I've had it with HughesNet!!! Need Advice

[EddieWalker]

When I moved out to my land, I did some online searches and decided to go with DirecWay Sattelite for my interenet connection.

That was about 4 years ago, and since then, I've had five seperate technicians out here to fix my system, I've had everything replaced from the cables to the dish and modem replaced at least once, and some parts replaced several times. When it works, it's OK at best. Uploads are always slow, but downloads on a good day are pretty fast. If it rains, the signal is likely to be lost depending on how heavy the rain is. We've lost the signal due to the frost on the dish on cold mornings and have even lost it on cloudy days.

Most of the time, it's just annoying and frustrating. Last year, after HughesNet took over DirecWay, they came out with a new modem. The HN7000S, which we received. Since then, it seems like the problems are even worse. It's more likely to lose it's signal on the lightest of rains and cloudy days.

In April, it got so bad that I had to have a technician out here again. Cost for that was $125. He was here three times becuase the problem was my dish wasn't working anymore. The two he carried with him didn't work either. So after a week of being offline, he came out and got it working again with a full 90 day warrenty.

It's almost 120 days since then, and it's not working again. Or I should say, this morning, it's 80 degrees outside, clear skies and I haven't had a signal for the last two hours. I have one now, but it's not something I can rely on. The customer support said that my dish and modem are not reading each other and that I need a technician out here again for another $125.

To say I'm unhappy wouldn't begin to cover it.

I'm paying $60 a month for lousy service and have hundreds of dollars into this worthless equipment and service calls. The technolody isn't getting better, it's actually been worse over the last year.

I have a phone line and might just go back to dial up. I hate the idea of it, but I hate throwing away money on something that doesn't work even more.

There are several threads on cell phone internet connections that I'm curious about. Who has this, where did you get it, and would you recomend them? I'll change cell providers for my phone if that helps to.

Please help!!!!!!!!

Eddie

 

[charlz]

I have a local 'wireless' internet provider... they have a network of antennas around the area and I have an antenna on the side of my house. What shows up in your phone book under 'internet service' or whatever? Maybe there is something similar in your area.

 

[davitk]

Sorry to hear about your HughesNet problems, Eddie. My brother installed his about a year ago, bought the premium package (lots more $$ than 60/mo) and has problems too.

I went with Sprint last December, I love the portability but connections can be spotty at times. Good Luck!!

EVDO info, EV-DO Coverage, Tips, News, Reviews, Verizon, Sprint : EVDOinfo.com

 

[Harley7139]

I have HughesNet hooked up to a wireless router for the laptop and wired to my desktop. Only in severe thunderstorms or when to much snow gets on the dish do we loose service. That's only for a few minutes, after I clean off the dish it comes right back on. I can take the laptop anywhere on my 2 acres and it's just as good as sitting on the kitchen table. Never had any major problems.

 

[IndyChris]

I had a similar experience with WildBlue (another sat based system). Not so much problems with the weather, just extremely spotty service. Re-boots of the router, long waits on the phone etc... I finally gave up after the contract expired and ditched the service (if you could call it that).


Since then, my Sprint card has been a dream come true! I get great download speeds, even on a fringe area. I also have my home security cameras accessable via the web, and it works great. Highly recomended if you are in the "zone"

Best of luck, I feel your pain!!

 

[MikeInEburg]

Many of the cellular-based vendors will let you try the card for some amount of time (30 days +/-). I'd give that a shot. Many folks have had similar experience with satellite - but in some locations, they're the "only game in town"
Mike

 

[Mike120]

Eddie,

I had intermittent problems with Hughes until I upgraded to the 7000. Since then, it's been pretty good. I suspect your problem is with the local tech. We're serviced out of Houston and I got the details on the company. When the service tech couldn't solve the problems, I called the company directly and got the owner/manager. Once they got it fixed (with a tech who knew what he was doing) it's been OK ever since and I sure didn't pay for every call. I expect that the company servicing you covers a lot of East Texas, but you can get the name/phone number from the tech. Unless you are serviced by a little local company, they'll have other service techs.

I've got 3 computers on my network. I'm too lazy to pull fiber over to the barn and I don't like wireless for that distance, so we use a laptop with an ATT wireless card over there. It's painfully slow compared to Hughesnet.

