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I've been a Hughesnet customer for more than 11 years now and I can say with some authority that the service, while still substandard at times, is better than it was when I first connected and as far as reliability, the only real outages I've had have been weather-related. The thing just seems to stay on. It beat the hell out of the dial-up I was originally forced to use. Hughesnet severely overloaded their transponders time and time again. Every new service Hughesnet rolled out was quickly maxed out with subscribers and with the limited bandwidth there were soon many unhappy people. I opted for Gen4 as soon as it was offered in a package called Ultra. I don't recall the speeds promised but it seems like it was at least 20 Mbps down and 2 Mbps up which is what I did get for a matter of months and then the buffering started and the lost connections and lots of phone calls. The front line technicians have a script they work from which makes it possible for even brand new employees in the phone bank to try to work through some of the minor problems. I'll admit that I have had problems resolved by one of them asking to check how tight the coax connector was on the modem input. Eventually, I found ways to work around having to unplug and plug back in the modem so I could move on to the real possible causes of problems. I had buffering that lasted for over 3 months with a problem that was advanced to the top level techs while Hughesnet gave me credit for 6 months. I can't say they don't value every customer. I've been lucky to have had the service work nearly flawlessly for just about 90 days until buffering started again with streaming video forced into the lowest resolution just to launch, that's144p. I posted the problem on their bulletin board to see if I could roust a moderator which I have done before but after many posts, I have yet to hear from a Hughesnet employee. I have had responses from the laymen techs who have offered advice on testing and options to try. I should mention that while on the Ultra Gen4 package a Hughesnet tech advised me to upgrade to Gen5 to halt buffering. This was a new satellite in 2017 that spread the load of subs so there were fewer per transponder plus they offered up to 50 gigs of anytime data, a built-in router, and speeds up to 25 Mbps download. I don't recall the upload speed but this cost approximately $40 more per month. This would be a waste for me since I already had a router, 50 gigs of data and when the system is working properly I get 25 to 30 Mbps down and 2 to 3 Mbps up which is why Ultra is no longer offered. I'm waiting for them to tell me it's being discontinued causing me to pay for Gen5. That will be when I switch to a dsl that is within a mile of me now. Of course, the upload speeds are not going to work consistently for gamers and I think it's a little disingenuous to not mention that when someone signs up but if you live out in the sticks your choices are definitely limited. I wrote this after reading some of the complaints that I know are completely justified. Few things irritate me more than watching that white circle spinning in the center of the screen every time I try to load a new page but considering the signal starts at an earth station, is broadcast 22,500 miles up in space to be collected by a device residing in an incredibly harsh environment and sent back down to a small dish on my roof which allows me to view how the foundations of buildings are anchored in Venice, if that's my interest, I consider this to be damn close to magic. I'm sure I sound partial to Hughesnet but it's not them I'm singling out, all of them do the same to varying degrees and I used to work for what was then the 10th largest cable company in the U.S. so I've had the opportunity to see the process from both sides. I was the technical supervisor who was the end of the line for customer complaints so I know what happens when it doesn't work, over and over and over again. It's not the fault of the person who is reading from a script but they have to take the anger of a person who pays the bill on time every month for a service that is not performing as the advertisements promised. I actually wrote this in the hopes that I'll be rewarded with positive karma and my upload speeds of .20Mbps will miraculously heal themselves and I won't have to check myself when I call the front line technician complaining to them once again. I also wrote this and I hope someone knowledgeable of Testmy.net procedures will read this to the end to answer my question. I used Testmy.net to record the painfully slow upload speeds with a setting to run the test every hour five times. That should have been all but when I returned from the store and errands the test had run every hour for 11 hours sending combined up and download packets of data amounting to 25, 30, 35 Mbps eating up over 11 gigabytes of my Hughesnet data. Why does this run on its own? Do I have to sign out and close the page? I'd rather not since I'd like to read the results of the tests I've run but I don't have that data to spare. Actually, you can disregard my textual meanderings above and just answer the question, if you can. I'm simply venting here so I don't do it on the phone when I call Hughesnet to complain.

Sounds familiar. When I signed up there was no mention of data restrictions, tokens, bonus bs, or anything of that sort. I was told usage was unlimited with 25 mbps. Perhaps somewhere in fine small print it exist, but in either case its a sham. A few speed sites I used to use with Suddenlink now all show speeds at or below what I had with dial-up 15 years ago. I'm paying $86 a month which is higher than Suddenlink charged with 30 mbps unlimited. I told the tech on the phone I don't spend hardly any time on the net, so why after 20 days am I out of usable data. He tells me to insure I'm not connected and using data to turn my computer off anytime I'm AFC. Hell, I'd unplug the stupid modem its a lot quicker. Anyway, thanks you guys for your help. I'll stay in touch as the saga continues...lmao!!

Thank you for your time. That helps me a lot.

That’s pretty bad. Stay on them. Be polite but persistent.

I've given them until 12/4 when they said they'd have speeds up to an acceptable level. Waiting !

That just 'aint happen'n here in my area of the boonies. I was using AWI networks and if it wasn't beyond slow, it was off line. Just dumped AWI and I'm at least hoping for the system to be online. My daughter has COX in Las Vegas and is getting nearly 200 down...Oh how I wish...

I'm just prayin' for the day someone drags a cable to my front door.