I signed up with hughes net for their service in May and terminated with them on August 26. They require you to sign a commitment for using their service for 18 months which of course most people do not object to since you know you like many new customers expect that you will not ever be going back to dial-up. At no time during my conversations with Hughes net reps prior to my sign-up on the phone or conversations with their installer was I informed of any sort of limit on the amount of data, audio, video etc (i.E. 200MB) I could download.
All of their promotional material available on the web painted a glowing picture of high speed internet access with no mention of limitations to either downloads or actual time spent surfing, which by the way also counts up as part of a 200 MB download "threshold" they did not tell me about. They of course use a friendlier word like "threshold" to throw a little more smoke on this issue so it isn't perfectly clear to many users that what they really mean is "limit" the scary word, which if most potential customers knew about at the outset it is very unlikely they would not sign up for this lame service.
This is obviously the reason why they take great care in making it very unlikely that new customers will find this critical information out until it's too late to change your mind.in a recent check on the net I had to scroll through 5 different pages before I finally came upon the information, which was located on a page that provided info regarding a summary of their various plans. Even when you get to this page is still is not made clear exactly what the term "download threshold" means in reference to another term they use to confuse their customers called "fair access policy".
There is an explanation in the fine print notes below the plan outline that still does not clearly state how this will affect your level of service, which states..."Download Threshold is the volume of data that can be downloaded continuously before the Fair Access Policy may restrict the download speed"... Does any of this sound clear as to what it actually means? The answer of course is NO, but what it really means is... (according to what I was told by some individual in India) that if you download the equivalent of 200 MB of any type of data which includes any text, graphics for pages, MP3 files or other audio files, and especially video files which abound on Youtube.com and other sites on the internet within any indeterminate 24 hour period they shut down your service speed to less than dial-up without telling you.
Yes, that's right, without telling you. And they will not restore your paid for level of service until another 24 hour period has elapsed.in addition to this when I asked when their so-called 24 hour period of download limitation begins and ends that applies to me as a customer they did not have an answer. Does anyone think maybe this is fraud?
Prior to realizing the actual reason why my paid for service dribbled down to almost zero speed I had to spend many frustrating hours talking to countless individuals in India (most of whom were speaking barely intelligible English) who were running me around in circles supposedly trouble shooting a problem that they themselves created, but would not reveal to me the truth until I became insistent.
I didn't find any of this out until after I had used the service for more than 3 months, and evidently downloaded one to many video clips from YouTube. So naturally I could not get a refund under their 30 day policy and cancel my service. They have it all figured out how to screw their customers.
Internet service that severely limits downloads to 200 MB is literally useless for use on todays internet with the availability of video and audio selections, the main reason why most people want high speed access to begin with. I'm sure if most people knew about these restrictions before they signed up sleezy outfits like HughesNet would be out of business.
If you are thinking about changing your ISP to satellite service you better think again before using HughesNET the ripoff kings of the industry.
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