My vet has a wireless broadband service that she is happy with. We looked into it for the barn but couldn't get a good signal. A friend was using one in Wills Point for a while and was happy with it. It's probably too far from Tyler, but there's probably something simular. There aren't too many other options out here in the boondocks.

 

[chh]

I feel your pain Eddie. I have it and it is the only option available to me at the moment. I have not had near the amount of trouble you have, but I really just despise the whole system. The only part I really like is having the wireless router. Customer service on the phone is usually a joke at best.(If you can understand what they are saying. Outsourcing to the cheapest provider in no telling where stinks.) At one time we had DSL to our office and dial up to our house. True DSL will spoil you to anything else. When we built our new house we would have to had a different phone company than the on we had previously. New lines(which would have been DSL capable) would have to have been installed at a cost to me of 10 grand. So I don't have a land phone line at all.

BTW: Wild Blue is just another marketer for Hughes. They to my understanding Husghes is the only provider of sat. internet.

 

[polo1665]

Eddie,
Is broadband available in your area. We have ours through Verizon. Paying far less than $60.00/month and have had no trouble. Good quality, high speed internet.

The people who lived here before us had DirecWay. Dish is still hooked up outside. When I checked prices at the Hughes web site it sure looked like more than $60.00/month. Let me know if you need another dish, you can have ours.

Mark

 

[Tig]

Check to see if EVDO is available in your area. I have point to point wireless but may switch to EVDO next year. It works off the cell phone network and gives decent speed (3Mb) It has the plus of being portable when I travel.

 

[NuBota]

Eddie, EVDO would be the first thing I would look at. If you get good cell phone reception at your house, then find out which provider has EVDO coverage. I did a quick look and it looks like All-tel has coverage near Tyler. Even if you can only get 1xRTT (slower than EVDO but it you have a cell phone - you have it too) it's 60-90K speeds

That said, you can take it further than just a USB or PC card device in your PC. Once you buy the device and service, you can get a router and/or "base" antenna. There are also amplifiers. I have a coworker that has this setup because his only other choice was satellite and he loves it. I will find out what he is using

Not sure this is the best site out there - but did a quick search and it has some good info

What is EVDO : EVDOinfo.com

I has info about all the cell companies and EVDO and also a "store" for all the add-on gear. It has coverage maps as well.

The cell phones companies are constantly upgrading the network. This is more encouraging than cable, telco, etc. And no matter how good they make the dishes and modems, them satellites ain't getting any closer - and the latency is the killer.

I had DirecWay for about 12 months back in 02-03. Cable company decided to extend to our area, so switching was a no brainer - but I feel your pain. Satellite does well for what it is - but the support was bad then too. Luckily I could fix most issues myself - or direct the support folks (I'm in IT) and found one tech that was very good and always requested his Company if I needed a "qualified" tech to visit.

There may be other wireless companies near you, but they will be small and probably spotty as well. And even if ADSL isn't available from your telco, there may be other vendors offering other flavors of DSL - but it will be a crap-shoot as well since they still depend on the telco infrastructure.

Good luck
-Eric

 

[JMER817]

I too had used a local wireless service company and after continued problems decided to try something else. I went with the Sprint broadband card and so far it is performing well. They offer a 30 day money back trial period. I've attached some comparison data. Keep in mind that they limit you to 5G of download a month...which is a lot unless you are downloading videos all day. There is a router at Best-Buy that will allow you to use both your desktop and laptop at the same time, but it is rather expensive right now ($250). I'll wait for that price to come down and just swap the USB Sprint modem back and forth for now.

 

[Lasgambler]

I thought I was the one with the most problems with Hughesnet. I had it for almost 5 years. Never seemed to work right. Had the 3000, 4000, and then the 7000 modem. 4000 was hit by lighting.

I was out of contract, so as Eddie said, $125. for him to drive up the drive way. We lost service and it took almost 5 weeks for them to schedule a tech to come out to the middle of nowhere. When they finally scheduled, I told them to "Forget it"

I now have a Sprint mobile broadband card in my laptop, its slow but I love it.
I also have a USB card for my wifes PC. So now instead of $60 per mo. We are paying $120 per mo.

