I live in rural Nevada where the only way to receive broad band internet service is via satellite. I received an offer for a so-called gamers package of high speed internet from AT&T in partnership with Wildblue for $79.99 a month with a 15 month contract. For the first month it was OK, it wasn't what was advertised but it was livable with an average latency of 600ms. After that first month everything went straight into the toilet. My average speed was 23kbs with a latency of 3200ms. Dozens of calls to wildblue's tech support and customer service resolved nothing. They tried to blame my equipment and then attempted to sell me new equipment but after running some diagnostics and doing a ping test it was reviled that wildblue had purposely reduced my speeds. I contacted them and after threatening them with a law suit they said they would restore my speeds as a one time courtesy. I then ran another diagnostic and ping test to find they had only increased my speeds to a 300kbs and latency was only reduced to 1700ms. A far cry from the 1000kbs and 600ms lag i had in my first month. They also introduced a FAP (fair access policy) which was not in my original contract. Basically, if you download a movie from netflicks or you tube or watch the news on your computer you will exceed the FAP and wildblue will decrease your speeds to unusable levels and keep it that way for 30 days while still charging you the full monthly fee. I've done some checking and found that only a few companies have a FAP (most do not) and the ones that do like Hughes net satellite only reduce your speeds for 24 hours (I believe this is because it would be illegal to reduce them for any longer) The town i live in is now in the process of constructing a tower to provide an alternative to broadband via satellite and as soon as its completed i will drop this company. As for all the lost time and all the lost money i spent with wildblue, i don't know if i'll ever be able to recover any of it. I believe their practices to be blatantly illegal and would encourage anyone to avoid them if at all possible.
0 comments