HughesNet versus WildBlue
November 8, 2007 by admin
Not sure about which satellite internet provider to go with? Don’t let WildBlue steal you away from HughesNet. HughesNet offers a higher quality service, 24/7 technical support, professional installations, $100 mail-in-rebate, and a 30 day satisfaction guarantee. Call us at 1-866-430-8170 to learn more.
Hello! Good site!
Thank you!
I have no personal experience with HughesNet customer service but WildBlue’s customer service stinks. I live in North Idaho and signed up with WildBlue for internet (neither Verizon or Suddenlink are available at my home address). WildBlue eagerly took my money then come to find out they had no “certified” techs in the area to install my system. I offered to install the system myself, nope can’t (WildBlue won’t let you perform a self install - no reason given). O.K. I’ll give them that one, so I googled “certified WildBlue techs North Idaho” two companies came up. Now I can understand WildBlue’s reluctance not to allow me to install the system myself but not to let certified techs from these two companies perform the install, this I can’t. The excuse WildBlue gave me, “since you ordered the system directly from WildBlue only “our” techs can install the system. My understanding is all WildBlue techs receive the same training from the same people. Does anyone know the difference between WildBlue certified techs? Unknown to them, I put together the system, mounted it on the outside of the house, went over to my neighbor (who has WildBlue) copied all the settings off of his dish, ran all cables into the house, connected the modem to my router and am now only waiting on a certified tech with a username and password to activate the dish. All this took me around an hour. Here I set waiting on WildBlue.
Jim, let me know how that works out for you by keeping me updated.
I’ve had the same experience as Jim Hayman in the past with Dish Network and I wonder if those 2 companies are owned by the same people as both are based out of Colorado and own satellites. Directv is my favorite for Satellite TV and I really like Hughesnet for my high speed internet. Even though cable is now available where I live, I’m happy and think the cable guys would be worse than Dish Network or Wild blue based on my experience at my previous home a few years back. Why can’t these companies just take care of the folks that ant to pay them every month for good service?
I agree totally with the Wildblue analysis as many people have had problems with that installation network. We found HughesNet to be the fix for our needs.
I had WildBlue installed… my sat. TV is mounted 8 feet up on a 20 foot pole to have a clear shot over trees on the south part of my property.
The installers did not bring a ladder so they installed the WildBlue dish about 2 feet up on the pole….which was okay but difficult to mow around…they also did not bring a laptop or signal strength meter to help them aim the dish so I used my laptop connected to the dish in the yard so they could do speed tests witout walking back and forth to the dish !
The service worked for three days (losing sync several times) and then went down altogether…the service techs came out and replaced the modem and router…the service worked again for a day and went down again…
The techs returned and said that my trees were the problem apparently they had grown too much over the previous three days!)…I asked that the dish be mounted higher on the pole…at about 8 feet like my TV dish…they said that this would make no difference…I called WildBlue tech support and they advised me to have the installers raise the dish and install and oval dish instead of the round one… the reseller said that none of this would help and was angry when I told them to make it work or take it out !!!
Will HughesNet be any better…I live in the country, I have many trees around…my sat. TV works fine all the time ….
CAN HUGHESNET HELP ???
Kevin
If you are so desparate to get Wild Blue service, you need to reconsider. Please. After taking my money for hardware and installation, Wild Blue has avoided giving me service that they say I need and then after my warranty expired they want to charge me for the service. They puposefully slow down (in their words) my computer because I use it too much - must let other users have internet time also! I would have been better off to have gone with dial up - it is definitely faster than Wild Blue.
I placed my order for wild blue in the spring of 2005 and waited until September for them to have certified techs in my area. The download speed was good but my uplink was much slower then they stated. This past December 2007 DSL service became available in my area at a much cheaper rate plus much faster so I switched. I contacted Wild Blue on there toll free number notified them I was canceling service and stopped my monthly auto draft. Two and half months later I get a disconnect notice from the a local telephone company who installed the dish and was my local ISP for wild blue. The local ISP did some research and found out the WB will not notify the local ISP if you contact WB directly to cancel service. I have now emailed WB 4 times in the past two months hoping to get a reply as to why they failed to fulfill my cancellation request or why they didn’t at least tell me on the phone call that I needed to contact the local ISP for wild blue and cancel service with them. In the meantime I’m expected to pay 2 1/2 months service to the local ISP and WB won’t respond.
