WildBlue satellite internet, my backup to Lucy Liu

My conversation with a Qwest DSL supervisor yesterday went just about as horribly as I expected. When I asked why the 70 or so homes in our quasi-rural neighborhood just five miles from the Salem city limits, and two miles from the nearest existing DSL “crossbox,” couldn’t get DSL, he evaded the question. “We’d have to go through too many gyrations,” he said irritatingly. “So this is something we’re just not going to do.”

Well, thank you very much, Mr. Public Utility representative. Your dedication to bringing much-needed utilities to the public is underwhelming. To work out my frustration I dashed off a complaining email to the Oregon PUC, pointing out what I’m quite sure is the truth: Qwest is refusing to bring DSL to Spring Lake Estates not because it is technically infeasible, but because Qwest wouldn’t make enough money. The supervisor so much as admitted this when he told me, “Your area doesn’t meet our criteria.” Meaning, $$$ rather than $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

Unfortunately, I was told by the PUC that DSL is an interstate commerce deal and that I needed to voice my concerns to the federal FCC. Yeah, right. Somehow I can’t visualize Michael Powell making a mega-corporation toe the line on customer service (he’s too busy keeping breast-flashing off the airwaves to worry about little things like broadband internet access).

So my Lucy Liu/samurai sword fantasy (see previous post) was strengthened after talking with the unresponsive Qwest supervisor. But I have to be realistic, since Lucy and her band of Yakuza may not be available, even if they read my weblog and want to help out. Another problem is that Lucy and company aren’t as real as I would like them to be, being the product of Quentin Tarantino’s marvelous imagination.

So I’ve been spending some time (slowly) surfing the Internet, looking for alternatives to Qwest’s DSL. Starband and DirecWay satellite internet services are possibilities (a neighbor uses Starband and seems to like it). But they’re spendy. And I don’t get good intuitive feelings from either of these firm’s web sites.

I might be getting my hopes up prematurely, but an up and coming satellite internet provider, WildBlue Communications, looks more promising. Those of you out there (I recall WildBlue says there are 30 million of us) who lack access to DSL or cable broadband might want to get on WildBlue’s “priority wait list.” If their satellite gets launched in a few months as they expect, and the service is as good and fairly priced as they promise, this could be the broadband answer for me.

Unless Lucy Liu comes through. Lucy, are you reading me? I need you. I’m not getting any respect from Qwest.

Comments

[Keith]

This issue is of interest to me. I may be in search of a satellite service myself in the not so distant future. I do recall my accountant having satellite in her last home, so maybe I'll quiz her a bit and see if she has any vital information.

[Steve]

Brian,
I also live in Oregon, about 50 miles south of you in a rural area west of Eugene. I have no Cable TV (thankfully) and my phoneline on a good day would provide an undependable 19.2 conection. I too am waiting for WildBlue , but I have been on Starband for about 1 1/2 yrs. and can say that I have been very happy. I've heard all the complaining and read the news groups, but I can honestly say, that I got exactly what I expected from satellite internet and have been very pleased.

[Robert]

I am in the same situation. Remarkably close to DSL, but apparently not close enough and ALLTEL (the absolute WORST phone service you could ever have) is completely unresponsive and unconcerned. Before relocating my business, I specifically queried ALLTEL on when DSL would be available at my address. They said "spring of 2000, at the latest." It is now winter of 2004---still no DSL!

I'm putting my hopes into WildBlue as well. I just wish they would hurry up and start offering service. Or at least update their website regularly.

[Robert]

BTW, I'm looking forward to using WildBlue's satellite internet service and using a cell phone for my phone service so I can say "goodbye" to crappy ALLTEL for good!

[Gary]

I live in rural Oklahoma. I also am in the same situation, very close to DSL, but apparently not close enough and Valor Telecom (the absolute WORST phone service you could ever have) is completely unresponsive and unconcerned. Valor's phone service will only render 24.0 connection. So I am not surfing, I am slowly drownding.

Wild Blue sounds very promising, but is still being very vague about the rollout date. For all the money they are spending, you'd think they could give us a project date. THEN adjust that date as the day gets closer. I agree, it would help if they would update their website.

[Wildblue Satellite]

I will be a Wild Blue dealer. I am curently in the process of developing my website. You said "And I don’t get good intuitive feelings from either of these firm’s web sites" I want to avoid giving people this feeling. Can you tell me what kind of web site would make you comfortable and what it was about direcWay and Starband websites that you didnt like. This will be my first business venture so your input is very important to me. I need to know what real people want.

[Judy]

Dear Brian and Laurel,
My husband and I live just up the block from Spring Lake Estates. Our home is off from Stonecrest on a new street called Ankeny Hts. (We actually have a lovely view of Spring Lake!) We were wondering if you have had any success with finding a DSL provider that doesn't cost an arm and a leg and still works in our quit area of South Salem. Please let us know if you have found anything! Thank you for your time.
Judy

[Patrick Glasco]

Has anybody read the Fair Access Policy
Wild blue has posted at their website?
If you download 2 1/2 dvd movies a month
your service will go down to 128kbps down,
and 28kbps up. Probably about 10-20 hours of
a webcam would do that also. You get 10MB of
data transfer a month and then they slow you down.
It also states that they can change that at any time
and if they have to slow it down alot, does not say
exactly how many times, but they will disconnect the account, and you will be stuck with a satellite and no
service. Bottom line, Read it very carefully before you buy. Read the FAP and the terms and conditions.
They can actually up the price by 25.9% and you cannot cancel without a penaly, they also have the right to slow the service down if necessary because of bandwidth reasons.. think about it and then run away.

[Carrol]

Although the FAP does sound a little harsh you have to think aboutt the logic behind it. If they let people take up as much bandwidth as they like then the other users on the same beam as the bandwidth hogs will pay for it. For most rural customers giving up the ability to pirate a lot of media or excessively use a webcam is worth it, because on dialup you can't really do those things anyway. Your bandwidth usage limit is also corresponds to your package.

[Patrick Glasco]

For number one Carol, Nobody is talking about pirating anything. You can download movies legally by renting them
you can also download music legally by buying it.
Not everyone that likes broadband is a pirate or hacker
I work for an isp, and there is no limit on the amount of bandwidth or the time spent online..
Broadband was made to do alot more than send and recieve mail. And as far as the packages go for what you are getting, it is a complete rip. They do not have enough bandwidth to service the customers they think will sign up for the service..But Carol, If that is acceptable to you,honey go for it. When you get the first bill, then you decide.....Remember Just say no to fake broadband

[Robert]

Whoa, Pat, better go to and re-read the WildBlue Fair Access Policy. Under the Value plan, the amount you can download in a month is 10,000 MB (yes, MB), NOT 10 MB as you have incorrectly stated.

On the ProPlan, it's 22,000 MB.

And even if one were to somehow go over that limit (downloading movies is not a good idea, period, certainly not a good idea over a satellite connection) and have their speed reduced to 128kbps, that is still way, WAY faster than the pathetic 14-28kbps that millions of us are enduring thanks to crap telecoms like Alltel. When I take my laptop to the coffeeshop, I typically connect over their wireless network at speeds from 128-300kbps, and believe me, I would LOVE to have a 128kbps internet connection!

When the cable companies show no interest in investing in hi-speed networks, and phone companies show no interest in investing in hi-speed networks, and governments are actually passing laws to PREVENT municipalities and local city and county governments from providing free or subsidized broadband to their citizens to protect the monopolies and OUTRAGEOUS prices charged by cable and telecoms for broadband, then that leaves us with WildBlue, the only company that has shown any real investment and real commitment to providing customers who have been waiting to pay for high-speed with some type of high-speed service.

[Chris]

Patrick, you completely miss the point of the orignial BLOG entry and the ensuing posts. If your superfantastic ISP would actually provide wired high speed Internet to us we wouldn't have to worry about the FAP's of satellite providers. I'm certain 90% of us ended up on this site for the same reason because WE CAN"T GET DSL/CABLE/ISDN!!! and we were searching (using our dial up connections) to find a better solution.
Now, of the available sat based providers, WildBlue seems to be the most promising. Personally, if I could get DSL or Cable or even ISDN (but I'm not loop qualified according to Verizon) I would just because it is easier and cheaper. In my opinion, if the ISP you work for is losing business to the so called "fake broadband companies" either your service or your support must really suck.

[Patrick]

Actually the company I work for has enough bandwidth to service the customers they have. They do not have to lie to customers and tell them that they have a big pipeline and then cut people back because they want to enjoy the advantages broadband can offer a internet user.
The only companies that make limits are those with small pipes, and to pay for 10gigs of service at over $50 a pop
is ridiculous, especially, when it is said and done, will be no better than a dial up connection with an accelerator.
I get over 128kbps with the accelerator I use with my isp. And I pay $10 a month for it. And Robert, why would
it not be a good idea to download movies? I can answer that, because with WildBlue after you download 2 movies your bandwidth will be cut to 128kbps... WHAT A JOKE
Robert!!!
All you lamers who want to buy this service and try to make excuses for them, go ahead and do it. But if you read the FAP and the tos you will figure out that it will be the exact same service as Directway or Starband.
Now as far as the cost of broadband I know people paying
just over $25 bucks for 512kbps down and they recieved a free dsl modem on top of that... Not over $400 bucks.
WildBlue damm sure is not worried about the consumer,
the TOS is the most one sided TOS I have ever read.
Be real Robert. I hope you actually go and read it.
If you have both you and Chris need to again.
Of course you may even work for them I do not know.
If you do, I hope you have a resume, because with that
type of service, they will go under quick. And it is people like me that will work very hard letting people know how lame WildBlue really is.. just read the FAP.
And please read the tos. For you Chris that means
now read real slow,, terms of service agreement..
did you get that chris? Now read it lamer boy.
HAHAHAHA....!!!:)

[Robert]

Glad to see you corrected your post, Patrick. You originally stated WildBlue's bandwidth limit was 10mb, when it is actually 10,000 mb (that is on their cheapest plan also).

