mruksurf
Premium
join:2004-08-21
Atlanta, GA
| HughesNet's "Unlimited" Access
Hughes advertises "unlimited" access to the Internet. What this means is that you will always be able to "get to" the Internet; it does not mean that you will always be able to make practicable use of the Internet. This is because of Hughes' so-called "Fair Access Policy." (What an oxymoron! It should be "No Access Policy"). If you download more than a certain number of *megabytes*, then you are basically put in "time-out" for the next 24 hours, meaning that pages load very, very slowly and forget trying to download or upload anything. Of course the number of megabytes you may download or upload depends on how much money you pay to Hughes. And, it's my take that the whole Fair Access Policy gimmick is designed to drive you up the price scale as you become more and more desperate to use the Internet you become willing *to pay and pay* for continued availability of high speed access. But, even at $89.00 per month, which is what I pay, I can only download about 400 megabytes in a 24 hour period and I still haven't figured out my upload limit, though we were gigged on it a couple weeks ago. Bottom line, I find that between my wife's business use and my use we are in time-out every other day that we at our wilderness location. The real kicker is that we seldom use this location on Mon through Thursday most weeks, but of course Hughes' "Fair" Access Policy doesn't take this into account.
Our next step up the Hughes price scale jumps to $119.00. This is just too much. So, I just went out and purchased a USBConnect 881 card (sometimes called an Aircard). I also purchased a Wilson Electronics cellular signal amplifier and a couple of antennas which I intend to install this weekend. It's my hope that I can pull in a 3G network, use ICS and tell Hughes to take its Fair Access Policy and shove it. So far, I've used the USBConnect 881 *while riding* in a car on a road trip and in the hotel. It works *very* well, seems almost as fast as DSL. So, I have hope!
I really think Hughes may be ripe for a class action, as well as a successful complaint before the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs for its trade and advertising practices, which in my view are of very questionable legality. In my case the Fair Access Policy seemed to appear out of nowhere years after I had signed up with Hughes. Certainly had I known about the FAP I would not have signed up with Hughes. |
Agreed! HughesNet is the worst company I can even imagine doing business with. 
Don't waste your time and money.