I have had wild blue for several months, and i must say that the hole experiance keeps getting worse. begining with the instalation tech that apparantly was only qualified to connect wires, as i had to mount the dish myself. customer service is a joke, and when (inevitable) problems arrive, i am charged with a minimum of a hundred dollars, even if the problem results from thier faulty equipment. currently i am paying for the upgraded “faster” service, however the customer service tech is amazed at how slow it seems to be. this will hopefully be resolved after paying them to find the problem, as speed issues are not thier responsibility. i am anxiously awaiting the conclusion of our contract.
U NO WAT $#@ THOSE %$@# AT WILD BLUE. IF ANY 1 ON HERE HAS HAD WILD BLUE AND SWITCHED TO HUGHESNET PLZ TELL ME WITCH ONE IS BETTER BECAUSE I WANT TO KNOW B4 I DUMP WB LAZY #$$.
When I first got Wildblue it was great - fast, efficient, good customer service. For several months I’ve had problems with Wildblue and am now going to give Hughesnet a try. Wildblue switched over to Gmail (Google mail) last February and completely botched up their email service, and even though i’ve called their tech support many times, they still can’t resolve the problem. One call I made they said I had to update to XP SP3, which wasn’t even out when they switched to Gmail. The also said (and I complied) that I had to do a virus scan (which I do regularly), that my copy of Outlook was obsolete (which I updated), that I had spyware (which I scan for and remove)…. on and on with the excuses of why it’s not their problem. Wildblue doesn’t recognize cause and effect - the day they switched over to Gmail, I and many other scan’t download email anymore and server delay is terrible. The last couple of times I called, they said that my dish was not pointed correctly (that my “up” signal strength was low) and I needed a service call, but when I called to make an appointment with service, they didn’t know what I was talking about. Geesh. Server delays with Wildblue (the time it takes their server to come around and respond to your request for a web page) are anywhere from 15 seconds to about a minute - which puts their overall speed in the dialup catagory, NOT high speed. When the server finally comes back around and sends some information, THEN, finally, the web page loads quickly. The last time I had a Wildblue service tech out to the house to repoint the dish (at Wildblue’s suggestion), he said it was OK and that their server delay was bad because they didn’t keep their network capacity up with their growth. I’m done with Wildblue. Goodbye, off you go then…..
I have Hughes and pay an extra $5/month for “expedited” service. The one problem I had (dead modem) was handled in two business days. My friend has Wild Blue and she has been waiting for a tech for close to two weeks until her appt. She is under a one-year contract. She works out of her home when she is in town (second home) and we have no other service out here except dial-up and sometimes a little Sprint data service but not enough to do much. Has anyone cancelled a WB contract before the expiration date and just not paid and disputed it through the credit card company? I’m wondering if it would hurt her credit. Right now, she can’t ask this question because she has NO service and hasn’t had for over a week.
I would not recommend WildBlue to my ENEMY. I would love to get out of my contract and try Hughes net but I have a year to go I think. Reading the comparsion I think it would be better for me and the job I have working form home.
I wish I would have read this blog before I got WildBlue? I really want Hughes Net. Does anyone know if you can get out of the contract?
is the worst “service” allowed to legally rip the public off. I moved to a “dead zone” last November, after being told by QWEST that I could take my DSL with me. Well, that is another story but I ended up with Wildblue, and I too am eagerly awaiting ending my contract this November. Nothing is better than this.
Do not get trapped into this. Wild Blue is horrible they charge you for everything you do,and everything they do (service calls , moving service) takes them forever. It took them a month to move my service and charged me 300 bucks to do it. I only moved 3 miles away from my original location. And the Fair Access Policy is just a way for them to pressure you into the more expensive pakages . They slow you down to less than dial up the entire 4 months I have had the service 3 of the months have been downgraded due to this. Its a load of crap because we didn’t violate policy they just say we did.
