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Review by MichaelRS 
Posted: 2 years ago
member for 2.1 years, 36 visits, last login: 11 days ago
 Half Moon Bay,San Mateo,CA
 Contract price not specified.
 "Cheaper than Direcway, GroundControl"
 "Unstable, Upload less than 50% of advertised speed"
 "Go with a Direcway/Hughesnet VAR if you can afford it"
| Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:
(ratings match consensus)
|
Goal was to replace a GroundControl/DirecWay 4020 business unit that was running at a real world 1000/100 down/up for $115 a month.
WB claimed for Pro-Pak 1500/256 down/up and installation within 2 weeks. Specifically they stated that the error margin on the speed would be +/- 5-10%.
All wrong.
Turns out, pre-sales was dead wrong:
* Installer showed up at the fourth appointment. The first got fired because he would not show up, the second had a family emergency, the third could not make the time slot and rescheduled but did not confirm and simply showed up. This seems to be recurring: Installers are the nightmare that they have the reputation of being and they do not seem to care nor the company that hires them.
* Although the uplink speed was promised to be 250, WB does not make it. Tech now is backpaddeling and says the 60% error margin is fine, meaning advertising 250 but only delivering 150 up. Funny though that sales still claims 250 and that downlink is at promised rate.
* We also have drop outs on irregular times. Direcway did not have that at all!
* Ordered service for the dish due to low uplink. The tech showed up on time, yet did not know he had to do service, got rescheduled, does not show up. Haven't we had that before ????
* Tech support is friendly and courteous but incompetent and detached from sales and other corporate functions. In essence they can't provide tech support, mess up error tickets, don't get it fixed.
* I do like the 30 day guarantee and will likely boot them. I have no time and patience to for incompetent ventures.
* Billing sends out unfriendly reminders before actually sending the bill. Nice touch ...
Followup comments:  
software
@direcpc.com
| Recommend Direcway??? No Way!!! While I have a different DirecWay/HughesNet modem than you probably do (I have the DW6000) I am wanting to switch away from DirecWay as it has pissed me off for the last time. My download & upload speeds are fairly close to advertised (but then again I'm on the old 500/50 plan from 2004). What ticks me off is that if I were a NEW customer, paying the same monthly rate, I would be able to have a faster connection (per their advertisements)! It also sucks that my signal strength is below their own minimum strength number, yet after 2 e-mails, 1 live chat session & 1 call to their LOUSY tech support they still can't come up with any solutions and refuse to send a tech out to check out what's wrong with the equipment! I'm trying to get with WB but at the time my local installer is updating equipment so I need to wait until they have finished that before I can get away from my nighmare DirecWay/HughesNet service as it is getting worse & worse! | |
| | croden
join:2001-10-06
Ashville, AL | Re: Recommend Direcway??? No Way!!! seems to me that you are wanting something for free. You say you have a DW6000....that is 2 generations behind the current HN7000-S modem. Why dont you just upgrade your modem to the HN7000-S on your www.myhughes.net page. DUH | |
| MichaelRS
join:2006-06-10
Half Moon Bay, CA
|  Update to WildBlue vs. DirecWay/HughesNet
A couple of fundamental issues:
The spots, their claim to fame, are equally distrubuted over North-America. Surprisingly though, the population does not follow that concept. Yes, Anik-F2 is a TV satellite and not optimised or designed for upload, thus highly populated areas such as NorCal where Internet thirsty forgotten customers sit (no DSL/Cable) fill up the few spots targetting those areas. This is systematically flawed.
Further, I learned WB is charging installers back for cancelled subs. That is bad business practice if they (WB!) are responsible for the customer unhappiness.
Be warned!
Current situation. We ordered and got the Plus Plan on a .98, 2W dish from HughesNet with a HN7000S. Set on Satmex6, 1210. The internet is their and stable. Speeds are 800-1100 down and 50-210 up vs 1500/200 advertised. 76 signal at 62-63 crosspol. I do like the ability to look inside the modem and see what is going on. I am not happy that I have a huge dish and transmitter and continue to get mediocre service. The dish was commisioned in rain (very proficient otherwise though), which apparently does not provide for accurate pointing and crosspol so I am concerned about that and hope once the rain is gone that a new fine-tune would fix things. | |
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