Sorry, dude, but "accelerated" dial-up isn't "accelerated" at all and it results in NO faster data-transmission or bandwidth...all it does is take advantage of v92 compression technology which ONLY results in web pages loading a little faster. If you are downloading a song or movie or file, you will have NO INCREASED CAPABILITIES WHATSOEVER. Don't believe me, read the terms under the bogus "accelerator" offerings...what an absolute ripoff.
Chris is right on target. WildBlue is for those of us who CANNOT GET and broadband connection. Where I live, I cannot get DSL, even thought crap-ass AllTel was saying it would be available way back in the 2000...that's FIVE YEARS AGO! And Charter has not extended a cable line even though I am literally surrounded by houses who have all asked for it!
I connect at a whopping 26.4 to 28.8 kbps Patrick. I have no desire to watch crap-quality movies that some moron videotaped at the local multiplex just so I can say I "saw it first" so I doubt I would ever reach the WildBlue threshold 10,000mb. Anyway, if anyone has WildBlue, please post what your experience is. Patrick doesn't have it and hasn't had it, so his information is pretty useless, and, I take anything you post here, Patrick, with a grain of salt if you mistakenly believe that "internet accelerators" increase your actual ability to send / receive FILES (um, like songs and movies) because THEY DO NOT - it's just web-page compression technology, dude, like get a regular ISP and get a v92 modem and any one of numerous FREE SOFTWARES available for download on the web and start enjoying free "internect acceleration" instead of paying an extra $6 a month for NOTHING.

[Robert]

By the way, you keep quoting price-points and speeds of DSL...dude, the point of WildBlue's business modes is because the telecoms are leaving millions upon millions of their customers out in the cold (especially in suburban and rural areas) because they aren't extending broadband access to us. Do you understand? It doesn't matter how cheap it is of if they will give us a "free dsl modem" if they don't offer DSL to us. It's definitely not a rip-off no matter what WildBlue charges if the service works and we can get SOME degree of broadband access...anything's better than 28.8 kbps. You stick to downloading the video taped copies of the latest releases, Pat, I need broadband access for my BUSINESS, not for games and movies.

[Robert]

I just reread your post, Pat, and let me add, that even if I did download some movies and exceeded my bandwidth limit with WildBlue and my bandwidth was CUT to 128kbps, that would still be LIGHTNING FAST compared to my current 26.4kpbs connection speed. I would gladly pay WildBlue or ANY ISP right now for 128kbps! Clearly you take broadband access for granted. Those of us who are stuck in areas the telecoms have neglected and are continuing to neglect understand...18-26kpbs SUCKS and even 128kbps would be a dream come true!

[Patrick]

Here is the big story, Patrick does not have to have the service to figure out that Wild blue SUCKS. when a business puts up a web site and lies about the service
that SUCKS. When a business says in the terms of service
agreement that they can raise the rate up to 25% and you cannot get out of the contract, that SUCKS. When a business states in the TOS that you only have 10gb of data download that sucks. Robert if you need hi speed for your business why don't you get a t1 line at your business. Or why haven't you signed up for Direcway service? Since you need it for your business, what your so called business can't afford a t1. If your business
is just sending e-mail that will be great, but if you start sending big files and you go over the limit, Wild blue is going to discontinue your service, you better read the tos and get a complete understanding of what it says. My gripe is not the service itself, it would be great to have hi speed internet, but I am not going to pay for a service that is going to restrict my usage, that sounds like AOL to me. I have had plenty of broadband, not in my current residence, but I never had to worry about how much I used and 128kbps is nothing
compared to 1.5. Just wait Robert and Chris, you will see. You must have had a bad experience with starband or Direcway, because they have been around for awhile now. You could have already had plenty of sat. broadband. Why haven't you subscribed to either one of those services? PLEASE, tell us why? It is going to work the same way, the latency will be there, you will not be able to hook up to a vpn, or play games, and streaming video will be okay but if it is using udp packets they are not going to come through the way they should because of the latency of the signal. So, do not think you will video conference with your BUSINESS, because you will not. I do not want the service to game with,
I want the service to go to school online.

[Wildblue Satellite]

Here is the first draft to my website www.mywildblue.com it isnt much to look at yet, in fact I build it myself using front page. I will hire a professional in the near future. I am looking for suggestions at this point.

[Wildblue Satellite]

Made a few improvements this week. Still much work to be done. Click my name below to view my wildblue site.

[Wildblue news]

I have been collecting press releases and news on wildblue and compiling them all on one page. click the link below to find all of the latest news on Wildblue.

[Lori]

Our neighbor across the road has Charter High Speed, and the neighbor next to them would like it, and we would like it too.. but the customer service respresentatives can do nothing, and give you a run around as to why you can't have it. Some representatives say it's not in the area... but our next door neighbor DOES have it. We (and the other neighbor) have been talking to them for months to get the same service. I can somewhat understand (not really) not being able to go across the road, but for a next door neighbor? That's rediculous. We want to be able to work from home and without WildBlue wouldn't be able to do so... we'll take our chances... their customer service has been great! They actually want to help someone who otherwise wouldn't be able to get something more than dial-up. We have talked to someone that has it, and he has been very pleased. WildBlue representatives have been more than happy to help with any problems or questions. He can't believe how quick the connection is.

[Jesse Lyons]

It really makes me mad when you hear someone who got on the internet last month and has always had broadband dictate crap to those of us who are misfortunate enough to have been lied to by Alltel and various companies alike.
A customer support agent at Alltel had the nerve to lie to me today and tell me I couldn't get DSL because it costs anywhere from 250 Grand to 500 Grand to install a DSL router and DSLAM at the local CO which is 600 yards away from me. Wild blue is the best service out there. At 10,000 MB a month that is 516 MB a day you can download 32 times faster then i can download at my measly 2k per second 28.8 connection.(i'm sure far faster then that, that is a very conservative number by wildblue, my friends has a 400 kbps connection through Direcway and often downloads at well over 100 K per second) Its a bit pricy at 49.99 a month but worth it to me, considering Direcway wants to charge 69.99 a month. For 69.99 a month with Wildblue I can downloas 22000 MB a month without being capped, which is 709 meg per day. And believe me if I do download that much and get capped to 16K + boo hoo... i'll still be way better off. Anyone who is moaning and groaning about Wildblue must be a paid Telephone company worker who is more then content on making us wait until 2037 to get Broadband.

[J Tanner]

I just had WB installed and am very satisfied. I can only connect with dialup between 16.8 and 19.2. I have had the service for about 3 weeks and have had no problems. I live in the south where we have pretty big storms, and none have knocked out my service. I have the cheapest plan and get very close to the UL /DL speeds at the rate WB promised. There is some latency with online games (Unreal / Quake) but surfing / downloads are great. I have Bellsouth as a local provider, and they told me it would not be feasible for them to put DSL in my area. (farming area). I am very pleased with the service, and the installers were very good. I know there could be bandwidth issues in the future, but I have seen cable in the nearest town (my mother in law has it..) WB isn't much slower than it. I have a friend that has DW and its much slower than WB. She's booting it when her contract runs out..

[Logan]

After waiting 5 months, WildBlue finally installed my service in November. Since I primarily work in photo & graphic design and own a small business I purchased the pro pack (small business package) at $80/month to get the 1.5Mbps connection with the 22GB threshold on downloads and 6GB on upload a month. In less than two months and after paying a hefty install fee the Pro Pack has been reduced to 17GB/5GB download/upload as part of a new service policy. All packages recieved a close to/or a 25% reduction in capacity. WHAT A RIP OFF! They sold a package based on speed and capacity and in short order reneged. I have to wonder what "adjustments" they will make in the future? I will have to advise caution to anyone looking to WildBlue to solve their broadband woes as this companty seems to have difficulty in providing the services they sell.

[Dave W]

I have noticed that the basic starband modem has only a USB connection. I appreciate that the WildBlue modem has a standard RJ45 port(ethernet)

[Drewman]

I would read about Wildblue's fair access plan. I have (not that wild) Wildblue. It really sucks if you reach your download and/or upload limits. You end up paying at least $54 a month for dialup speeds. I wholeheartedly agree with J. Tanner.

[Tim]

I recently had Valor installed in a new addition. I am a engineer and by far Valor is the most worthless company I have ever had to deal with. They lied about what they would do when they would do it and then they're tech was spine-less moron. Did not finish the job, then he lied to me, we had to call their dispatch center out of Texas. I can say with confidence if I did not have to use them I would dump them in a heart beat.

[Edward Norton]

We had WildBlue Satellite Internet service installed in our home in January 2006 and also had it removed in February 2006. There uptime is horrible. The downtime is to be expected due to weather (effect the signal) but every week for the nearly 4 weeks we had it, the satellite would go offline.

Tech support informed me on week one that they take the satellite down for maintenance. Excuse me but they cannot maintain a satellite! They can maintain their equipment (routers, servers etc) but even with that it does not take 7 hours per week to get this done. Even if the maintenance were an hour per week you will still not get the service your told you will get. Cloudy days, over cast days, wind and other natural variables will prevent your signal from getting through. We own several acres of ground and there are NO trees anywhere near our satellite internet dish. I have a log that is 35 pages long detailing the problems experienced in less than 1 months time.

I carry certifications for computer diagnostics, cabling (cat 3-5-5e & 6) & fiber installations. I am also Cisco certified so I know this to be a fact. There is very little to do maintenance wise on a server or a bank of servers since they are all raid array controlled and in the event of a problem one can simply hot swap the drives and there up and running.

At any rate, our speed was not much better than the dial up we had as far as loading page to page. There was a significant difference when downloading a file but not on the upload. Not enough gain to justify the $49.99 a month charge. Another thing that is not good about satellite internet is the multi-level service plans. For those that are not familiar with this it is simply the more you pay, the faster you go. It’s a 3 teer system.

When you get DSL (digital subscriber line) there is no such teer system or when you get cable internet there is no teer system. The only reason the satellite systems do this is because they are well aware that the other options are not available in their market area. They cannot compete with DSL and they certainly cannot compete with cable internet which allows speed near a T-3 connection!

It is now late June 2006 and we still do not have our refund as promised and the equipment is still sitting on our roof! BUYER BEWARE of WildBlue!

[Brian]

Edward, I'm sorry your WildBlue experience has been disappointing. It's working fine for me. (We signed up with GotSky, which perhaps makes a difference).

I've had to call several times recently about upload speeds, which were running in the 15 kbps area. Now I'm getting 140-160 kbps upload and over 1000 kbps download. That's what is promised with my tier 2 plan.

It sure beats 24 kbps dialup, what we had before. I'd go with DSL or cable if it were available. Never will be in our rural area, though, from what I understand.