I really want to get rid of my Wildblue service. It has been terrible from start to finish. It sometimes goes for days without working at all, and I don’t think I’ve had more than a couple of weeks of good service in over two years with them. I was on the phone with customer service again tonight for over an hour, and they have no idea what is wrong. My download speed is less the 150kbs, and that speed is only intermittent. I can’t use such basic websites as CNN or MSNBC, because they just refuse to load. Plus, the time lag for every single web event gets longer and longer–sometimes it takes 30 seconds just to make the initial connection to a website, before it even starts to download. Dialup service would probably be faster, but I live far in the woods, and even dialup is not a good option for me. I hope Hughes Net will come to my house, because I am ready to switch.
I only wish I had read all of this before we got Wild Blue!! We ordered in January of this year and it took 2 weeks to get a tech out to set it up. They then installed it on the side of our new home completely ruining the siding and brick (we were told it would be mounted on a pole). It worked briefly (and very slowly) for about 45 minutes then we were never able to get it going again. It was a totally FAILED INSTALLATION. In spite of multiple calls to Tech services (only 2 of which spoke or understood English), removing firewalls and antivirus programs, even getting a new computer completely, and a hundred other things we were told to do to make it work, it has NEVER WORKED except for that one 45 minute period. Although at one point we were notified that we were using the internet too much and were warned we would be dropped from service if we didn’t slow down our usage — go figure! We finally cancelled service on the basis of the Failed Installation, but they kept billing us. They now say we owe them almost $1,000 and have sent us to a collection agency. We can’t get an attorney to help us becuase it is such a “small amount of money.” We are still debating what to do—–pay them off and keep our good credit rating (currently it is 785)? Let it go and get a poor credit rating?? For now, we are just using AT&T dial up since DSL is not available and we are terrified of getting involved with another satellite company. Any suggestions out there??
Stay away from Wild Blue. They have been unable to deliver a solid internet connection after 6 months of trouble. Connection disappears all the time. They colect your money and don’t care if it works, because you are locked in once you sign their bullet-proof 2 year contract that allows them to hit your credit card each month even though the service doesn’t work. It fades in & out constantly. The internet is nearly useless. I am paying $79 per month for their fastest service! Wish I had read what people online have to say about Wild Blue before I signed up, but I didn’t know things could be this bad. They are crooks, and are ripping people off legally.
We finally found a solution to the horrendous 7 months of interaction with Wild Blue. We went on line and contacted the state of Colorado Better Business Bureau (since the WB headquarters is in Colorado). They have an on-line form that we filled out and submitted. We submitted it at 2:00pm yesterday afternoon. At 10:00 AM today, Wild Blue called us to let us know they were zeroing out ALL the charges on our account and cancelling their report to the collection agency. They assurred us it would not go on our credit report. The person I spoke with was the most courteous and gracious person I have had contact with at WB. When we asked why they finally decided to resolve this on-going issue, they admitted they were responding to an official complaint from the Better Business Bureau and wanted to clear up any misunderstanding and problems.
So there is hope out there for other people. Maybe if everyone contacts the Colorado BBB and files an official complaint about them, they may actually change their appalling customer service (I use the term loosely) and fraudulent way of doing business.
I found this forum out of pure frustration with my wild blue system .. Like so many posts I’ve read here today my service goes down almost daily .. whats funny is that it seems to go down at the same times .. tech support has been a total joke .. they keep insisting i need to have a tech come out and want to charge me 100 dollars for the service call …. however, they will drop that to 79 dollars and give me a whole 90 days of so called equipment protection “IF” I’ll agree to commit to another year with them …. are they smoking crack or what ??? .. come Monday morning I’ll be throwing all this equipment in the trash and going to Hughes.net .. To anyone Reading this .. All I can tell you is my experience with Wild Blue has been a total nightmare and i would advise you to avoid them like the plague.
I’ve had Wild Blue for two years now. The first 18 months, all was well so I upgraded to the plus package. They advertised 1Mbps download speeds. For about two weeks I could achieve that, then the speeds started dropping. My speeds were actually slower than the basic package. I called Wild Blue to downgrade to the basic package, since my speeds were no faster. That’s when all hell broke loose. I ended up being charged 1,400 dollars for the downgrade. For Wild Blue, the left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing. I have been refunded the cash, and will speak to a corporate officer Monday to see if anything can be done about the speeds. If not, good bye, Wild Blue