We got Hughesnet satellite service in July 2007 and have had problems with it right from the beginning. As the months rolled by, being a year now that we have had the service - service has gotten even worst.

We have an HN7000S with hoem service and are suppose to get 1.0 mbps service. For that rate of speed you need to be online between 3am to 6am eastern time, after that it drops to 680 kbps and slower. The worst part of all that they don't tell you about is a think called "Fare access policy" - with the service I'm paying for, you are only allow to I download 285mb of data in a 24 hr period, if you download that much in one hr - you are cut off under 24hrs elapse.

I work from home and so does the wife sometimes and we download large file and get cut off after 2 or 3 hrs. Our boss has stopped allowing us to work from home. Hughesnet is a rip off service and the india tech support is useless. They can't fix anything.

If you don't have hughes net - stay away -- we are changing to Verizon WiFi it is better. I hope that takwe me to court for not paying the cancelation fee so I can have the media in the court room so everyone will know about this company.

On or around June 25, 2008 I called HughesNet Commications, and ordered service for my home. My wife and I are on a very tight and very limited income I'm on Social Security and we made an effort to set aside $69.00 for service and installation, and the lady that took my order did not tell me of the hundreds of dollars that it would cost.
So lo and behold (15) minutes after the installer left my credit card sent me a message that $509.41 had been debited from my account. I ordered the special they were advertising and it states that (0) down and we would be charged $79.00 dollars a month for a period of 24 months. And installation was free as long as the installer did not have to put a pole in the ground for the dish, which he did not have to. Anyway after (39) phone calls and (39) headaches since July 1, 2008 when the service began I was promised by representative's of the company and Supervisor's that this matter would be taken care of with the utmost urgency, so what began was an innocent act of trying to simplify matters of cutting the high cost of internet service and regular phone service and just have one bill. But when you have to go through the embarrassing process of being degraded and talked to like we were the one's at fault, well I hope to make a stand, with the folks out there that try to live on $945.00 a month then someone decides to kindly help themselves to your money, then there is something wrong with our system. Oh just remember when you make phone calls and the recording says this call may be monitored for quality assurance, and ask them to play it back for you we tried but when they reviewed my initial conversation and they felt like they were Justified in their decision to charge me all the charges, but refused to play it back or send me proof., So as they say lesson learned. One last thing if you decide to terminate your service they charge $ 300.00 dollars for early termination and $ 210.00 installation fee. Do the Math and remember do Business remember to have your lawyer on retainor.

We recently moved to a mountainous, rural area where satellite internet was our only way to get online. I signed up with Hughesnet. Unfortunately, problems began immediately. They charged me $199.99 for standard installation of the dish, but when their contractor came out to install, he said he had to do a special install. This costs me an additional $288. So for an hour's worth of work, I spent almost $500 to have my satellite dish installed. This is in addition to the 199.99 I paid for the equipment itself. Total was $688 to get started.

When I called Hughes, they told me these varied install prices were in the contract I agreed to. He said it was up to me to haggle with the installer on the extra charges. It was my fault for not getting a better deal. The next problem occurred when the next week Hughes downgraded the bandwidth threshold that I signed up for. They sent a form email saying that I would be charged the same amount, but that I could not download as much each day. It was a system wide change, but very discouraging that they were downgrading instead of upgrading.

When I called to complain that I was not getting the service I signed up for, they said it was all in the mandatory 2-year contract which I was still obligated to pay. They could change speeds and thresholds as they saw fit. I did get to speak to a sympathetic supervisor who credited me with one free month of service since I threatened to cancel and eat the loss of ending the contract prematurely.

In the end, I didn't have much choice but to remain a subscriber. If I wanted to be online in this rural area, I had to go with satellite internet. Hughes handcuffed me with a ridiculously longterm and expensive contract just to test them out. Now that I signed up and am unhappy, I either live with them or pay $300 (minus the $600 I paid to install) to end this poor service.

THERE IS NO DOWNLOAD MANAGER FOR MAC / ITUNES. And there are strict usage policies that will have you on almost constant suspension if you own a MAC and sign-up with HughesNet. I am a MAC user. I was told this would be no problem when I ordered. I was concerned about of being able to download large files and questioned the salesperson. I was told could get a download manager--no problem--and download large files between 3am and 6am.

There are no download managers for Itunes, which is how Macs download music and video files. I have called tech support many times. I am regularly on suspension, meaning no access to the internet for 24 hours. This has seriously hurt my business. The HughesNet phone computer keeps me on hold eternally, and hangs up on me regularly. They respond to support emails with useless rhetoric and form letters.

We've been customers with Hughesnet (formerly Direcway) since January 2002 and have been paying $59.99 a month up until January 2008, which is when we upgraded to their $79.99 "Pro Plus" Program. The benefit we looked forward to was having a MUCH faster internet connection (that is if it isn't raining, snowing, foggy or the wind is blowing the wrong way). NO ONE mentioned their "Fair Use Policy" where we can ONLY download 425MG (which is NOTHING--Hughesnet is living in the dark ages!)or they will turn that on and it slows your internet access to DIAL UP speed. You then have to set your alarm clock to wake up at 3am to download any size file you want (and they give you until 6am to finish) even if you are in violation of the Fair Use Policy. Now I can understand if they want to limit downloading of large files, but there is NO reason why our basic internet access that we use to surf slows down to dial up speed for 24 HOURS before they turn it back to normal. That is NOT fair!! What are we paying for!?!

Because we live in an isolated area that doesn't get cable or DSL, they have use held captive. We are moving and when we do, you can be sure that there is NOOO way we will use Hughesnet again!!

The other problem with Hughesnet is that they outsource their Customer Service in the late afternoon's and throughout the night overseas!! They are taking away American's jobs and paying the people in India (and other countries) a fraction of the cost it would be to pay an American. I've worked in the corporate World for many years and understand that outsourcing is a wonderful way to save money and add profit to the bottom line. What I don't understand is why they have to use people who can barely speak English, couldn't solve a problem for you if they had 10 people helping them and are flat out useless when you have a problem. If you happen to call during the day, then you'll get an American and I've never had problems with their knowledge or service, they are great.

People need to know what this company is doing (or should I say not doing) for their customers and it needs to change IMMEDIATELY!!