[MIKE]

DOWNLOAD speeds are acceptable
UPLOAD speeds are terrible [single digits most of the time.
service dept is very helpful.
unfortunately the ball is dropped after your conversation with the rep.
NOTHING comes of any work orders.
they must throw them in the trash after talking to you on the phone,.
this is a company destined for disaster and your money will be theirs.
you can forget a WEBCAM,
because it wont work with most WILD BLUE connections.
[certainly not mine]
I guess I can kiss that money goodby and go back to my old 28.8 dial up.
and continue to pitch a bitch at CENTURTEL about not being able to receive DSL.
DSL service is 2 BLOCKS from my house.
they have NO plans of EVER sending DSL to my area.
I am on the BORDERLINE of their DSL service.

[Jose]

I am a new member of WildBlue. In this first three months, I have had nothing but nightmares!!!!!. I thought leaving a 14.4 modem hookup was a blessing, but now, I wish I had the old hookup back. WildBlue is terrible in speed, customer service, and follow-up. One example, I sent WB an e-mail for support on May 23rd, and just barely got a response today, June 28th!!! I called their phone tonight and had to wait for 55 minuttes before getting an answer. The rep. was obviously befuddled and quickly transferred me to tech support ( a nice tactic when you want to get rid of someone). After waiting another 20 minutes, the phone went to the original menu where you could choose yet another option for the "phone merry-go-round".

After two months of bad service, i.e. customer service, speed, etc., I think it is time to write local and national newspapers to spread the word out about WB's lack of service in ALL aspects. Although I am not a "litigious" person, I think I am going to file papers in small claims court to order WB to pay ME for their "breach of contract" for not providing services as described/promised. Afterall, they would not hesitate to ruin my credit rating if I did not pay a whole year's worth of (non) service.

[BarryO]

Wildblue's been working fine for me since the October timeframe. I had mind installed through Gotsky as well (Digital Connex in Portland).

Sucess if very dependent on a good installation, these are much more sensitive installs than DBS satellite TV. Also, I've heard in some parts of the mid-west, they've enjoyed greater demand than they anticipated, and the satellite spot beams serving those areas have been overloaded.

[Bonnie]

WILDBLUE stinks.

I signed up with them late May 2006. The service tech called and set up an appointment for setup. I called a few days later to reschedule. Approx. 15 minutes before my scheduled appointment the tech called and said he couldn't make it and would I mind rescheduling. I agreed. He promised he would be the one who came out.

The day of my appointment, I left work early. I live 22 miles from work. When I arrived at my house (on time) he hadn't arrived yet. I waited 20 minutes or so and called. He said he was stuck in Maine and he was sending his worker out. His worker arrived somewhat upset because his car broke on the way to our house. The entire time he was there he complained of not getting paid for 3 months and how his car broke and he didn't have any money.

My husband had assembled the dish before hand and also helped the worker. When they came inside the worker found that his battery on his laptop was dead. He had to use mine and floundered the entire time. I finally took over when he had to call his boss. I spoke with his boss and got it working. At the end the worker made a comment about how he had to finish out the order online but would do it tomorrow. Apparently he never did (I found this out later).

For 2 weeks I had a 50/50 chance of getting online. I called on a Saturday and spoke with tech services who called the customer service office to get a ticket generated so they could send someone to my house. During this time they found my account was never fully activated. At the end of this call I was told someone would get back to me in 24 hours.

Sunday rolled around....no call. Monday mid-morning (48 hours later) I called WildBlue to find out what was going on. The guy assured me that he would follow up on this and someone or he would get back to me by days end.

Tuesday morning rolled around and I hadn't heard anything so I called AGAIN. This time the woman put me on hold to call the tech. I asked her to tell him that I wanted him personally and not his worker this time. She left a message for him to get back to me. She also gave me his number and I left a message. He never called back.

I sent a long email to WildBlue explaining my 'adventures' with them. I didn't hear back.

By Friday I decided that WildBlue wasn't working out for me. I called on Friday, June 30 to cancel my service. I was told that I would find a return packing label in my box. When I got home Friday night there was no label. So, I called AGAIN. The woman I spoke to said that UPS would take the label that came on the box. I thought it was odd but since I rarely send packages I believed her.

Did I mention that we were leaving for vacation Saturday morning? We live 20 miles from the nearest UPS Store. When we arrived at the UPS store on Saturday we found that they would not take the package without a return label. After spending over an hour on hold I told they UPS guy to send it back to the return address. I paid the shipping. There was no way I was going to take a huge satellite box on vacation with me.

I called WildBlue on Monday to let them know what was going on. I called back on Wednesday to let them know that the package had arrived in Syracuse, NY on Wednesday. I also gave them the UPS tracking numbers for both boxes.

I called this morning to follow up.

My husband doesn't expect to get our money back. WildBlue says it takes up to 45 days. I will be calling weekly until then. If I don't get my money back by 45 days I will start calling them daily in addition to telling my story on websites such as this.

[Dirk Diggler]

I have had my system in rural Oklahoma about 15 Miles outside of a major city. It worked great from the start. The Installer from Cimarron Electric COOP was very good. I have only had it lose reception due to extreme weather 2 time in 3 Months, once was weather at the wild blue uplink. Works great with Limewire P2P.

[David]

Robert Said:
"It is going to work the same way, the latency will be there, you will not be able to hook up to a vpn, or play games, and streaming video will be okay but if it is using udp packets they are not going to come through the way they should because of the latency of the signal."

First of all, VPN's do work. I install Wild Blue , and have watched numerous customers log into their VPN's.
Second Point: Lantency will always be there with satellite, round trip the signal has to travel 143200 km, and is limited to the speed of light.So you have a built in latency of about a second. If you have access to cable or dsl, get it, otherwise Wild Blue is a good choice.
Tim said:
"When you get DSL (digital subscriber line) there is no such teer system or when you get cable internet there is no teer system. The only reason the satellite systems do this is because they are well aware that the other options are not available in their market area."
There might not be a TIERed system with your local cable company, but many DSL and Cable internet providers have tiered rate plans where you pay more for higher down/up load speeds. This is not an uncommon practice!
I am sorry for those that have had bad experiences with Wild Blue,it's providers, or more frequently, their installers. I am an installer myself, and I cringe at some of the stories I read. However, I wish to point out that these problems are not solely the bane of satellite customers existence. I had numerous problems with the install done by my local cable company. My advice, if you are thinking about getting Wild Blue, take steps to make sure your install is done correctly. In my experience, the quality of an install is of paramount importance in getting good service.

[David]

By the way Patrick, your arrogance and infantile name calling will not convince any one of your point, only that your opinion should be disregarded.

[Neorush]

So far I've been pretty impressed with WildBlue's services. My install tech was very knowledgeable, professional, and quick. I have the propak (1.5 MB/S down) and I've seen downloads around 300 kb/s pretty consistently. Latency is normally around 600ms which is crazy good for satellite given that space and back results in a latency of around 500ms to start. The service does slow down in the rain a bit, still working way faster than dail-up though, and I haven't had it through the winter but the installer said it will NOT work well, if at all, in a snow storm and I'll have to clean off the dish if there is snow on it. The only other thing that bugs me is that the service goes down for around 2-4 hrs once a week. I think this is more of a growing pains problem though. They are by far the cheapest to get setup with, attributed to using the Ka Bands instead of the Ku bands with a variable watt transmitter. This fact is also what keeps it more stable in the rain.

[Billy Ellis]

Well this was an interesting read. Sounds like a lot of angry folks out there who wish they had more than what they have. I admit that I suffered from much of the same frustration and anger over my Wildbule service at first. Their follow up is terrible. I guess I am one of the licky ones and was able to resolve most of the issues mentioned. One fellow mentioned that the quality of install is paramount for getting good service. He is absolutely correct. My initial install was improperly done. This was further complicated by the fact that the equipment (TRIA) was also disfunctional. After complaining to Wildblue and even threatening to close my account, they agreed to send a service tech out to check on my install. All my troubles were resolved by replacing the TRIA on the dish and realigning the dish to properly view the satellites. I have recently discovered that many of these TRIA's were apparently troublesome. If you are having upload and download issues first have a tech check the dish alignment. If that does not resolve the issue replace the TRIA. And, also keep in mind that this service is not a substitute for DSL or cable. It is only a better alternative than dialup. I am now satisfied with my service. What makes me satisfied is the fact that the only alternative I have is dialup.

Cheers,
Billy of Somerset, California

[Susan]

STAY AWAY FROM WILD BLUE INTERNET SERVICE! We cancelled after 1 week and were charged $80 for De-installation fees. Service was WORSE than AOL (slow, constant cut-offs). A Rock knows more than their customer service.
BIG RIP-OFF

[Jim K]

I have Wildblue service in GA due to the same issues as the others have posted, lack of choices. The service is OK as far as download speeds but getting from site to site is slower than dial-up was. Tech. support has been helpful so far but still the problems exist. I used the chat feature and chatted for about an hour. He was as helpful as he could have been. I am satisfied with WB for now but would like to see faster surfing speeds. When you do not have choices like others do satllite isn't that bad. I haven't come close to my limits for bandwith. WB is popular because it is cheaper than Hughes to install right now.

[John, McKinney, Texas]

I've been using AT&T's Wireless Broadband (RF-based links) since June, and have had similar problems to those reported here; and this doesn't bode well for WB. In fact, I escalated things to the AT&T corporate office, and they offered to kill the wireless service and pay for installation of WidlBlue's satellite service.

Needless to say, I balked, and suggested they offer me ISDN installation fees instead.

This AT&T Wireless "broadband" experience has been a nightmare, to say the least. It's note even the "real" AT&T: it's a company called "Blue Wireless and Data" (any relation?), who's rebranded themselves after AT&T paid them a fee to do it. Good name, horrible service.

For those who are told ISDN is "unavailable": federal law guarantees ISDN access, even to the point of laying in new phone lines to make it happen. They can't tell you "no".

As for me: I'm about to go back to dialup or go ISDN, becasue I'm stuck with a connection that is literally up 3 minutes, down 3 minutes, like clockwork.

[Nick]

WILD BLUE SUCKS!!! I wish I never heard of them. I pay $65 or so a month to crawl around the internet. My connetion is constantly interrupted.

WILD BLUE SUCKS!!!

