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General discussion

What is up with Hughesnet?!

Apr 24, 2007 2:59AM PDT

I have Hughesnet "high speed" satellite internet (because it is the only provider available in my area). I previously had the Home plan, which had a bandwidth limit of 175 MB every 4 hours (1050 MB per day). I recently upgraded to the "pro" plan in order to increase the limit to 350 per 4 hour period (2100 MB per day).

It worked fine for a little while and then there was suddenly a drastic drop in performance last week. The connection rapidly slowed to a hault. I'd been keeping my downloads and uploads well within the limits so I couldn't figure out what was happening.

I checked their website and stumbled upon this new notice: http://customercare.myhughesnet.com/fap_announce.htm

While they claim to have "increased" their limits by 25MB on the lower-teered plans, there is an important qualification--these limits now apply to 24-hour periods (rather than 4-hour periods). In other words, it appears their bandwidth has actually dropped to 1/6 the previous limits. I called their customer support (which appears to be in india), and they confirmed the change in service. To make matters worse, apparently if you attempt to use your service once it has been cut off, or reach the threshold again the following day, they cut the service off for periods even longer than 24 hours.

Am I missing something here? Is this even legal? Service contracts are required with Hughesnet. Is anyone else having a problem?

I've tried working through their customer service, but like most companies these days, they are completely detached, unable to negotiate, and simply go down a pre-written checksheet of questions to ask the customer, which have nothing to do with the issue at hand.

Discussion is locked

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new FAP
May 4, 2007 11:16AM PDT

Yes I had an issue with the new Fair Access Policy and the increase from 175 mb to 200mb limit,AND the decrease of recovery time and speed. Not at all happy with the new policy, so I quit Hughesnet and went to a wireless service with no FAP to deal with. I started with Direcway (now Hughesnet) 3 yrs ago and DL avg. speeds have been decreasing each year and the price has not changes to reflect the drop in speeds. With the wireless service I pay for the speed I want, with a support if the speeds drop below minimum posted speeds.

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Still frustrated with Hughsnet/Directway
May 4, 2007 11:36AM PDT

It sure is frustrating after paying so much to upgrade and then to find out my "upgrade" is in fact now 1/3 what it was before the upgrade. We had to purchase all new equipment from them even to make the upgrade. On top of paying so much, I still have to drive into the city several times a week to an internet cafe to take care of online matters, because my bandwidth is so frequently maxed out.