I have been a Hughesnet customer since September 2009. I took over an existing account from my mother when I purchased her home. I have had nothing but trouble from Hughesnet ever since. They can't even get the name on the account changed from my mothers to mine. (I've been working on that for over a year.) Now they have implemented the Fair Access Policy on my service. It is funny how no one explained this to me when I took over the account and it's even more funny that it has only recently affected my service. I work from my home on occassion and I have a daughter and a daughter-in-law who use the internet for Online College Classes. Just in the last week, since December 19, 2009, my access has been questioned. I have had more internet time used prior to that than in the last week and have had the Fair Access slow my use every day since the 19th.

I was told by customer service that I could download free between the hours of 1am and 6am Central Standard Time. The problem with that is I get up for work at 5am. Funny how no one wants their customers to sleep. When I called Customer Service I was asked if I wanted to upgrade. Funny how all of a sudden they want MORE money. I don't have a choice in Internet Service since I live in a VERY remote area. Hughesnet is the ONLY service that is available here if you want any kind of speed. I pay my bill every month through their automated system and now they want more money.

I think its a shame that one company can take your full money and give only half service. We live in a time when jobs are scarce. They have targeted the working class and have penalized us for it. I get on the Internet about once per day and have not gotten to use it in the last 3 days except after 1am. I was told that the FAP is only in affect for a 24 hour period when it will reset on it's own. That is not the case today. We haven't been on all day until about 4pm when my daughter tried to do homework. Guess what? She couldn't get on. I suggest that Hughesnet re-evaluate their policy to make it work with their customers or they will lose them. I can always go back to dial-up.

I get consistent download speeds of 1.2 Mbs, although, with my plan, I should get closer to 1.6. HOWEVER, my upload speed is only 30kbps on a good day. I have been on the phone with the tech people several times. All they tell me is that it IS shared bandwidth and my speeds will fluctuate...it takes 15 minutes to email a hi res photo. This is after going through 3 levels of "tech support". The last and apparently highest level of tech support doesn't even take your call, they call you back, usually 4-5 days later.

After reading the complaints, and as a 2 year HughesNet customer, I am wondering why HughesNet outsourcers to a place that will not TRY to solve your customer service problems? I am baffled. I have so many issues over the last two years it would make your head spin. Take 90% of the problems listed here and multiply them from installation to the recent problem.
As my husband travels internationally, and as we are very rural, Internet is important, we use Skype and I also work from home. The first time there was a problem, I called and they said I wasn't allowed to talk to them because I wasn't on the account AND HUNG UP! Oh no you didn't! Yes they did. So on a three way call, I have my husband call and ADD MY NAME to the account...supposedly done. Next time there is a problem (I got FAP-ped and wanted to be released from it), and my husband is in the Turks and Caicos islands...I call and they say I AM NOT ON THE ACCOUNT. OK. So at the cost of about 29.00 I have my husband call Customer Service, TO ADD ME AGAIN, and yes, this is supposedly done. I am TOLD that the download time to avoid the FAP is midnight to three AM. So doing a blackberry download that is large I wait till 2 AM thinking this is a good time, and guess what? I get FAP-ped and cannot finish the download; it says it will finish in 6 days 22 hours. HA! Ok so again I make the call to Customer Service. NOW, understand one small detail, because we are so rural, I have to stand in the field to get cell reception, (no lie), this is why we use skype. So I am in the field, 10:00 at night trying to talk to India and they said that apparently because my husband didn’t talk to the billing department (no one told him to do this) he had only authorized me to talk to them that ONE TIME, he would have had to talk to the BILLING department to have me added so I could speak to them about the account. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? I lost it, over an hour on the cell in the freezing cold in the yard (I had no internet to use skype) and that's it. As my husband is now in Brazil, I cannot call or get a message to him, I am again, out of luck. So the next day I call sales, it seems my only recourse to avoid the FAP and no internet is to upgrade, yes I am giving more money to stop this from happening> Funny now, no problem to talk to me (EVEN IF I AM SUPPOSEDLY NOT ON THE ACCOUNT) if I want to give them more money, but since I don’t have internet and have to talk on the cell in the yard, I have to write down the steps to upgrade, and since I get such bad reception, I lose the call, they won’t call me back... Oh Heaven’s to Betsy this is unbelievable!!!

I have not had this much insanity with a company that I pay almost a hundred dollars a month to, our hard earned money to be hung up on, told I don't exist, and then the best, when I finally spoke with someone stateside, they dissed the India customer service and that really didn't help me AT ALL, I was the one who spent all this time just trying to get internet! I tried really hard, and kept asking if all this was being documented in the case file so a supervisor could understand my problem. They kept stating the policy, verbatim, no care or no thinking outside the box, nothing. I was out of luck. Please someone; come up with an alternative to rural dial up. Please someone start a company so we don't have to be pulled by the short hairs and settle with incompetent service, slow Internet and inflated prices.

Don't be fooled by the commercials advertising what a great deal Hughesnet is. They talk about download speeds but fail to mention that, if you actually use the 'fast' downloads, your service will be interrupted. Their FAP (Fair Access Policy) makes your connection unusable if you exceed their download allowance. I've tripped mine just by letting Windows try to update.

They have different levels for a different amount of high monthly billing amounts. The FAP will trigger if you use too much internet in a 24 hour period. It will make your internet useless until you go 24 hours without exceeding the limit. For $80 per month you only get 420 MB of usage. I had to upgrade, and pay more money, of course, from 300 MB to 420 just to get Windows updated.

They are so very nice these days, though. If you exceed your FAP limits, they will wipe the board and let you start over if you pay for the privilege. I think it is $10 or $11. The government is upset with banks making money on extra fees but, I wonder just how much Hughesnet will rake in with this latest scam. At least the phone companies that have limitations use the monthly billing period to decide to cut you off. 24 hour periods get tripped by virus or Windows updates.

If I had any choice, I'd pay the penalty for canceling Hughesnet in a heartbeat and toss their worthless modems in the trash with a smile.

HughesNet is the worst so called High-speed internet service on the planet. They charge exborbant amounts for promised download & upload speeds that they can not deliver on. The installer didn't even install our service correctly and lied to get an extra $100 by claiming he had to put the dish on a pole instead of on the house (turns out he was too lazy to figure out how to do the right way- especially since the way he did it got him some extra money). The installer took down my anitvirus software and firewalls and then failed to put them back up. As a result my computer was infected with viriuses in no time. HughesNet would not take responsibility - After a bunch of calls one lady said it wasn't the first time the installer forgot to do that. We were promised a month free service that we never got. I had to pay someone $100 bucks to fix my laptop and had to purchase another laptop that I could temporarily use and that could be backup. Every time I call tech support I get a bunch of bull crap and usually someone who doesn't even speak English. I found out there are several other companies posing as competition in our area for HughesNet. However, I have learned Hughsnet ownes and run them all. I get better service and better connection with Netzero. I am really disappointed in Hughesnet. I even filed a complaint with the BBB. After that someone called from Hughesnet promising to follow through - not calls, no follow-up nothing. It looks like I will have to cut my losses and terminate my service. I would NOT advise anyone to use HughesNet for anything.