Thank you.

[Lee Nimtz]

Stay far far away from Wildblue. They just did a system wide firmware update to all customers, doubling and tripling ping times and I have packet loss of over 50%. Page loads are worse than dial up, if they do load and not time out. They could care less about service, they just want to pack as many customers as they can on a over loaded system. Thats why they have you sign a year contract that requires them to provide nothing, but if you cancel they still charge you what remains one you year contract.

[Bradley]

Well, WildBlue does infact suck. A lot. I am finally getting towards the end of the one year contract. It will be canceled ASAP. My service only works 50% of the time. When it does work, it's much, much slower then what I paid for. I believe I am paying $70/Month?!? That's a lot of money for crap.

I suggest to all:

DON'T GET WILDBLUE!

Do you have anymore info on this ISDN law, you speak of?

[vi32]

Dont know what everybody is bit*hin about....I had my Wb installed by a pro and it works perfectly...a HELL of alot better than dial up...and I cant complain a bit...when u are down to nothing but 2k downloads on dialup, WB is awesome.
maybe u ought 2 check out your install? mine was done neatly and very professionally...and service is great.
If you really want no lag time, then go buy u a house close to cable or dsl....dipshit
I love it...no alternatives and all u do is bitch that it is slow....
lamer

[Annette]

I am going to file a complaint against wildblue. If I had known that it would only be a hair better than dial-up, I wouldnt have gotten it. After it was installed, the installer said, "oh by the way, it takes a while for web pages to load because of the satellite being thousands of miles away. Grrrrr....wished he had told me before because to have it removed would have cost $80. I went up to the next level thinking it would help, but there wasnt much difference. I get really irked when I see commercials for high speed internet for $15/month..and since its not available where i live, I have to pay $50/month for wildblue.

[David]

Wildblue is a piece of scrap. When my contract is up, looks like Hughes for me. I have been a premium user since it was installed, and for the most part downloads are good when it runs. I always get the same answer: we are working on your spot beam, the weather has been a problem, instead of being truthful and saying that their service sucks! Example of being off was this last week, it went down 15 times since Sunday, not bad for their standards being Weds. I have had the modem changed, a new tria, and new wires run.

[Portland Oregon]

I should have known that wildblue owns wildbluesucks.com They must have known this from the start ;-)

This service is a complete waste of money! Stay far away from wildblue. Your better off with dialup at 10 bucks a month, than the frustration of having 20lbs. of crap hanging off your house that doesn't do squat 50% of the time anyways...

I can afford to pay till the contract is over, but I am leaning toward cancelling my visa and getting a new number.

I think a class action suit could be in the works for wildblue. If weather is an issue to recieving satellite, why do they roll it out in the Pacific Northwest? I knew there would be a few "hiccups" here and there, but days without a signal "because it's raining?".

Hell, this is Oregon! It's going to rain all the time.

Needless to say, I am completely dissatisfied, and I just hope someone out there thinking about getting Wildblue runs far far far away!

WildBlue Sucks !!!

[melinda]

Hi,I just tried to get wild blue installed and it was bad from the get go.First i had an appointment to get it installed,they called me the night before to change their appointment for morning instead of afternoon,which would of been great the faster the better.Well their morning turned out to be afternoon,2 1/2 hours lateri get a phone call that their lost,i only live 3 miles out of town.When they got here there was no apology for being late,no hello,and then just what i didnt expect was him to say he couldnt put it where we wanted it.So we told him we have a pole and a digger truck to mount the sattelite on and he said that was fine.My fiance went to the shop right behind the house got the truck and the pole was back in 10 minutes or less and when he came back they were gone.I tried calling them to find out what happened and they wouldnt answer their phone.I couldnt believe what just happened.I couldnt even get anyone at the office to answer the phone after that and i know they were open til 8pm.Needless to say i dont have it and with service like that i dont need it,and reading these reviews im glad i dont have it.But now im stuck with the same problem DIAL UP.I live in the country in northern minnesota and 2 miles away they have dsl/and highspeed and about 15-20 people on this road are desperate for high speed internet.
thanks for listening
melinda

[Radical Dan]

PING 12.189.32.61 (12.189.32.61) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=0 ttl=59 time=2582 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=1 ttl=59 time=1582 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=2 ttl=59 time=1145 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=3 ttl=59 time=1280 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=4 ttl=59 time=1122 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=5 ttl=59 time=1135 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=6 ttl=59 time=2429 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=7 ttl=59 time=1989 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=8 ttl=59 time=1546 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=9 ttl=59 time=1109 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=10 ttl=59 time=1194 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=11 ttl=59 time=1154 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=12 ttl=59 time=1093 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=13 ttl=59 time=1223 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=14 ttl=59 time=1340 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=15 ttl=59 time=1150 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=16 ttl=59 time=1182 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=17 ttl=59 time=1461 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=18 ttl=59 time=1580 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=19 ttl=59 time=1140 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=20 ttl=59 time=2414 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=21 ttl=59 time=1974 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=22 ttl=59 time=1530 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=23 ttl=59 time=1100 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=24 ttl=59 time=1102 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=25 ttl=59 time=1121 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=26 ttl=59 time=1093 ms
64 bytes from 12.189.32.61: icmp_seq=27 ttl=59 time=1223 ms

--- 12.189.32.61 ping statistics ---
30 packets transmitted, 28 received, 6% packet loss, time 29000ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 1093.088/1428.745/2582.212/437.029 ms, pipe 4

6% Packet loss over a WildBlue connection in less than 30 seconds...Nice... I am 16289 feet of wire from the DSL switch but Verizon tells me I am too far away (I walked the wire, I know I am not) but because I bought my house after verifying DSL was available here and once I get moved in its not available I had to have something. I got WildBlue (I will be modifying this dish in a few months when I cancel service) because I need the broadband for my business and so far it has been nothing but trouble. I no longer handle my own account, I have an attorney that i pay to take care of my business needs and he deals with WildBlue. As you can see above in the post the latency is between 1 and 2 seconds. This is enough to cause many common internet apps to disconnect. When i first got the service the latency was still in the 600-700ms range but in the past few months it has jumped up to an unacceptable level. When i brought this to the attention of tech support they insisted it was a problem with my computer and would not offer any help because I use Linux. I got news for them. I have been working with networks and staellite communications for longer than WildBlue has been in business and I know these systems really well. 600-700ms ping times are typical, 800-900ms pings are acceptable and anything over 1000ms is considered a serious network outage condition. When a network starts having 6% packet loss in such a short time as seen above its a good idea to start looking into whats wrong and where. Bottom line, and my expert opinion, WildBlue is a bad choice. Save yourself the headaches and stick with dialup or smoke signals, avoid WildBlue at all costs. As posted previously by another poster, WildBlue sucks and for the record I have been working with a law firm to get a class action suit going against WildBlue. it is my goal to cause WildBlue so much hassel that they have to sell out to someone else and go under. Not only does the wuality of service suck but the wuality of customer service is unacceptable in ways beyond compare. It took me nearly six months to et my phone number corrected from a typo. I recently changed the account I use to pay business related bills and provided WildBlue with new debit card number and as of right now they have not drafted my payment from the account even though my account cycles on the 13th of the month, and its now December 25th! Yeah, WIldBlue sucks.

I advise anyone who has the service to contact an attorney ASAP and discuss options. You may be able to get your money back on the hardware and a refund for the poor service.

[Concerned Human]

From the looks of the Beam geography/area of coverage it wouldnt be very hard to supply customers with a reliable "unlimiting" internet connection, but were dealing with a business with itself in mind not you/I. The only reason FAP exhists is because these companies crowd thier geographical coverage area with users, no matter what the suggested Beam limit is in GB of Throughput. So why not get people who dont read the contract to sign up for a year and have a FAP system to limit bandwidth so that it appears these companies can fit more people in these geographical areas without running into customer phone rants daily about how their internet is not performing well. To me this system of limiting bandwidth is false advertising, not false as in they didnt tell us, but false as in "you" are not getting 1.5MB down and 256K up. You are getting 17GB down monthly and 7GB up monthly(these are just examples thrown in there, but are quite close to policies i have seen). When bandwidth is restricted this way it really shows how a company can advertise one thing and completely betray in a different manner, and of course we see who the benefactor is. yes its true this system does help the 90% of the people who dont cross the FAP, but what of those people who use a highspeed connection for thier employment or even someone using remote desktop features that take bandwidth, but i dont even have to justify this...its what we should get, and were not getting it, this is why these companies say thier equipment is not VoIP compatible, it is compatible, but not practicle because of horrible latency crossing the 1000ms range constantly. if you have other options that satelite....run, if you dont have anymore options demand a release of the FAP program and a better equipment upgrade from the provider with the million given to them every year.

[Bill]

WILDBLUE SUCKS! DON'T ANYONE GET IT!!!
I sent the following to the BBB in Denver. Don't know if it will do any good.

I subscribed to Wildblue satellite internet services back in 4\06. I signed a one year agreement with them as a internet provider. The service with them has been less than acceptable from the very start. The installers failed to set the system correctly resulting in multiple disconnects. After numerous calls to their support department I finally received a service call to my house. This service call took over a month for a response. I had no service during this time. I called and complained again and demanded a refund for the month without service. They finally agreed to a one month credit. After the service call from a local dealer, the dealer installed a part on the dish that was never put on to begin with. The service man then aimed the dish again and it seemed to work better. Better until the first rain started. Service then degraded rapidly. I have been without serice most of the time since. A call into support last night did no good. The support person said there was nothing he could do, that I was out of luck. He said to call back tomorrow and talk to someone else. I called today and talked the support department again and the person told me they have had numerous component failures with their dish and modems. Another service call has been set up to attempt to fix more problems with my system. I don't have a date for that repair. I have had to set up a dial up internet account for email because Wildblue cannot be depended on to work when I need it. I feel I should be compensated for services not rendered to me.

I was cancelled today on the service call. They said they can't get any parts(my TRIA needs replaced they say).
I called tech support last night and was on the phone for a hour. Did no good at all. He said to talk to a supervisor the next day. I am wanting to get my contract ended early due to the lack of service. I told the supervisor a clas action suit needed to be started against them and he said he could no longer talk to me and hung up. Guess I will call an attorney tomorrow about it. Bottom line is don't get wildblue!!!!!

