I have been a customer of Hughes Network Systems (HNS), formerly Direcway, for over 4 years. Living in a rural area with no DSL or cable access, a satellite system was (and still is), the only viable option over traditional phone line dial-up services. I originally paid over $500 for the initial satellite equipment and have paid a monthly fee for this service. I was also required to sign a commitment contract in the beginning, which I have since completed, but was continuing service on a monthly basis.
Since 8/11/07, my service has seriously degraded. No email via Outlook Express, no Mozilla Firefox access, sporadic IE (Internet Explorer) browsing at best, no secure site access. After at least 6 totally frustrating phone calls to customer service since 8/11, amounting to hours of talking to thick accented foreigners, jumping through hoops and turning my PC inside out, they finally told me that they are experiencing "technical problems" on their end, and their technicians were working on the problem.
When I asked for credit for time lost, but they told me they would not do it until the "problem" was resolved. Meanwhile, they continued to bill my credit card on file. Yesterday, 8/26/07, by accident, I discovered that HNS Customer Service was not telling me the truth. I visited a site called HughesNet Uncensored (via my new s-l-o-w dial-up ISP), a website dedicated to satellite users that I joined years ago, particularly HughesNet customers, which has help pages and forums to answer questions that users have, that are not readily available anywhere else—including the HughesNet site.in the forums, I found many HNS customers/users with older Dw3000 and Dw4000 modems were experiencing the exact same problems, and at the exact same time.
It seems my system Dw4000, as well as the Dw3000, which used to work just fine, are now obsolete by HNS standards. HNS, without telling their customers and users of these modems, are simply not going to update them to be compatible with their systems anymore, and in order to regain the internet service I was accustomed to, I must now upgrade to a Dn7000 system, but at a price.
My choices were $125 with no contract, or *free (with possible shipping) and a 15 month contract. AND, the access throughput (uplink and downlink speeds) are LESS than what I used to get, unless I upgrade my service package for (you guessed it), MORE MONEY! Isn't extortion and consumer fraud illegal? Now I know why the customer service techs failed to mention important facts. It seems some users are getting better deals, depending on who they have talked to at HNS. Shouldn't someone have told me that I was being denied access unless I upgrade? I never agreed to this when I started my DW4000 service. Does HNS have an obligation to continue my service by whatever means necessary since I had, and continued to meet, my obligation to them? Without being forced to pay extra?
Besides being lied to for the past 2 weeks, I wasted hours of my time dealing with this company. As of 8/26/07, I was paying for service I was never going to get, unless I updated (which I had not discovered yet). I had already completed my original commitment years ago and I did not want to extend it. I told them that I refused to be extorted, to cancel my service (terminated 8/26/07) and that I was reporting them to my state attorney generals office, the FTC, FCC, and the BBB.
Then a lawyer. The only way I was able to stop the billing of my credit card was to cancel my service. Can they legally do this to me and all the other HughesNet customers out there who still are not aware of the true reason of their internet access problems? Can your cell phone provider simply cancel out the signal on your older cell phone in order to sell you a newer one or commit to another contract? Now I have HNS equipment that cannot be used and a painfully slow dial-up system, because of my refusal to be extorted into "upgrade or else".
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