I signed with HughesNet in December of 2008, only because I needed the internet for school as I was taking online classes. It was the only provider out where I live. I found it and went to set it up. buying the satellite and modem was going to be $400, while renting was going to be $360, but I was told that when my contract was up, I would be able to sell the stuff back to them for $200. LIES. When I called to have it set up to have my contract canceled and the stuff sold back, I found out that you can only sell it back if you cancel your contract early. I was also not told about the $150 installation fee as the installer didn't want to put it on my house, but a pole beside my house. I have dogs, but he put it close enough to the house that i got the wire buried in the gravel surrounding my basement. I was told it would take 30 min to install and it took 2.5 hours, I had to call in to work because I was not leaving someone in my house alone. i paid $60 and was told I had a 200MB download limit, so this limits how much schoolwork I can do at home. LIES. I set up a tracker to see how much I can download a day with before it shuts off... 160MB with no other computers connected. The tracker included even the most minute things like how much it took for a website to load or how much gmail.com used while i was chatting and receiving emails. While i was in my 1 month period where i can back out, i had 800ms latency, which is bad for games, but i can deal with it. as soon as that 1 month period was over it went to 1200ms and then started to go up. by the end, my latency was 2500ms and I was told that it was because of the weather, router, ect. LIES. I did tests with just their modem on crystal-clear days and it was showing that within the HughesNet network, my latency was getting dampened. There were times that they would randomly shut off my services for no reason. I would do the basic stuff that I was able to do on my own, then had to call in. they took me through the same stuff that I already did and then, magically it worked. my tracker I used to test my latency showed me where it cut off and then it started backtracking to my system. Notice: NONE of the trackers or programs I used to test their crappy services are illegal nor are they against their terms of service (as one of the few Help Desk guys that knew what he was doing instead of reading from a script claimed them to be). When I called in, I never got case numbers, there was no information in there if i tried to reference a previous time I called unless I had to be transferred to a 2nd level tech. In the end, someone had taken a lot of my information out of their system, so when I called in to cancel my contract at the end, they couldn't find me. I ended up having to read a tiny number off the back of the modem for them to find my contract number which had never been given to me.

My husband and I signed on to Hughesnet in 2009. The installer came and set it up, all seemed well except we did not get the promised speeds that were advertised. A few months later the speed was abominable to say the least. When I called I found out about a Free Access Policy (FAP)...basically we could only download s500mb/day. I had no idea we had this restriction. Basically once you exceed this FAP you literally have no internet for 24 hours. Luckily we had our air cards but this was no consolation. The service we received was close to $100/mo...for speeds we rarely if ever experienced on top of a FAP restriction we had no idea existed. We were under the understanding if we cancelled early it cost us $400.00. Needless to say my friends, we continued to pay, unfortunately for inadequate service.
I called Hughesnet today to finally cancel and lo and behold, we learned it would cost almost $1000.00 - AND - we have to pay to have the equipment removed. This is lousy internet service and I would not recommend this service to anyone under any circumstances. There should be a class action law suit filed against Hughesnet for misrepresenting their product and overcharging for promised internet speeds that don't exist. Even when the service is working properly there is no way we ever experienced the speeds they were touting. Buyer Beware!

Yes, many complaints from other people than myself!!! I am on my last 5 months, then I cut the contract up for good.
If you plan on using this internet service, you best not use it for streaming videos, you tube, or even Hulu. I download some stuff and within a minute into the downloading the spead of transmitting went down to 15 KB/s which is slower than dial-up. That is no good for anything.
I wished I had complaintsboard for any product or services that might be considered as a purchase.

I am not a type for contracts, and am very disappointed in getting this internet provider. I would have better off paying to have a phone line brought down to my land! And got a dial-up service!!!

Hey besides Hughesnet, all other satellite internet has the "FAP" fair access policy, , , which hinders the amount of downloading. TRY YOUR BEST TO STAY WITH A DIAL-UP, , , and check about any accelulaters that the dial-up might have to speed up your service.

Bottom line...HughesNet.com INCORRECTLY debited my checking account for $334.34 for an early termination fee. They immediately found the problem and "fixed it", they said. Well, fixing it means they will refund my money in 30 days! I spent a half hour with a Hughes billing support agent (in the philippines). He said their standard operating procedure was to refund their mistakes in 30 days. After he put me on hold for a while and visiting with other support folks in his organization they were able to shorten it to 7 days. But that still does not seem like a reasonable time frame for them to "fix" the problem. Needless to say, I talked to two more support agents (who said they were each the last line of decision making there was) who both told me they could not and would not do anymore to help me get the money back into my checking account within a day or two. I asked for a contact number or person here in the United States who might be able to help with this situation and he flat out denied that there was anyone to talk to. These folks have no idea what customer support is. So as it stands now, I have to wait 7 days to receive a credit. Will that happen? Who knows?

Let me also say that they have a pretty sneaky way of keeping you on the hook for service if you decided to cancel within the 30 day trial period. I canceled the service within the first week because it just wasn't fast enough for me to work from home. My new Aircard is 2 to 3 times faster for almost half the price! In any case, when I called to cancel the service...and make no mistake, I clearly cancelled the account. The "termination department" support rep told me, since I have paid for my first month’s service already that I can continue to use it, but after that it will be cancelled. I said, that's fine, but I can't use it, it’s too slow. They also said I would receive an email that included instructions on how to return the modem and other things, otherwise I would be charged for those items. I asked when I would get the email, and they said just after the end of the month.

Just before the end of the month I decided to call Hughes Net to make sure things were cancelled, as I was concerned they had not sent me an email with the directions on what to return. I was surprised to hear that my account had NOT been cancelled, but was on a "pending cancellation" status. Parden my french, but what the hell does that mean? I cancelled the service right? “No Sir, you elected to continue the service to see if you really wanted to cancel”. By this time I was getting pretty upset. If I would have called a couple days later I would have missed my chance to cancel during their 30 day trial and would have been subject to an early termination fee!

And all this leads me here today, finding they debited my checking account for the earlier cancellation fee of $334.34!

I understand things happen and people make mistakes, etc. But all I'm asking for is a reasonable turnaround time in getting my money. Is that too much to ask for?

And Hughes Net, I would recommend when a customer says they would like to cancel their service, you cancel their service and not play games. That’s bad business!

HughesNet.com advertises "Unlimited Internet Access" but severely limits your access time with their "Fair Access Policy" (FAP).
HughesNet restricts your on-line time so severe it does not allow enough online time for security updates without penalties.
HughesNet locks you into a two year contract for a useless service. Extremely deceptive company.
I believe the US Federal Government should investigate HughesNet.com practices to protect future customer rip-off.