[Greggvt]

Do not subscribe to Wildblue. Please go to epinions.com and pull up the url:http://www.epinions.com/msg/show_~threads/cat_id_~9/id_~4917/forum_id_~172/pp_~5/sec_~forums

Or General Computers and Technology/Wildblue Satellite. We have also found many posts concerning a Class Action Suit, but epinions (112 posts) just about captures all the feedback you will need to make a decision. We had no other option in rural mountainous Vermont, as well and were happy (had we known) just to get away from dial up!
Best in your search! Gregg

[Jo]

I have been waiting over a week for an installer. I contacted them on my installtion date which was set for the morning and they later changed it to the afternoon. Then later that day I called in and they said they would not make it due to weather. So they rescheduled me for the following Monday. If it takes this long to get an installer out here how long will it take if I have technical problems!? I later called them and told them I wanted to cancel and they told me they would not refund me the money for the dish which they took out of my account the day I signed up for $299.00 and I would still have to pay for a full year of service which is another $264. I have a problem with a company that takes your money and takes there time installing and telling me that I broke the contact.

WildBlue is another Directway HughesNet. Now I am stuck with a dish and no service. I would never do business with WildBlue or HughesNet again.

[SRW]

Jo,
Did you even sign a contract yet with Wild Blue? If they haven't installed it, you should be able to get out of it without any problems. Even if you did, you can cancel in the first month and get your money back from your credit card company. If you paid for your service or dish with a credit card, you can call your credit card and dispute the charges. Tell them what the problem is and ship the dish back if you have it. The credit card companies almost always side with the card holder. You can get up to three months of bandwidth fees back too.

I have HiSpeedAnywhere. You can find them at http://www.hispeedanywhere.com
They're more for work-at-home people. The systems cost more, but you get what you pay for. You can also run VOIP (phones) with the service. The one they offer you have unlimited calls to anywhere in US or Canada for around $30 a month. I call an online friend in Canada.

The bandwidth cost aren't bad at all. I'm rarely down and when I am, it's usually only for five or ten minutes and that's generally only during severe rainstorms.

[Greggvt]

I was double charged for a site visit by Wildblue: the installer arrived checked the system/pings were high and upload & download times were low. He indicated it was working efficiently and charged me $100 and went on his way. This month there was another charge of $75 on my CC from Wildblue. I called and was told that was the fee for a service call. There was no service call-I spoke to Tech support at Wildblue and had to call the installer myself. I am now waiting for a supervisor to return my call......something needs to be done concerning Wildblue and the lack of service and product....

[Alan]

DO NOT GET WILDBLUE!

I just have to add my disappointment with WildBlue to the huge list already accumulating!

I've had it for 14 months, which at least means I should be able to cancel without penalty -- if only I had an option. I might just have to live with dialup until ClearWire (cell-based broadband) or the DSL/Cable companies get their act together.

My most recent issue is the FAP policy. When I signed up for the Pro Pak ($85/mo.), it was 22 GB/mo. Shortly after, they dropped it to 17 GB/mo. I've been averaging 6 GB/mo. but after downloading all the new Microsoft software (Vista versions and Office 2007 apps for my business), I noticed my connection was crawling, went the the WildBlu usage graph and found I was at 18,320 MB for the month. I am now paying $85/mo. for 80Kbps down and it'll be like this for over a month -- until my monthly total drops below 80% of 17 GB!

A day later, I went to look at my usage total and it's 320 MB higher than yesterday. Do you really think I downloaded that much at dialup speeds?

Their metering is apparently very flawed and I hope the class action lawsuit against Wildblue does happen. I'm all in.

And anyone that says you can use VPN or do online gaming over WildBlue is smoking something. Yes, I can connect with a VPN connection, but Remote Desktop over VPN is SLOWER THAN DIAL-UP!

Don't base your opinions on having the service for a month. They will make sure you're happy for that long -- until you can't cancel the service without penalty any more. After that, the company could care less about you -- all they care about is your money. Greedy little basturds.

I know their contract says you cannot take part in a class action lawsuit, but does anyone know if that can possibly hold up in court?

Thanks for letting me vent! :)

[Jo]

I signed up for service on January 5, 2007 and after waiting one week they called and said they had to reschedule the install appointment.I tried cancelling but they said I owed them for 12 months of service. At that time I had never seen or signed a contract. They said I could cancel but I would still owe them for 12 months even if the dish was never installed. They told me they do not except returns on dishes that I was stuck with the dish. I tried cancelling but they said I was under a contract They rescheduled 5 times and finally they installed my dish January 22, 2007.Right after the guy left the modem would boot me offline. I called them the next day and they told me they would send another guy out to check on the guys installation. They also claimed I used all my bandwith in 3 days when I was on and offline all week the first week. The same guy showed up to check his own work. He called his tech support using my phone and they both agreed that it was the Tria without checking if it was grounded right. So they replaced the Tria. He also told me if he takes the Tria back and they find nothing wrong they usually reuse the parts for service calls. On his way out the door he said to me that you know the company knows when you are on and offline. I told him I know and I know when I was booted off by your equipment. Less than an hour I was having the same problem so I called Wildblue and they setup and appointment with Johnston Communications. So I called Johnston Communications to confirm the appointment time with Jan. Then her supervisor Jennifer jumped in the middle of our conversation and started yelling at the top of her lungs chewing me out for calling the BBB on Johnston Communication for improper installation and charges. She said that know one in her company took a dime from me. I wrote a check to the tech for $125 for parts that I thought came with the dish when I paid WildBlue $299.00. I desided to cancel and WildBlue tried taking the remaining balance the said I owed for the remaining 11 months. My service never installed properly and they told me that I was unable to get out of a contract a day after the dish was delivered to me. I don't believe I should have to pay the remaining balance after spending over $499 for one week of service and at that time I was only online for 1o to 20 minutes at a time. They also calimed that I went over my bandwith in 3 days after my dish was up and running so the knocked me down to dial-up speed for 30 days. Also it is fraud when you try to attempt to take money out of someones account after I verbally told them they did not have my permission to take the money out of my account. This is not the first time this company has done this to there customers.
Contact the National Attorney General if this company has frauded you out of money. http://www.naag.org/

[Scott Levengood]

Folks,

It seems like we're all finding ourselves in a similar situation here. Rather than just mentioning a class action law suit, I think its time we organize and take a serious look at how to accomplish our goal. WildBlue has given all of us a raw deal and there are too many of us to deny it. I will consult with an attorney either tomorrow or the following day. I would ask that a couple more of you do the same and report back here in the next couple of days. From there we will try to come up with a plan of action. I can be reached at [email protected] if anyone has any further suggestions.

-Scott Levengood

[Becky]

I got Wildblue installed in January 2007. The tech was here for 8 hrs and could not get it working. He finally decided that we would have to call c/s in the morning to get their help. he wanted us to sign the contract before he left (its policy) he is not allowed to leave without it. We told him he had bette find a comfy spot because we are not signing into a 1 yr contract for something that doesnt even work. I have a home based business and the internet is very important to my business. Everyday I am down I am losing. So we tried over and over and it didnt work. So I called C/S explained the situation, spoke with a supervisor and told her I no longer wanted Wildblue - she also told me I was locked into it for 1 yr or I had to pay for 1 yrs charges because I was locked into a contract. I inforned her again that we never even signed the contract. She said that as soon as they installed it - contract signed or not - we are locked in. I have never heard of a contract without signatures being binding. I ended up getting them to waive the 12 mths fees but I had to pay for the equipment $300 - equipment that never worked. So I said fine w'll see. I wrote a letter to the Denver Headquarters - never heard back so I went online and filed a complaint with BBB of Denver. Very very easy to do I was surpirsed. Within 2 weeks I received a email back from BBB with Wildblues response which was that they were crediting my credit card $300 for equipment use.

TAKE THEM TO THE BBB of Denver. THEY SUCK

[Linda]

I wish I had checked into this site before getting wildblue. It really does SUCK. I on;y use the Internet about an hour a day and the constantly bombard me with auto e-mails telling me have gone over my band with what ever that means. I was even gone for 21/2 weeks and when I booted up there was another one so I emailed them and told them I was tires of this crap yada yada. I received a call from them telling me they had made a mistake that had not even used 1/2 of my band with and this would be cleard up-and would not happen again. The very next evening I was greeted by another wildblue auto mails saying that I have again exceeded my bandwith and they had no choice but to slow me down. I wrote back asking them how could they slow something down that was at a crawl to begin with and I would be getting rid of them in aprox 2 months. This provider is really horrible. My time is to precious and definitely not renewable. No one should have to fight a provider every day just to use the net.

[Wayne Hall]

The only service Wildblue offers that really works is the montly payment they get from their sucker customers. They don't know what customer service means. Before you waste your money check out all the blogs about Wildblue, I bet 99 out of a 100 are negative. Before paying them for their so called excellent service, buy stamps at least you know what you are getting.

[Tony]

I have had Wildblue for almost a year now and am very UNHAPPY with the service. The FAP limits imposed are unrealistic for todays bandwidth needs. Service is frequently disconnected either from weather or too many users at a given time (which will only get worse as more subscribers are added). The latency problem frequently slows data transfer to just above what dialup would be. Frankly, once my contract is up I will discontinue service. If you just tend to use email and surf the internet occasionally and you have no other options then this absurd service is for you. A better alternative would be to encourage the development and deployment of wireless services, possibly WIMAX technology, or wifi towers. Incidentally, My research into Clearwire (company using WIMAX technology)has shown little promise since newer better cheaper technologies are being developed at a fast pace. The rural internet user market is for want of a cheap efficient solution and we cannot rely on corporations to deliver. We must develop solutions ourselves if we want fair efficient internet service.

[Wild Blue Sucks, don't believe wildblue employees good mouthing um here]

We had just started wildblue this month. After 11 days the service died completely. They said the tuner broke. THey sent a service man 5 days later. He replaces the tuner. The service works for 1 hour, then it works off and on for 8 hours, then it dies again completely. After reading some of the reviews here it looks like process will keep looping. Ontop of that you got Horrible service, bait and switch contract, evil bastard corporation. Some one needs to Alex Jones them!

