I have been a customer of our local cable TV monopoly for over 20 years. We have TV and internet services with them. On January 1 our services went out. A call placed to them resulted in a "We'll get to you in a few days". It then got changed to "We'll get there on January 16th. At least that is what they told my very sweet, non-confrontational Wife.
I made a trip into the local office on Monday. Sorry. it's New Years Day (observed), they are closed. I go back the next day, ask to speak to a manager. He comes out, very uninterested in my problem. Asks me what I want. I say "I would be GLAD to tell you in great detail about my problems with your company here in front of all these other customers, but it MIGHT be in your best interest to talk to me in private". Suddenly I have his FULL attention. I tell him it is ridiculous to have to wait 15 days to fix this service, and I am making plans to find another provider soon, but am EXPECTING my service to be restored much sooner. We run 2 businesses out of our house, we need the internet.
He asks me to wait a moment. Comes back, advises me a technician is on his way now to my house. Our services were restored in two hours.
Story ain't over yet. Tonight, our internet service is SSSLLLOOOOOOOWWWWWW. Methinks they are playing games (again).
I have already signed up with DirecTV for TV and internet. Due to the fact we live on an acreage, we will have to have Satellite internet service. I know nothing about this. Will it be dependable, and fast?
I really, really hope so. I will never use that cable company again.

P.S. I really want to tell you their name, but I'd better be a good boy.
Jim

Technically sat internet should be a little slower. I think Direct piggy backs thru Hughes for the sat internet. May have even been the same company at one time.

Their all the same. You will hear good and bad about them all. I sure hope your sat internet isn't through Hughes. I've heard nothing but bad about them.

I went BACK to cable after my experience with Direct TV. Hope yours is better.

nope, direct tv has their own sat internet called wild blue i think it is, hughes net is now owned by dish network. trust me when i tell you this, IT SUCKS to no end. we have one of the higher priced versions which is 90$ pr mnth and is still slower than the 70$ cable internet we had before (we have temporarily moved and cant get our cable internet back till our new house is built). for a business internet connection you WILL NOT be happy at all!! sat internet has a latency clause and a data streaming clause. we can only use 3 mbs every 24 hrs or they slow us down to almost a standstill and also we can only use 75mbs per month or they SHUT US OFF FOR 30 DAYS!!!!!! i WILL NEVER get hughesnet again! i would use 56k dialup before i did sat internet. to the OP, i would FIND A WAY to work with the cable guys, trust me.

If I remember correctly the internet provider is Wild Blue.
Jim

as far as im concerned there is NO GOOD sat internet!! we have hughesnet right now and it sucks, ive heard that wildblue which is direct tvs sat internet is WORSE!!!

YES!! thats it, my mistake, wild blu not true blue.

Did a little comparison shopping earlier today, one satellite provider wanted $1000.00 per month for service that's much slower than my cable connection that's $30.00 per month. And yes, I hate dealing with their SLOWWWW customer service, but at this point in time, it's the best available.

Living way out in the boonies I've become very familiar with satellite internet. It's faster than dial-up. Slower by far than DSL or cable and much more expensive. There are also bandwidth restrictions so downloading the larger Windows updates can be a little problematic unless you do it around 2:00 a.m. We got very very lucky after being on satellite for 3 years when our phone company upgraded their equipment and gave some of us people out here the ability to have DSL. Half the cost and 4 times the speed.

I had HughesNet for 3 years because I live in the Boondocks and that was the only Internet service available. Your monthly payment is based upon the speed you have plus how many Megabytes you use. My contract was for 200MB's per day which seems like a lot, but gets used up fast when trying to view videos or use Skype. Once you exceed your MG limit you get FAPed. Look up FAP on the HugheNet web site...it stands for Fair Access Policy. When that happens your speed is dropped to Dial-up speed for 24 hours, or you can pay a penalty to have it restored. Getting multiple FAP's will bump you up to a higher monthly payment with more Megabytes. Their rates aren't cheap and if you are trying to run a business using their service, good luck.

