesnet took over. I wasn't even informed of the price increase! (I get no bill in the mail or email) Isn't this illegal?
Then, after searching the internet, I find out that the reason the FAP was inacted was because some people were selling their neighbors internet service. So, because other people are breaking the rules/law, my service has to suffer.
Also, if the Hughes system is 'bogging down' because of so many users, there should be a 'limit' on how many subscribers they can have....but that is definitly NOT the case! I've also heard that they don't offer this info about the FAP when you order your system. Scandalous!
This company is getting away with it! It will eventually come back to bite them in the @55! I plan on going back to dialup soon as I'm not paying $70 a month if I can't use it freely without worry of reaching my limit.
Plain & simple, these guys are just as big of a criminal as the people that are selling (sub-letting) their service to the guy next door. Had I known about these changes in my service, I would have never ordered it.
With the increase in streaming video on the internet, the demand on bandwidth will undoubtedly become more of a problem. So, this situation will only get worse. Until Hughesnet expands their system, they will lose their customers. I'm just another number to them. So are you!
Clay
Pollocksville, North Carolina
U.S.A.
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Updates & Rebuttals:
- My sister is looking into this service Lori [4/7/2007 5:39:46 AM]
- HughesNet Download Limit Kevin [4/7/2007 9:14:30 AM]
- Time To Switch G [4/7/2007 11:37:58 AM]
- Great thought Lori [4/7/2007 1:30:23 PM]
- Alternatives to HughesNet Kevin [4/7/2007 8:47:02 PM]
- Good Idea Lori [4/8/2007 7:03:25 AM]
- downloading Mike [4/30/2007 6:26:46 PM]
- Limit FAP time by limiting what you see on your web pages John L. [11/1/2007 1:31:34 PM]
- Mainly for Lori Mallen [4/12/2008 9:20:36 AM]
My sister is looking into this service
So I'd really appreciate some more information. Do they throttle your signal if you're simply surfing, or are you talking about actively downloading content from the web? Does this happen when you are interacting with websites? My sister has 6 children, three of whom would be using the net in addition to herself, so any information you can provide would be greatly appreciated!!
HughesNet Download Limit
I was told by HughesNet customer support that the limit was 175MegaBytes of download per day. This is because they are on a shared bandwidth system. I have not seen this information on any of their paperwork and only found out after calling customer support about 30 times and I had one day that I had 200Mb of download so they thought that was why it was so slow that day.
Time To Switch
Guess it is time to switch from satellite internet to Cable Broadband Internet. I've had Direct TV for 7+ years and Love it , cable too Expensive for TV, BUT I get my Internet From Comcast Cable -Broadband Internet , No Download Limits, Basic Package up to 6 MBPS Download Speed AND ONLY PAY $46.00 A Month I dont want DSL either cause even best package for DSL is Slower than Broadband Cable. I have had broadband even longer than Direct TV & wont switch from either one. Just My 2 Cents !!!
Great thought
Unfortunately, there is no cable OR dsl service available to my sister. She has 2 choices, dialup (painful) and satelite. I have broadband, and honestly, I wouldn't trade it for the world. We also have cable, in this area it's far more cost effective and reliable. For my sister, her choices are very limited. Tried to sign her up for dsl last month, only to be told that she could get the long distance service, but would have to wait to see if she was 'chosen' by the company to receive dsl. HUH? They get to choose who pays them money for a service? How nice. Thats the reason we're currently looking into the satelite. Are we limited to Hughes, or is there competition out there????
Alternatives to HughesNet
There are alternatives to satellite and after finding out the hard way, I'd rather do anything (including dial-up) than pay a fortune for satellite internet. Call all the internet providers in the area (even broadband) and they will tell you if there are any other alternatives. You may be able to go with microwave internet if there are any towers near her home. Microwave is faster, more reliable and much cheaper to install but the monthly fees are usually higher than satellite. In my opinion, the best alternative to satellite is the phone cards you plug into your pc. Verizon has an Air Card and Sprint has one too. The great thing about it is there is no installation at all. You just need to get decent cell phone service and plug the card into your pc. It's super fast and you can use it anywhere you get cell service. It's only $59/mo if you use the same cell service or $79 if you don't. The only drawback is that if you want to use more than one pc at a time you have to buy extra cards. Although, the Sprint model has a wireless hub that you can buy to run several pc's at once.
Good Idea
Never thought of that, Thank You! I've seen commercials, but never made the connection to a home PC. I'll be researching this one today.
Again, Thanks!!
downloading
Lori,
I can see you have some misunderstandings about what 'downloading' is with hughesnet.
It is not JUST downloading pictures, videos, or pdf's to SAVE to your computer. Just visiting webpages counts as downloading. Just 'watching' an internet video or 'listening' to interent radio really racks up the megabites downloaded. You don't have to save them to your computer for them to count against you.