[dan]

my sister in law had Wild Blue installed and the installation went terrible the installer told them they would need a pole put in the ground and showed my sister in law and husband where to put it and then left. When the Installer returned he said the distance to the computer was too far and asked her to move the computer she said no way. The installer completed the install and soon after he left the service went down.
My sister in law called Wild Blue and they sent a different company from another state, this company fixed the bad installation and now everything has worked well for over a month. I will be getting this service myself as it is great compared to dial-up.

[Elizabeth]

YES- WildBlue sucks! Had their "service" installed and from the start it kept dropping me. I figured it was just me and I'd get used to the way the system worked. Wrong, it kept happening over and over. Call to the local provider Whitford Communications solved nothing. They told me it was my computers fault. (a brand new top of the line laptop). Then they said it was my aintvirus, wrong, I was using the Wildblue antivirus software. I had made no additions or changes of any kind. They said they could come out for a service call but that it would "cost me".
When I purchased the equipment for 299.00 I gave them my credit information and the kid who installed it ran a blank draft, onto which I printed WILDBLUE SATELLITE EQUIPMENT. That was ALL that that draft should have been used for. Unfortunately the following happened.
After speaking with a neighbor friend about the service he said he was still willing to give it a try and said he would be willing to take over my account. Before anything was done, he contacted the WildBlue headquarters and was told I could do a onetime transfer to another location(as if I were moving) no problem. HE got authorization to remove my equipment and set up an appointment with WildBlue to do the re-install. HE gave WildBlue his credit card information and assumed all was in order. Once the installer was there they said he would have to dig a trench through one of his corrals and put up a metal post to hook the equipment up on. He did this and set up another appointment.In the mean time the local vendor called me and asked why I had cancelled my service. I TRIED to explain the circumstances to no avail and finally had to hang up on his insistent repetative inquiry.
In the interim, for some reason I received a whole new set of equipment from WildBlue!
I want to make it very clear I NEVER ASKED FOR MY ACCOUNT TO BE CANCELLED. Nevertheless a few months later I found a charge on my CC bill for $799.00. Whitford Communications said this was for cancelling my service and not completing the one year service agreement.He had written in below the information on the original CC draft and entered the 799.00 amount. When I contacted WildBlue headquarters, they said there is no such information of this in my file and that my service was now SUSPENDED and that I owed THEM some $325.00 for unpaid months of service. I have persued this through my CC company and after showing them an altered credit card draft and the contract which I agreed to sign ONLY after the INSTALLER modified it to delete the $799.00 disconnect fee. The local vendors response was to lie and say I had tampered with the agreement when it was out of his installers sight. To date they have given him my money and it appears the only way we are going to get resolution is to sue. When I mentioned to the vendors assistant in their office, that I would sue to gain resolution, he said "Fine, go ahead. We've been sued about a dozen times already and we always win!" (Lovely way to run a company!)

[Dr. Dan]

WBRES089048 was my account number. I got no actual help from wildblue support. One guy said he could see that I was online, when the entire system was disconnected from power at the source. I tried talking on the phone numerous times, and only once did one tech admit that there was likely a problem on their end, and that they had been experiencing difficulties. To everyone else, I was a pest, and it was always all my fault. They treated me like a total moron, but never actually dealt at all with anything I complained about. I stopped calling, and began emailing. This also got me absolutely nowhere. I finally pushed buttons by repeatedly contacting middle level management, so they disconnected me...the weekend before my last month with wildblue was even up. I was seen as a total pest, and completely ignored.

I am no amateur, and kept close track of my FAP usage. It was not even close to the usage they showed for me. I then used their own information, to check it out, and guess what...the usage they reported still was wrong. According to them...I was wrong. I used up my total FAP one time in a week, using WiFi 802.11g, when the service was down for most of that time. Wildblue is seriously over subsrcibed, and they use the FAP as a scam to cover it. New Year's weekend, they were down the whole time. Does that tell you anything?

They cancelled me, not me them, but still are trying to bill me. Now they have billed the installer, and he proved to be as arrogant and condescending, as Wildblue Tech Support. Mark A. Smith at Morgan Satellite (Green Bay, WI) is another reason, that Wildblue will fail to compete. He is as arrogant and cavalier as Wildblue tech support. He is now whining that I should have let him in on the problems, so he could have helped. However, he is clearly also a recipient of most of the emails I sent, vainly trying to get anyone's attention. He was in the loop, but chose not to get involved really. He is not the kind of person who should deal with the public. He tends to send me flippant cute sayings, very condescending (downright insulting), and act like he has said something significant. Then he simply turns me over to a bill collection agency..."and that is the caboose on this train"...cute! Both he and Wildblue, have become very difficult to take anymore, in big doses. Neither of them has heard the last from me.

Nothing I say has any validity, and anything told me, is gospel. I am not an idiot, and do not appreciate being treated as such. There was only one tech, who did not approach this as though everything wrong, was all on my end, as a starting point. Without her input, this would have blown up long before it did. Every other tech I dealt with, was entirely useless, and well below my level of competence. All they were doing was a game of CYA (Cover Your Ass).

After months of searching for remedies, I sent tech support an email, and this was the response;

"I think our pathological spammer is back."

Do yourself a big favor, and stay completely away from WildBlue.

[Mike]

Wildblue’s satellite technology limitations, the “bent pipe” as it is called coupled with Wildblue’s desire to make sure that the bottom line is maximized.
The “bent pipe” if you can imagine the USA as one large rolled piece of cookie dough with one little round cookie cutter knocking out pieces as close together as possible so as to not waist any dough. That’s the “bent pipe” this technology limits the number of users per circle. Now, to overcome the limitations they “Wildblue” have perpetrated a fraud upon paying subscribers with the so called FAP policy “pure spin”. This policy has been instituted only to cover up the out right theft of paid for bandwidth. Yes that’s what I said theft; you are punished for efficient uses of you’re paid for subscription package by “Throttling” your connection. What is “throttling” you say. The bandwidth that you are supposed to get is stolen from you so they can squeeze in a few more paying subscribers all under the guise of FAP “Fair Access Policy”. This “throttling” of your connection is basically choking it to less than 1/3 of what you pay for. Their supposed 512 kbps down and 128 kbps up package rate is cut to 125 kbps down and an unbelievable 23 to 25 kbps UP! Hell, you can’t even upload a small text file to your favorite website, I’ve tried. Hardly better than dialup because of the severely choked UP rate. Their technicians refer to this as “a FAP condition”. If you pay for a 512 kb pipe then that is your limitation, neither DSL nor Cable choke their connections this way. By downloading or uploading only a few files, to much surfing, and deleting the files stored in your browsers cache requiring the re-loading of a web page or web sites that you visit. All these things can cause you to easily exceed these ridiculous limitations. Your bandwidth is taken from you for 30 days or more. All the while you get to pay for bandwidth you can’t use. They ignore your requests to cancel service and try to sell you more expensive packages instead. Half of their helpdesk people can’t answer a technical question and their favorite response is to have you call into their main number so you can be put on hold for 30 minutes or so. Don’t even think about WildBlue as a high speed access choice.
WildBlue wants you to use “ www.toast.com and www.testmy.com “ test sites for determining your connection speed however, these test sites use small packets, these small packets will falsely indicate your connection speed. A better test would be www.speakeasy.com/speedtest there large packets are used to test your true connection speed. Why large packets; the internet is a high bandwidth “pipe” using large amounts of data “large packets” so only test at sites witch transfer large packets. Sending a mouse down a small pipe may work try sending a rabbit, your connection gets choked. Once again Wildblue puts “SPIN” on their explanations to trick you into thinking wow they are looking out for me. Nothing could be further from the truth they are out to deceive their customers so they can increase their bottom line by crowding their “pipes” with more users than their “bent pipe” technology is designed to handle. By the use of “throttling” WildBlue can re-distribute unused bandwidth to even more paying customers.

[ron]

It's amazing to see all the comments. This first started with a man on a quest to find internet in the sticks. I have had WildBlue for a little over 2 months, now. I am very displeased. I have had numerous outages. The customer service & technical support lines are 0ver 40 minutes to answer, if they even answer. I have been on hold for over 1½ hours with no answer, and I gave up & hung up. The only way I can seem to get in, is to call the sales department. They are happy to answer the phone. I am on the newest satellite, I live in Missouri, my server is out of Laredo,TX, which they have issues with on a regular basis. I'm sorry to complain, there are positive things in life, too. Have a good day.

[john strnck]

i just got wild blue- i have NOTHING good to say about it, only that i had my much faster AOL dial-up back, quite frankly, im even surprised i got on the web this time- it usually takes a LONG time to get through-- now if i stay connected is another issue, im also stuck in what looks like a cemented contract- these guys think of everything to put the screws to you, 1 final note, my out of state installers were at here midnight putting a dish up, without the support brackets, and a faulty tester they had to keep cutting and replacing the leads- stay away from this place

[Rick]

Don't do it ! You are doomed to 12 long months in the house of pain if you enter a contract. I can't begin to tell you how absolutely the rip off will be if you hook up. The initial install was done wrong. It lasted 7 months so I got stuck with 75 $ service call. Took all day. That service call fixed the problem for 72hrs.. Had to call them ...1hour 20 minutes !! to talk to someone !! Another service call another day GONE. Called to end service after 12 lonnnnnng months. Another 1.5 hrs !!!!! to talk to 2 people and end contract. They will not provide a written bill and just take credit cards. Don't do it,just dont. P. s. if you do it get on : speed matters .org and check your speed. If the speed your paying for is not there complain but it is at least ONE HOUR to talk to someone. I think they are near melt down in Colorado because it takes f...o...r...e.......v....e....r to get through.

[Lorri Atkins]

Another angry WildBlue customer! I specifically needed something better than dial up for a home office. I spoke with sales, asked all the right questions, but obviously didn't get the right answers. I hate it and can NOT wait until my contract expires. Further more,I do think a civil lawsuit is appropriate.

[Damion]

I am considering putting a class action suit against WildBlue for misrepresentation of service and unscrupulous business practices (lying to potential customers).
I am trying to gauge interest in such a suit from others.

Please email me at damion [at] mscoast.net if you may be interested in becoming part of a class action against WildBlue.

Blog Owner: Please forgive me if you do not wish this to be here - I just saw many other unhappy WildBlue customers that are locked into contracts and getting the screws put to them just as I am.
I have had Wildblue service for two weeks and they would not let me out of a contract at 1 week!