A neighbor tried Wildblue and that was even worse. We finally got DSL through our phone company so I dropped HugheNet in a heartbeat. Now I can be on all day, watch anything I want and don't have to worry about getting FAPed.

HughesNet Customer Care - Fair Access Policy

http://customercare.myhughesnet.com/fap_faqs.htm

Wildblue has the same thing: http://www.wildblue.com/legal/data-allowance-policy

I've had the lowest level of Hughes satellite internet for a little over 2 years now. I pay for 1000 mbps download speed and 200 mB daily download limit. Hughes has always provided at least that speed.

Within the last year, the download allowance has increased to 500 mB/day and my speed has increased dramatically, to the vicinity of 7000 mbps.

Latency is still high, unavoidably, so on-line gaming and internet telephone are out of the question.

Overall, I'm pleased with the service. YMMV.

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VIVERE MILITARE EST

I have had HughesNet for a couple years now, my only alternative is dial-up. Like stated before, it is not as fast as DSL or Cable, and you have latency issues to Skype, Vonage, and online gaming are out, but if you alternative is dial-up it is a heck of a lot better--faster speed & no tied up phone line or paying for 2 phone lines. My brother has had the service longer than me, when HughesNet used to be part of DirecTV. HughesNet is now separate. The other provider Wild Blue mentioned, is associated with Dish Network, and have heard bad things about that service. As of November HughesNet started allowing rollover for unused data transfer, plus they allow a once a month "Get out of slow service token" so if you did go over data transfer limit for the day, you could use the token to maintain data speed. If you do go over the daily data usage, your service will be slowed to dial-up speeds. I just use it for surfing the web--mostly this forum, and have never gone over the daily rate with the cheapest plan. They have a unlimited data transfer time in the morning--think from 2 to 7am so you can set up the scheduler on your computer to run updates at that time.

If you are interested in getting HughesNet PM me before you do, I can save you some money.

I just get my internet from my neighbors. Cable and electric, too. I would have gas, too, except that they caught me digging the trench in their back yard.

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p&r fan- if you have the same company as we do in se iowa,then they do get vindictive. when you have a problem,their attitude is confrontational to start and gets worse. then, when they do get around to you, you wind up with other little glitches. all those problems started when you had to call a call-in center in cedar rapids instead of a local call for service.

Howdy,
It was one of the most misrepresented packages ever sold to me.
I was told what all I could expect and do with it but every time I did anything I was put in internet jail.
Then it is supposed to just slow down when you exceed FAP. In reality it stops and you can not check e-mail or tend to any business.
I hated it.They penalize the dickens out of you if you want to cancel before your contract is up even if they are not providing adequate service.
When our contract was up I called every day for a week and was told their equipment was brokendown and would not allow them to cancel my account.
It came back on after the next billing period and they sent me bills for a long time for a service period after I had already removed their equipment. Bill collectors and the whole nine yards.
I am a very principled hard head and I think they have given up. They might as well.
Service is just as bad as anyone's anywhere. God bless the Indians,they are industrious. They can be hard to understand and my experience with Hughesnet is you will be dealing with them a lot.
I do respect them and try to understand them, but I asked for someone who spoke better English twice and the third person I talked to was somewhat understandable. She was directing me to do something and at last kept yelling "Pooshapleepooshaplee". Then I see it. "PUSH APPLY" I ask?
"Yes,yes pooshapleepooshaplee" she hollars.
I was like others and it was Hughes or dial up.
I expect if something else had not come available I would have gone back to dial up...It is that bad.
Be careful.
Mike

P&R fan, I feel your pain. Two years ago my local cable "ripoff" infuriated me for what I thought was the last time. I canceled them and went with DirectTV, then UVerse, then something else and even tried another company. None of them was a good as my local cable company. Every service was misrepresented, installation was a nightmare, and every customer service department was worse than my local cable company. I swallowed my pride and went back to cable. For me, the picture is the best, the connection speeds are the best, and the price for the service is the worst. Anyway, good luck finding something as good for less. If you do, please let me know.