As a matter of fact just the satalites communication with the dish by being online uses up a tiny bit of your available megabites.
Then when you hit the max the system becomes about 80% useless.
The new FAP disclosure was VERY misleading. They proudly announced the FAP was being changed to 200 megs. Before it was 175 megs. BUT you have to click on their link to get the full story. It used to be 175 megs that restarted after 4 hours. now you get 200 megs but it restarts after 24 hours.
If ANYTHING else is available, use it instead of hughesnet.
Limit FAP time by limiting what you see on your web pages
I am not a consumer of HughesNet, but am victim to its restrictions as I am currently residing in a household that subscribes to HughesNet and understand the frustration you all are dealing with. I was surprised at how just simply surfing the internet for a few hours, checking mail, and watching an occasional 2-3 minute video on YouTube can enact this preposturous 'Fair Access Policy'. One solution that will not circumvent the FAP, but may allow you to use the internet at higher speeds longer is to disable your web browser from downloading all those little pictures and gifs that appear on almost all web pages (such as ad pics, the little sunshine gif next to your weather report, etc.). You can also turn off any animation that plays on a web page (yahoo likes to do this on their home page) and also sound can be disabled. To do this, simply click on Tools on your browser and select Internet Options.
From there, click on the Advanced Tab and scroll down till you see the Multimedia section. Uncheck the boxes next to Enable automatic image resizing, Play animation on web pages, play sounds in web pages, show pictures, and smart image dithering. (These steps are for windows XP, but I believe earlier versions are similar.)
If you're trying to find out who coached the Trailblazers in 1994 or what anti De Sitter space means, need a good hummus recipe or what not and don't need pictures in your quest for information, this is not a bad way to surf the internet and decreases the amount of data you download through HughesNet servers, thus reducing the tendency toward engaging the FAP. (It's also faster!) But if you're a photo intensive surfer, file sharing or need to watch video, this recommendation won't do you any good. Follow the other people's recommendations: DROP HUGHESNET AND NEVER LOOK BACK!!
Mainly for Lori
I've had HughesNet for about 4 months now and while the FAP can be a pain, not to mention the $70 a month i pay for their 1 Meg service, I'm very satisfied with it.
I'm pretty much in the same boat as your sister. Charter stops 1/2 mile down the road and won't run it to me and AT&T has no foreseeable plans to give me DSL.
I tried using Alltel's service but since broadband cellular is not available in Benzie County, i had disastrous results, oftentimes slower than dial-up.
On the subject of the FAP, I was well aware of it BEFORE i signed up. I can't claim that the info was available to everyone who signed up before that, but it was available at HughesNet's website when i joined.
The download threshhold varies from plan to plan. I have their mid level plan and the download threshhold is 375 MB. If i hit that in 24 hours, I'm shut down to anywhere from 1 kbps to 20 kbps for the next 24 hours.
Anytime you go to a website, a small amount of data is downloaded. If, while at that website, you go to another page, a small amount of data is downloaded.
You could surf the web all day long and never even come close to the threshhold.
If your sister downloads music, assuming the usual song file is 3500 kb, you could download 100 songs in a day and still not hit your threshhold, although if you're doing alot of web surfing you'd want to throttle down the amount of songs somewhat.
The ONLY time i've been throttled down was while downloading movies. Anything else is extremely minor. I watch all the youtube videos i want. Even my live stat tracker for my fantasy sports teams is so minimal it doesn't hurt me at all
Something that some people don't realize is that from 3 AM to 6 AM is go crazy time. There are no threshhold requirements during that time. It's a pain, but when i'm downloading movies, i'll start a download, pause it, get up at 3 AM (like i said, it's a pain, but doable), resume the download and pause it again at 6 AM.
If your sister is set up to receive automatic downloads from Windows or her anti-virus and such, she could set it up so her automatic downloads start during that time
At 375 MB, i can't see how anyone would EVER break the download threshhold unless they're downloading movies.
When your sister signs up, if she does, she can monitor her status at HughesNet's website. They tell you exactly how many MB's you've downloaded for each indivdual hour.
The speed does throttle down during peak times due to shared bandwidth, but it's not too bad. I usually connect anywhere from 350 to 650 kbps during peak times.
Being a northern Michigan roofer, i had alot of time off this winter. During that time i spent hours and hours online, talking on the sports boards i'm a member of, constantly working on my yahoo fantasy team, checking player news at rotoworld....I'd browse the web sometimes for 8 hours straight and never had a problem other than downloading movies. Once i got used to how the threshhold works, I learned to adapt my movie downloading.
Sorry for the long winded post but alot of the messages i read in this thread were pretty misleading as far as I'm concerned. Your sister should definitely explore all options before going with HughesNet, but if the other options fail, then HughesNet is definitely the way to go over dial-up
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