[Jim]

I am done with WildBlue. I have put up with their lousy service, customer support, and an installer that never follows up on service requests. I just had it out with a so called CSR this morning. No call back numbers, no e-mail contacts, etc etc..

I will follow up with the Denver BBB and would be happy to be party to any class action suit that is filed. This company needs to be put out of business.

[Jeff]

STAY AWAY FROM WILDBLUE!!! SINCE 4-23-07 I HAVE BEEN ON THE PHONE WITH THEM AT LEAST A DOZEN TIMES.. THEIR SERVICE IS NOT WORTH $8.00 A MONTH MUCH LESS 80.00

GOOD LUCK TO ALL

[Ron Parker]

Wild Blue is horrible, we had it installed for oue home and business, (two different locations) doesn't work well at either. We had trouble with the system dropping the connection and we would start over. Work for minute and then lose your work or connection and have to start again. Sometimes it won't even sign on. I paid for the eqipment outright because the installer said that if we owned the equipment we wouldn't be tied up in a contract. WRONG!!!! We can't get out fot 12 months. We did finnally get DSL at our office, but our home is too far out. DON'T SUBSCRIBE TO WILDBLUE, IT IS TERRIBLE. TAKES AN HOUR ON HOLD TO TALK TO ANYONE! WILDBLUE SUCKS AND BLOWS AT THE SAME TIME!!!!!!!
Ron in South Arkansas.

[Rye Burns]

The truth about Wild Blue: Here's an internet service that you can get anywhere, and It's this much faster than dial-up, but just don't use it ok and by the way, promise you'll pay us $7000 before you leave sucker.

[Joe Perry]

I have had Wild Blue for about 6 months and have tried to get issues resolved about no connection or slow connection and I personally believe that my dish is not aimed correctly but I have not been successful in getting a tech here to take a look at it nor will Wild Blue even think of it!!! They suck!! When I first tried calling them the hold times were 30 to 45 minutes and finally I just gave up and decided to e-mail them through their website and ther would send a reply e-mail saying that they coulnd't help me unless I called in and actually spoke to a representative. What kind of catch 22 crap is that. If anyone knows of a class action suit I can get in on please speak up.

[Harold]

I believe that (http://www.ipinternational.net/mobile.php) mobile satellite internet connections have really allowed businesses to grow in ways they would never been able to had these businesses been stuck with a cable, DSL, or dial up connection. Granted most of the mobile businesses we see today are smaller companies usually with only a few employee’s but I’ve seen some of these small companies balloon into medium and even larger companies thanks in part to the mobile internet technology. Being on the road for business is no longer a problem. I can remember hauling my laptop around with me but being unable to access the internet until I got into an office of some sort. Now I can work in the car, bus, plane or train.

[Patricia L]

We are another victim. I just looked at my dish bill too, and they are charging me 199 per month for the wild blue service....the fight begins.....

[Craig Reagan]

I'm celebrating as my Wild Blue commitment is finally over! During my one year sentence I suffered through 6 weeks of no service due to faulty equipment and no available service person in my area. The bonus is YOU get to pay to have their crappy equipment fixed. When it was working the speed was so bad I tended to only use it when absolutely necessary. It’s been a totally miserable, frustrating, and expensive experience but I still have hopes WB will eventually get what’s due them. In the mean time I can get some satisfaction using their dish as a target holder at the range.

[dmary]

Well, I am so glad that I looked into Widblue before I took the leap in what looks like neverneverland .After reading all of the blogs and how unhappy Wildblue has made all of you. You can be sure I will not even give them a flying flip. Just have to stay with my slow dial up..not great but at least dependable. Thanks all of you for helping me make the right choice. Wildblue " NOT "

[jackiebass]

I've had Wildblu(Dish network, Ecostar) since 10/2007.The download speeds are acceptable , about 2/3 of promoted. One of the problems is the upload speed only 1/3 of the promoted speed. Also I loose service at times for no apparent reason. Their e-mail is worthless. Customer service is horrible. They don't respond via e-mail. I have better things to do with my time than to spend on hold over the phone. They own the equipement and they only warrent the installation for 60 days. After that they charge a service fee to provide what you are already paying for. If you cancel early they charge you $25 per month for the time remaining on your contract. Cable is coming to my area in the summer of 2008. At that time I'll ditch my Sat. T.V. , Sat. internet and my Verizion all of which suck. I wish that I stayed with my dialup internet. I agree that there should be a class action suite for unfair business practices. If you read their contracts you will see that they hold all the aces in the stacked deck. A web camera doesn't work. I suggest that you stay with your dial up if Sat. is the only other option. You will be spending a lot for very little extra.

[Andrew]

SERIOUSLY PEOPLE GO WITH ANOTHER COMPANY OTHER THEN WILDBLUE. WORST NIGHTMARE EVER!!! TOOK 5MONTHS TO HOOK UP INSTALLERS CAME BACK 7 TIMES CHARGED ME HUNDREDS I HAVE NOT BEEN REIMBURSE AND FOR $80 A MONTH DIAL UP IS VERY CLOSE TO THIS SPEED. IM FURIOUS WITH THESE GUYS AND HAVE REPORTED TO BETTER BUSINESS BUREAU. SERIOUSLY HEARD A DIFFERENT STORY EVERYTIME I CALLED. MUST HAVE LOGGED 200 HRS ON THE PHONE WITH THESE GUYS. WHAT A JOKE!

[pksnyder]

I am and Oregonian who needed something faster than dial-up. I am very unhappy with my WildBlue--it was very expensive to install and though I download no movies or anything I am constantly having my speed reduced because of "excessive use". The service is not reliable and customer service of little help. Make sure you have a responsible dealer with technicians who are not so underpaid they leave on a constant basis. I will ditch this as soon as DSL becomes available.

[Lana]

Wildblue is WAYYY overpriced for what you get. Although I'm paying for their highest speed, I feel like I'm back on a 56K phone modem. The installer came 4 hours late, ripped us off (said we needed a pole--for another $80--when we have lots of roof space,) & pierced the water main to our house. In dispute, he said "no I didn't," which was good enough for WB. Within 2 months, a sinkhole opened under that corner of my house & I had to pay for the repair, myself. When I installed WB's anti-virus on my laptop, it put it into an endless reboot cycle. If I were not computer savvy, this would have cost me lots of time & money to fix. E-mail "service" (& I use that term loosely,) sucked BEFORE the "merge" with Google. Now it blows dead goats. I now get 200 spam e-mails per day & have to use more bandwidth to check my mail (so WB's FAP will potentially kick in earlier.) Their instructions for reconfiguring Outlook don't work (by their own admission,) & even if they did, they've sold my address to spammers. No response to my e-mail to them yet, of course. We'll be shopping around for a new ISP, I assure you. Wildblue totally sucks.

[Melissa]

Our biggest issue with wildblue is the FAP. They constantly told us we had gone over our allowed amount. We thought it was impossible that we did, but maybe we didn't know what everything amounted to, so we bumped up to the next package. No sooner did we do that then we began cinsistantly showing even higher bandwidth usage than they had orginally claimed. With no changes on our end so we downloaded a bandwidth monitor. So far we haven't even come close to using 200mb a day and that's with as much use as we want! Most days it's sitting at about 100mb a day! Their FAP claims are obviously bogus! Oh and that rebate we were promised if we signed up for them? 7 months later, still haven't seen a dime of it applied to our bill. I call once a month to inquire, they say it's still processing. Criminals all of them, no wonder they joined hands with Dish network, they're the perfect couple. bogus charges, never seen money owed and lying customer service reps... we're going to have that cleared up for you immeadiatly... yeah right, I've heard that song and dance one too many times from them both at this point. Can't wait until my contracts are up for both. Dish suggested I put my bank account on file with them..I laughed and said why, so you can pilage my account just like you did my credit card months ago? grrrrr.

[Gary Politzer]

Say away from Wild Blue! I signed up & deeply regret it. Speed varies between slow and dead stall. This is their top-tier, $79/mo service! Their web site is useless, and Mac users can't even log in. They locked me in to a 2 year contract on false pretenses. Stay away from Wild Blue. They are 100% a scam & a ripoff. Don't believe me? Just Google, "Wild Blue Sucks." They are so bad, they have a bunch of enraged customers planning a class action lawsuit. Wild Blue's attitude is, "Ha ha, you signed an airtight contract, now shut up & bend over."

[nate30]

here is the deal do your homework-be a good consumer and not just assume anything...ask questions as soon as possible not at the last min.
there are good techs out there and there are bad ones
there's a saying...you get what you pay for
so...make sure you understand what you are getting before you commit...and if you do ...commit prior to the tech comming out
here is a doc that I created for the purpose of informing my customers on all the in's and out's of what to expect- including the all missing picture that no one seems to carry with them as I do most of the time....or even the average prices expect to pay http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgdnw4cq_0g6959pcm

[Grims Taroeel]

OMG. Don't go with wild blue satelite internet service. I just thought I'd give you fair warning. Here is the outrageous situation. The Contract!

Contract:

You only get a total of 16 GB of download in a 16 month period of time. You pay 800 dollars for that. The limitation is like this; you can only download 4 dvd's worth of information in your contract period. If you violate that you are in access violation and breech of contract. PLUS YOU PAY $800 FOR 4 DVD's and YOU HAVE TO WAIT 16 Mo. TO GET THEM ALL. IN FACT YOU CAN ONLY GET ONE DVD EVERY 4 Mo. AT $200. Fact of the matter is they have it set up to where you have to violate the contract when you don't even know you did this. You call them up about your connection being slow. heh. They tell you they put a cap or LIMITATION on it. YOUR INTERNET IS NOW YOU PAYING $50 minimum a mo. for LESS THAN 56k DIALUP SPEEDS. Just thought I'd warn you. They screwed me. And i have to cancel and find other service as my work requires broadband and my internet with WILDBLUE is less than 56k most of the time. A $400 charge to cancel. You sign up for a long term period ON CONTRACT. You must complete the contract or you will be charged a HEAFTY HEAFTY fine.

IF ALL OTHER BROADBAND SERVICES ARE NOT AVAILABLE ---- GO WITH AN ISDN broadband service. You have unlimited transfer with those. ISDN will save you some money. some = LOTS! There is a dual 56K totaling 112K unlimited transfer deal for the price of two striped down basic phone lines and the two 5-9 dollar internet service fees. This is a good deal if no other broadband is possible. You can watch youtube and listen to streaming music with this service, I think. Check into it.