I'm a satellite tech for one of the bigger providers (rhymes with Fish Network). While I don't install their internet equipment, here are some facts: Wild blue (Dish Network) and Hughesnet (Direct TV) are based on the same equipment and service provided by a company out of California - I think in Bakersfield. Wild blue offers 2 residential speeds - slow and slower. If dial up is your only choice, it may be an alternative. Recently I've had contact with a few customers who have a service called Clear. It's basically a router device that functions through 3g and 4g networks, and its mobile. One person had homes in Maine (summer) and Miami (winter) and she just takes the unit with her. At the time she was paying about $90 a month, and we had 2 desktop computers online while I downloaded a movie to her sat. rec. The speed was impressive, as good as most DSL connections I've seen. I found them at Clear Internet Service, they claim service in 80 major markets.

I have Wild Blue here at the house. It's slow and unreliable. Sometimes I lose the signal entirely if it raining or the sun is shining. i hate it but I don't really have any other alternative.

BTW, my wife got the bright idea of watching some movies online. After a week or so we got an ugly e-mail from them that we were exceeding our allotment of something or other and they had moved us into super slow mode. I finally got it straightened out after promising not to watch movies online and they bumped us back up to the regular slow mode.

This thing was sold to me as being a great way to get internet. I like it about as much as I do bird droppings; which also comes out of the wild blue.

My cousin uses Wildblue. I can't believe what she has to pay to get broadband service. And she maxes out their data amount almost every month and has to shut it down or risk massive charges for overage fees. The speed isn't horrible, but it's like stepping back a decade in what I'm used to now with DSL or Cable. Unless there was ZERO other options, I would never have satellite internet.

If anything, I would rake the cable comp over the coals and maybe call a district manager about the issue.

The cable company does give a darn. My town had them do a reconsideration for my area, then after their assessment they had a town meeting to say there was not enough houses per mile for them to run line--so basically too bad so sad we don't want your money. Had a person that is closer to town ask about running line to their house, they came out did a measurement from the nearest cable line, gave her a quote..... $12,000. Might be hard to guess, but she doesn't have cable internet.

Part of the reason for high cost and lack of motivation from the cable company is apparently, like most anything, there are all kinds of regulation on running the cable line. Has to be above a certain line, and below another line, if not enough room with existing wires, they have to put in a new pole, poles have to be so far apart, etc., etc.

Well! Thank you all. I was really getting tired of my cable provider after 32 years and was going to give them the axe..

Guess I will continue to pay 200 a month. That is for phone with long distance, fast internet, no usage limit, and HDTV service ( no movie channels)

Man it is getting expensive to just live. When I was young, we had no antenna and got 3 stations.... if you had an antenna you could get 2 or 3 more... those were the people with money!

Times changed man.

If you give them a call, they may be able to reduce your price somewhat. Every couple of years I have to call Cox and have them put us in the latest "package". We have about what you describe for about $130/mo, taxes and all. One thing is for sure, they aren't going to give you a discount if you don't ask!!

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I don't understand why you must stay with a single provider. I've had Time Warner for high speed cable since 2003, and DirecTV for television since 2000. (Long distance? What's THAT? ) Bundling is highly overrated unless you need/want all of the services offered in the bundle.

(We've been a cellphones-only household since 2000. We've also never had VOIP. Disclaimer: I live within the city limits of a major midwestern metropolitan area, and I understand that infrastructure abounds compared to where some of you live. Since I make my living as a data warehouse consultant, I could not/would not move anywhere where my access to the Web and communcations (and the airport) is anything but fast and reliable. Well, not unless I want to change careers, which I don't, unless it's to a race car driver or rock star. You have a much better chance of getting your cable problems resolved than I do of having success in either of these fields.)

I've heard nothing but bad about satellite internet.

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Endeavor to persevere. <><

We live somewhere in nowhere and we only can get sattelite service. We had our doubts but all in all DirecTV is working good for TV and internet.

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Jorge