HughesNet Satellite Internet,One Of The Worst Decisions I've Made Lately

June 11, 2020

[Yosemitest]

HughesNet Satellite Internet was sold to me as 10 times faster than DSL service.
Well ... that's not what I've experienced in the last month since I switched from DSL to Satellite Internet.
I tried to watch a HBO movie and it took me three days to finally get the it, and then only in the early morning hours.
HughesNet Satellite Service's excuse ... "With so many people at home due to the Covid-19 situation, our system is overloaded."

I signed up for a two year contract with both internet and phone service, and in less than a month I've already asked what it would cost to terminate my service.
$620.00 is the quote that I was given to get out of my contract, and my monthly bill is roughly $110.0 a month.
When you try to communicate with HughesNet Customer Service, on average I had to wait over one hour to get a live person.

Bottom line ... AVOID HUGHESNET SATELLITE SERVICE AT ALL COST !
It's horrible.

[Laslo Fripp]

Thanks for the ROKU links. I’ll check it out.

You are very perceptive about old and computer illiterate people living in our house. LOL 😂

[Wildbill22]

I live far enough out in the middle of nowhere (thank God) that I had to put up with satellite internet for 15 years or so. I also hated it.

I particularly hated how if you used the equivalent of a half hour of Youtube videos, you would have used up your “high speed” for the month, and you had the equivalent of dial up speed. We called it “punishment mode”.

Now I have a radio antenna (microwave?) that is bounced off my neighbors antenna, and down a valley to the server, and speed and quantity is excellent at literally half the cost of satellite. Multiple movies can be watched at the same time. Some day a fiber optic cable will come out here hopefully but I can live with this for now.

[metmom]

We’ve never been inclined towards satellite.

But thanks for the warning. I will pass it on to anyone who is consid it.

[metmom]

I buy the movies that I want to watch on DVD.

It’s cheaper and I own the hard copy. It won’t be pulled or adulterated into PC oblivion and I can watch it any time I please.

[Yosemitest]

"a radio antenna (microwave?) "

I'll have to check into that, but I don't think that's available where I live.

[SanchoP]

If you have decent cell phone service use it as a WiFi hotspot. Hughes Net is a scam.

[KevinB]

Sorry for your bad experience, but twenty minutes of research before you signed up would have led you to the conclusion that Hughes is awful. Nobody who has it is happy with it.

[KevinB]

It sounds like you would be relying on a cellular signal for Internet. Streaming through ROKU would eat up even the best cell phone company data plan in a couple of days. There are some third parties that claim to provide unlimited data through cell company networks, especially AT&T’s network, but the cell companies are starting to crack down on those.

[Tennessee Conservative]

We’ve had it since it became available. It’s better than dial-up and really better than nothing when you live so far back in the sticks that it’s all you can get. DSL is at least two years away for us if ever. Not enough people in my area to make it worth bringing it out here. With all the hills around me cell phones don’t even work a lot of the time.

[SmokingJoe]

Hughes Net will not be in business too long after Elon Musk’s Starlink comes on stream later this year.

[deadrock]

If you can afford it, I recommend trying a new ISP for a month before canceling your current ISP.

That would mean you would have two Internet connections for a month for the family to test.

For me, that was just over $100 a month in extra cost for the month.

In these difficult times, I can understand if you tell me to 'sod off,' I can't afford that experiment.

[LegendHasIt]

I had it for about ten years, the older technology, (Gen 2, basically) and was generally happy with it.

Until about 7 months ago when my equipment began to fail (although I think their technicians were also sabotaging my connection too). Some days it worked like normal, some days my connection was down for half a day, and sometimes I was down for a day or two.

I struggled along for two months like that, and finally the equipment failed completely, and their tech people refused to commission a new modem.

So, I canceled my service .... Or tried.... They refused to close my account. After two months of billing after the failure I filed a complaint with my credit card carrier, and they did quit paying them and refunded me one month’s payment. They are still demanding payment for the last 6 months I’ve contacted them thirty times via telephone, email, snail mail, their website forum, and online chat, and they still won’t close my account.

[Joe Boucher]

I just paid $400.00 to drop Hugh’s.net
Within ten minutes of getting it I knew Id made a mistake as the service ALWAYS stopped then started then stoped and that would go on regardless of what I’d try to watch.
Real crap service they are.

[Yosemitest]

"Hughes Net is a scam."

I found that out ... a month too late.

[Yosemitest]

Read comment #5. because my choices are limit4ed due to location.
But I appreciate the advice.
I guess I could change banking accounts and close out the account that my direct pay to HughesNet is coming from and change internet providers and phone,
but it'd take a month or more, and would probably be a bad mark on my credit report to leave Hughes Net and not pay their ridiculous termination fee.

[Yosemitest]

I started to feel like it was crap about 5 days into it, but I thought that maybe it was an overload of use due to the virus lockdown.
But after trying to watch a few videos on youtube, and on theBlazeTV and after having problems trying to live stream iHeart-radio programs, I knew that I'd been had, and signed on to a 2-year nightmare.

[gattaca]

Thanks for the warning. My mom lives in the country and has CenturyLink. She was thinking of switching to HughesNet.

[trebb]

I had them when I was "in the boondocks" and had no other viable solution...highest offered speed was 25mbs and data bucket was small enough that streaming TV was out of the question - for about $140/month.

Currently with ATT and have a 50mbs unlimited service for about $90 a month...never had any trouble with it....which actually surprises me.

I guess your plight is one of the reasons so many here 'poll" FReepers before making some decisions.

[Donnafrflorida]

Welcome to the club. I moved in January. No phone support during pandemic. Trying to work from home is a nightmare. 168 a month.

[Yosemitest]

That's why I posted this thread, to warn others not to make the same mistake that I made.

I imagine that I'll be going back to AT&T DSL but maybe with a data line only for high speed internet, and then use "Magic Jack" for phone service.
Here's an old article about it. - MagicJack: Everything you need to know By Kris Wouk, December 19, 2019