My experience is basically the same as the others. Two years of extremely erratic but mostly slow speeds. The last straw was when my husband was home alone one night and went nuts downloading photography instructional videos (apparently very large files).
The next morning when I tried to do my banking - 0.0 kilobytes per second!!! I have about a dozen calls into tech support over the last two years. Twice someone has come out and made an adjustment or replacement on our antenna, but mostly just the same old excuse. It's a peak time problem.
Finally, after two years, I heard 'Fair Access Policy' for the first time. You see, you are only allowed to download a certain amount of data before you exceed the allowance on whatever plan you purchased. After that, they don't turn you off, they crank your speed way down, so it looks like a fluke, or makes you want to upgrade to next more expensive package.
Anyway, I pitched a fit and got an upgrade to a updated modem for free and no re-up because of all the problems I have had. They told me it would take two weeks to ship the modem. I asked could I just upgrade to the highest plan available on my current modem while waiting. They said fine, and sent me back to billing to register. But guess what - the registration wouldn't take.
It took fours hours and two tech calls to advanced support to find out that the upgrade wasn't even going to work because I no longer had an internet connection on my old modem. Apparently, sales had already moved me and my old connection was no longer good. I went from slow to no internet connection at all. This in the middle of filing my taxes!!!
Tech support told me the only way to get service back while I was waiting to get the new modem was to call billing and open a second account on my old 'Used' equipment. - But — I would have to change my email address!!!
It's like tech support, sales and billing all go away on a retreat once a month and brainstorm how to provide the worst possible customer service on the planet. This can't be an accident.
Fortunately for us, we now have a couple of other tower-based broadband providers in the area. My neighbors tell me it is a lot faster than satellite and somewhat slower than DSL. And, they don't even have a Fair Access Policy.
My advice, don't go Hughes.net if you have any alternative. If you don't have an alternative, be sure to schedule all your automatic updates for the wide open window (I think 1:00am - 3:00am PST) or you'll exceed your FAP and if you have teenagers that use file sharing programs like Limewire, have them get in and get out. Those kinds of things eat up your FAP allowance, then you won't be able to get your banking done the next day - at all.
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