[Jeff Stweart]

A warning to Wildblue customers!

I have had Wildblue satellite service for a year and two weeks. My origional contract and warranty expired after the first year.

Yesterday I was online and service dropped, not uncommon, so the first thing i did was check the weather because anything more than a sprinkle and you can count on service being interuppted. Weather was partly cloudy but not enough to interrupt service so i rebooted our modem(just unplug it for 15-20 seconds). It did not regain signal so i called technical service to see if there was an outage in our area(because you not only lose service if its raining on your end but if its raining on their end also!).

When the tech finally came on he went through the normal security check and then brought up my account. He had me reboot again while doing 'something' on his end and had me plug the modem back in. Still no service. He then informed me that there was a 'problem' with our dish that he could not fix remotely so it would require a service call. Since our warranty had expired two weeks earlier we would have to pay $95 for the technician plus any parts and labor.

Immediatly i was on guard and argued that it was only two week out from a year, that if their equipment suddly fails it should be covered and I was not about to shell out more money. We went round and round and finally I refused a service technician and he informed me that if i wanted to continue Wildblue service i could call back and schedule the maintenance call.

I discussed it with other family members and since we were already unhappy paying $60 a month for service that was barely better than dial-up, that dropped every time it rained and had constant periods of varying lag(I game on line and you cannot imagine how annoying it is to hit a key in an important situation and have nothing happen for 4-5 seconds!) So we decided to cancle and just go back to dialup because the is no other broadband option in this area.

I called Wildblue customer service back and informed them of our decision. They wanted to try technical support again but i refused saying i was fed up and just wanted to end service. They first tried to convince me otherwise then finally sent me to a service rep to start the cancellation procedure. After 4 or 5 minutes with her my modem miraculously came back online and service was restored! I informed the lady working with me on cancelling and told her I'll keep service for now. We are cancelling at the end of this pay cycle but decided to use the rest of this prepaid month because of course we would not be reimbursed for the next two weeks.

Was it a scam? I certainly think it was. Nothing physically had happened to our equipment obviously, and how easy is it for them who control equipment and programming from their location to fake an error and get customers to shell out extra cash on top of their already ridiculous prices? I used to work in computers so have a good understanding of how things work so wasn't pulled in by them but how many other customers just never realize it and end up giving up hard erned money to Wildblue?

Disgusted with the state of things,

Jeff Stewart

[Install_pro_sat]

i am an installer for wildblue (ind.contractor) HughesNet-DishNetwork-Direct tv--and am truly sorry for the many dissatisfied posters here and at other sites similar to this----the common threads i find are --horrible installs(customer not willing to pay for a pole mount-if you get a scrupulous installer-the pole should be at least a quarter inch thick wall and a min. of 8 ft tall)the poles are not a part of the standard install, these cost the installer as well as the extra time involved-if the system is installed properly it would not drop when it sprinkles---also i have read posts where it is strictly obvious that the person did not read the contract-or service agreements very well BEFORE the install--in my experiance these type of customers are the ones who always expect the install to happen in 10 minutes and are shocked to find out what all needs to happen for the system to work properly----#1 on my requirements is never mount to a surface that is going to move in any way that i cannot control( a pole that i mount in 120 lbs of concrete minimum) any ROOF mount will move---the ROOF was not built structurally to hold a 35lb dish absolutely still constantly , make sure of what your buying---make sure the installer knows what hes doing(you do this by actually doing RESEARCH into what your likelly spending severall hundred dollars and even more in your time good luck people and have a good day

[James]

Yeahyeahyeahokay. The hits just keep on comin’, right shills?

As I write this we’re about six weeks into our own WildBlue experience.
We moved from a less rural area where we had DSL, 3 glorious years of pure speed and unlimited research, plus YouTubing, DVD downloads, auto software updates are nono’s, info podcasts, FTP website maintenance, no music no to speak of, zero gaming, zero kids, but many of the things people have come to expect from the internet and with any of the advanced delivery techonologies. 24/365 if I needed it. Prior to that, during bachelor years, it was dial-up, dating back to 1995. No. I mean decent dial-up. Significantly more respectable than what WB knocks you down to if you innocently violate the Fair Use Policy.

I understand bandwidth management and can imagine the costs of satelite placement and technology but I believe what’s at the bottom of this dissatisfaction is front loaded investment recuperation, not long term service. The 2 year commitment deal is slapped on top of this while they market the whole thing as delivering a comparable service. You expect the 2 year commitment is not so much extorsion but a “fair” protection against chronically impossible customers.

As someone who’s followed website development since ’95 I’ve often kept an unwritten assessment of how much “fatter” webpages have gotten. More sophistication equals more bits of code. From basic HTML to Php Db driven stuff. On dial-up you quickly learn internet “bandwidth” means something entirely different than a spot on a radio dial broadcast. So I know the diff. While planning to deliver a website in snappy fashion I learned the importance of keeping things lean as possible for a dial up market. I mention this because it speaks to the sophistication of modern website gluttony. And I only have to interrelate that - to my estimation that WB is basically being cautiously stingy on the value spectrum. The cost of launching an adequate satellite upgrade - would presumably run into million$.

Need to back up a tad. Our move to a more rural area never included homework on whether DSL was available. The new house was, afterall, not in Kasikstan but in the contiguous 48 (northern New England is hardly insulated from telcom mergers and other such big fish eating up smaller telcom fishies. DSL could happen in a heartbeat most places). So we presumed (okay ASSumed) that some flavor of broadband would be available at some juncture in our lifetime, if not already a simple phone call away once settled in. It wasn’t.

New next door neighbor had $90 Hughes package. After choosing WildBlue and after first WB bandwidth FUP crash “penalty” we upped the package from basic $50 to medium $70 Select (to no avail) - and then to Pro Package.

I am writing this offline right now because even at $89 tier, I could easily max out our allotted bandwidth if I so much as exceeded 70% of my alloted download rate per day.

A post WB commitment research eyeopener was finding Hughes offers two packages ranging even higher upto a $300+ /mo scheme.

There are marketing and regulation aspects to this discussion which I believe any class action suit against WildBlue might need to consider. Screw the fineprint. Legal does not necessarily equate to ethical. If US citizens become relegated to reading all the fine print of every modern contractural agreement to exercise simple caveat emptor, we’d all end up with behinds as wide as top of the line RVs.

........................

It is only to be reasonably expected from every satelite provider ad I have seen, that their technology has kept pace with modern bandwidth expectations.

Otherwise such advertising would be better off promising you get 83% of DSL speed, but only for an average of 3 hours per day. Tops. Considering the premium paid over average DSL pricing, WB’s ninny 30 day rolling download guage is a flippin sophomoric college prank on consumers, a few of whom expect nothing short of a truly ethical “fairness” policy.

It is clear that WB investors and WB consumers are being played against one other in an infrastructure plan (for satellite internet delivery) that exludes any timely plan to sustain and broaden internet access for average income households within rural areas.

Many anti-NWO advocacy sites suggest these pricing-bandwidth schemes are being orchestrated to slowly exclude most rural USA citizens from full participation and access to information that was originally based on the principle of fully free access enabling of the citizenry to the American dream.

Perhaps we are witnessing something quite contrary or juxtaposed to the original internet founding principles and to other certain founding principles of the republic.

Why should any party, any party willing to pay such premiums and agreeing to contract with a presumably reliable free-market commercial venture, not have access to better publicized understandings of how the current service will grow - however eventually - into a set of more reasonable expectations for full, DSL-comparable service? Especially given the 2 year commitments. Those commitments seem designed to provide an allure of a long-term equitable business model, but only to naïve investors.

I hope that uhm er, computes, to anybody who feels their voice might still count, or is slowly being diminished, during this pathetically “great”, “great” dumbing down.

[Midget]

For those of you on here with dial up and are thinking about Wild Blue...DO NOT DO IT! We have had dial up for about 6 years because we are rural.
Two weeks ago we signed up with Wild BLue, Three and a half weeks to install.
Here is the real deal, we have a desktop cmputer and two laptops. We do not download movies, music or watch stupd videos. BUT....I work on my genealogy, which is why I paid for "high speed internet".
Now the truth of the matter is after two weeks of service we were FAPed...meaning we went "over" our allowed usuage. We have bee connected at 21K for years and for the lousy speed of dial up you can spend 20.00 a month and surf forever, download forever. It just takes forever.
We payed 300.00 for install, 49.95 for budget package, have been knocked down to 128. Lighting compared to dial up? Not if you have a router because it wont even get to your laptops that are wireless because the speed is to slow. That means..."Internet Explorer cannot load the page"
We asked about a 30 day sastifaction, there is none. It will cost us 435.00 to get out of the TWO year contract. Which I thought was one year, and thats bad enough.
Dont deal with this company, because if you are surfing a page with all kinds of crap running across the screen and newsclip links at the bottom of the page......thats YOUR bandwith rolling!!

[Roy]

I live on a farm in Central Texas (between Abilene and San Angelo.) I've had WildBlue for 3 years and I have their premium service. I pay $85 per month and I can state that the service runs (on my Macintosh) nearly as slow as my previous dial-up connection. It runs a tad faster on my VAIO laptop, despite I run the laptop in a wireless configuration and the Mac is hardwired Cat-5 into my router.

If you have a Mac, you';; be exceedingly disappointed in WildBlue. And for $85 per month (you have to factor in the tax in this bill) you'll wonder why your friends living in a city get blistering speeds for $30-45 per month and yet rural folks are getting soaked (as I am) though WildBlue. As soon as a competitor hits the market, I'll bid WildBlue farewell.

[Ken]

Midget, you must have something else going on sucking your bandwidth. I download videos every night. On top of that I download 2 to 3 movies a month. Every month. I download large update files, music, Pictures, Video, every day. I've been doing this for 2 years, and I have only been WARNED about approaching the FAP one time. Remember, they WARN you before they actually slow you down.

I consider myself an above average downloader, and I have no issues with Wildblue's FAP.

[John Mackles]

Wow, this is an old page but I'd like to comment.I have had service with Wildblue and agree with your views. So often I feel like people start complaining about a specific company when it is just satellite internet in general that they don't like! if you live out in the country you just have to deal with it. I get service from Calera (http://www.calera.biz) right now and it's ok. It's satellite internet! need I say more?