Anybody want to buy a couple of sat. internet dishes and a box full of modems? lol

Eddie there is another option besides Hughes and Wild Blue and that is Starband. I know someone that has it and seems to do O.K. with it.

Good Luck.

 

[riptides]

Check the web site mentioned earlier. They support all three major vendors. Your interested in signal strength and coverage. They can walk you through what is best for you.

I use EVDO on the farm and when I am mobile. Plus, for security reasons we run secure networks over it. Something satellite cannot do without more dollars.

That web site should really help you out, they have coverage maps available for Sprint and Verizon too. You should be able to see if your in the EVDO available area.

Good luck.

 

[jaybrad]

I have a wireless card for work - and for a couple years it was an AT&T wireless card (EVDO?). When I was someplace with a strong good signal, it was about as fast as a slow DSL connection. Unfortunately I found many times and places that it did not work at all, so I switched to a US Cellular 1x card, which seems to be about the same in most of the places I've gone - and it has consistently had better coverage in our rural state.

I've heard lots of good things about the new 3G system, but haven't personally used it.

At home I have a cable internet, which is both reliable and very fast. The only downside is that I have to deal with Time Warner Cable, which has about the worst customer service I have ever experienced.

But that's another story for a different thread.....

Good luck!

Jay

 

[ScottAR]

I have city owned cable in town but I have a friend out in the county and he has the Sprint service. He loves it compared to satellite and it seems faster.
Download and upload are slightly slower than cable but it's not noticable.

It will run his Xbox Live account with no problems. I dunno how good a connection one would need, but it seems that it would be fast.

One can see the cell tower from the front porch. That may be a factor in his
signal.

 

[EastTexFrank]

Eddie, I had dial-up for years at the house , it was all I could get. I did a lot of research and decided against satellite for all the reasons you mentioned and the fact thet the installer would not listen to me when I was explaining what I wanted. It was more a case of what they were going to give me. Ran them off. In the end I went with a local ISP which is basically a wi-fi system. They have aerials set up all around Mineola and service is good within 10 or 11 miles of the antenna but it is line of sight. Ours is mounteed on the local water tower. I had our receiver mounted on the TV mast and it works really well. It is about 25/30 times faster than dial-up but about 10 times slower than a good DSL connection. Not usually any weather related problems except when their antenna was hit by lightening. Check and see if anybody offers such a service around Winona. It's relatively cheap, around $35 a month and it's the best solution I've found for us folks that live in the boonies.

 

[ronjhall]

If my memory is right. Your area is very good for AT&T wireless. My system has work well for me since I picked it up during a visit to txdon's place.
Do I recommend AT&T. Not necessarily. But the air cards are getting better all the time.
Some of our fellow RVers use Verison with great success. I have investigated the different systems. Like the Verison (EVDO) with a "N" router. At a rally we attended recently one person had this setup. Several RV's were connected to the router with great success. Getting access to a forum similar to TBN. The site linked above has lots of info and may be one of the lowest priced sites.
One of the reasons I have not upgraded yet is the "N" router final format is not finalized yet. Will not happend until November at earliest.

 

[sellercreek]

As described by EASTTEXFRANK, fixed wireless broadband is the cheapest and best option. Some local ISPs provide connection speeds that are comparable with DSL and cable.

#2 choice would be one of the cellular providers. Performance is generally good and the downside is monthly pricing. Upside is you can use it anywhere you have cell service.

There are very few happy campers in the satellite group. Wild Blue technology is better than HughesNet, but it oversubscribed in many areas. Despite the advertising on tv and in magazines, satellite from either provider is usually disappointing.

 

[jinman]

Eddie, as EastTexasFrank suggested, I think you should try to check out a WISP provider, but you might be limited because of all your trees. These systems are line-of-sight and you might not be able to see a signal from Tyler or Lindale. It might take one in Winona as Frank suggested. Here's a link to a provider in Lindale.

Gower Net Provider

I am thinking of changing to one of the cards like Ron Hall has. Our WISP provider's antennas are lightning targets it seems and lately they seem to drop out when the temperature goes above 100. Since they are the only provider in this area, the air-card is about the only other satisfactory choice.