Wilblue Issue

[Nixxy]

I've used the Internet Service Provider (ISP) Wildblue for over a year. I had problems right from the start because of their equipment, the modem, was defective. For 4 months I logged many complaints because of it, and they always blamed the problem on my hardware. Finally after my continued complaining they had a serviceman come out and he quickly pinpointed the problem that their installed modem was defective. He switched it out and all was fine from then on with connectivity issues. They gave me a free month of service ($49) for my troubles, for which I think I should had gotten the whole 4 months the service was a problem. But I let it go.

Next problem, customer support, extremely long waits on the customer support line. The message when you dial in always says your wait will be 10 minutes, but that is never true, this week-end I called them twice and was on hold for over an hour each time. Most of the time when you finally get the tech, these people are not qualified to handle tech issues, and have limited knowledge in that area. Most of the time they will waste your time without solving the problem.

Next problem, a few weeks ago Wildblue sent an email out that they were going to no longer provide email service for their customers (they were going to merge all wildblue email tasks to gmail, which is a free service to anyone already) All ISP's provide email service to their customers as part of the monthly fees. I view this as a cut in their services, or changing the agreement. Yet it looks like the price of $49.00 a month will remain the same. Isn't this bait and switch?

Well, Saturday morning (3-1-08) was when they switched the email part of their service. Now I cannot send email through Wildblue because of some glitch at Wildblue. They blame the problem on Outlook, my email program, which is not the problem because I sent send through webmail with no problem. Once again they put the blame on something else. 

The first tech took me through steps configure email accounts that I completed before I called. When I could still not send, she was stumped. She then admitted Wildblue was having problems with some people that use Outlook. And that I should try my send email in 48 hours.

I called back thinking this tech wasn't very good either hoping to get someone better. This one was worse, and knew less about what she was doing. And said I needed to wait 24 hours and the email again. Two conflicting statements.

Out of frustration I asked for a supervisor. After another long wait she came on, we went through all the previous steps for a third time. Without any change in a thing. She then admitted their was a problem at Wildblue. And that I needed to wait 48 hours too.

Still not working today.

Is it legal for Wildblue to do this to their customers? I mean anyone can gmail for free, and I don't see any reduction in monly fees.

[vern]

Wildblue is a flybynight company.

Drop them and sign up for the new Hughsnet service.

I would not be surprised to see WB filing for chapter 11 protection soon.

[doug900]

I dropped Hughesnet because they are to expensive, and their FAP really needs an overhaul.  You couldn't download a movie without being cut down in speed.  With wildblue, it's a 30 day floating period. hughesnet will cut down your speed if you exceed 200MB in any given day on the cheapest package.  Wildblue allows 7.5GB per month, on their cheapest package, and they don't cut down your speed until you exceed 7.5GB within a floating 30 day period.  Makes more sense to me.  And just remember, no matter who you go with, the satellite data pipe can only take so much input, which is why they have a FAP. It keeps it fair.  As far as the comment about chapter 11, they took on google as a partner, which shows strength.  Maybe you should give it another look.  I really haven't had any problems with them.  I did find it much better to upgrade to the 1MB/sec package.  Good luck.

[Nixxy]

Thanks for the replies.

Actually the service itself isn't all that bad, once the modem was swapped out. And I guess by looking at all the different feedback, all satellite providers are pretty much the same.

Now the problem is with sending email since they seem to have shoved that all over to gmail. If you were using the wildblue web mail, I don't think (not sure) if those customers have problems.

But I use a pop3 server for my email, and have been dead in the water for 4 days now. I can receive email fine, just not able to send through wildblue. And they seem to be scratching there heads, maybe looking for brains.

Anyone else got any ideas why wildblue would just turn over their webmail to goggle and hope it works?

[doug900]

They must not know what the pop and smtp settings are, (have they told you what those settings are?) or they are not configured at the server properly.  I use webmail, and have never dealt with their email.

[SpAwNgOd]

Thanks for the replies.

Actually the service itself isn't all that bad, once the modem was swapped out. And I guess by looking at all the different feedback, all satellite providers are pretty much the same.

Now the problem is with sending email since they seem to have shoved that all over to gmail. If you were using the wildblue web mail, I don't think (not sure) if those customers have problems.

But I use a pop3 server for my email, and have been dead in the water for 4 days now. I can receive email fine, just not able to send through wildblue. And they seem to be scratching there heads, maybe looking for brains.

Anyone else got any ideas why wildblue would just turn over their webmail to goggle and hope it works?

HOW ARE YOU VIEWING YOUR EMAIL ARE YOU USING OUTLOOK OR EXPRES

[doug900]

I don't use either.  I use hotmail and yahoo. No glitches that way.

[Nixxy]

I'm using Outlook.

I can view emails fine, I cannot send email's (I think) because Wildblue changed the smtp to gmail.com which maybe doesn't recognize my pop3. I'm only guessing because I really don't know anything about how that works. All I really know is everything was working fine until they merged all email tasks to gmail.

Day 5 still can't send.

If you call customer service the recording says their working on the problem with email, Outlook, and other email applications. It's basically like they want to shake off the customers that use pop3's. I mean why would it be so screwed up for this long?

Thinking about giving Hughsnet a call.

[doug900]

Be patient with them.  Whenever a major merge is executed, there are bound to be issues.  It's a very complex transition, or merge..  I am an IT professional and know that these things can happen.  There is a grunch of data that usually is migrated and unknowns can surface and ruffle feathers everywhere. 

A typical pop and smtp setting might be pop.gmail.com and smtp.gmail.com or pop.mail.com and smtp.mail.com.  It all depends on how they configure it.  I'm sure they will iron it all out.  Have you looked at the FAP at hughesnet?  It's not good how they structured it.  If you downloaded something that was bigger than 200MB, today, they will cut your bandwidth down for 24 hours, before they let you download at high speed again.  That doesn't set well with me.  Wildblue uses a 30 day floating period.  You would have to exceed the 7500MB monthly limit within the 30 days to get cut back (on the cheap package).  Good luck, and please be patient.  Set up a hotmail account in the mean time.  Doug

[Nixxy]

I really don't understand why wildblue would shove all the email portion of their business to goggle. Of course they say on the website it's all for the benefit of the customer. What a crock! What do you think the reason would be?

In my business I use Outlook as I have several clients that I communicate with by email daily. To send through gmail just add extra steps in order to do that. Even though I've have a gmail account for years I only used it once or twice when Wildblue was having an email issue.

Smtp.gmail.com is the setting, but for some reason does not work.It's something to do with pop3 account I think.

Kinda hard to be patient after 5 days of having no progress.

A lady at Hugh's said that there are no restrictions on donloading between 3am and 6am est. I don't do a lot of that anyway, mainly browse might watch some utube videos and things like that.

I don't really feel like changing services as I suppose they'll be wanting to drill more holes in my roof. But maybe they can use the same mount for their dish?

[xs1]

[doug900]

As far as gmail is concerned, It is googles baby, so to speak. It comes as a package deal. As for the 3am to 6am downloads, who the heck is up at that hour? Kind of stupid for hughesnet to throw that tidbit in. They know that the mass majority, downloads at prime daylight and evening hours. I can talk on my nextel cell phone to just about anywhere in the us for free after 9:30PM, but guess what? I am in bed at 10PM, and I can't think of anybody to call, in that half hour. It's just a "we'll give you a poochy scarf, even though you don't have a pooch" deal. I would be frustrated too, but the grass isn't always greener on the other side of the fence.

Keep me posted, and I will help you (or sway you) in the right direction.