Review by Klamathon - Location: Hornbrook, Siskiyou, CA, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Big Files Load Fast regular connection and packet losses Good for software updates and graphic files but little else
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THIS IS NOT BROADBAND IN THE NORMAL UNDERSTANDING It is an alternative to dialup that will allow you to download large graphic and software files. If you use ssl or https sites you will find dialup slow but much more reliable. Anticipate 5 or 6 disconnects per day on ssl and daily reboots of the modem for web browsing. Packet losses in excess of 10% are common on northern California beam 21. member for 17.6 years, 31 visits, last login: 16.6 years ago lodged 17.5 years ago
Review by xAV8driver - Location: Exeter, Tulare, CA, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
decent download speeds upstream and latency it's a heck-of-a-lot better than everybody is professing on these reviews
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I moved out of town and had to ditch my Comcast cable provider....Satellite was my only option. If you make decisions based only on what everyone is saying here I would not have gotten it. I only got the 512kb service and have consistantly been getting that. Frankly it's better than I thought if would be. You have to be patient when clicking on links, it's not gone be instant like cable (latency). Once stuff starts downloading it's pretty quick. If you like to download lots of video, you are probably gonna be disappointed. If you just surf, you are gonna be very happy when compared to your other options....Dial up.... I had a great installer who was very knowledgable. have not had to deal directly with WB. Ordered 512kb down/128kb up - first speed test was 508K down/50kb up $49.95 member for 17.5 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 17.5 years ago
Review by bkrahmer - Location: Sandpoint, Bonner, ID, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Good throughput Bad tech support, recent NOC outages Stay away for now....
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I had been having good luck with Wild Blue. I've been a customer for about 9 months. In the last week, there have been over a dozen outages that can last for anywhere from 15 minutes to several hours. Each time I've been 'online' at the time and called them, they've had the message on their phone system that they are aware of the problem and are working to fix it. That wasn't good enough for me, so I tried to get some answers today. After talking to six people, including the call center manager (and three hours on the phone!), they refused to tell me what exactly the problem was, when and if it was going to permanently be fixed. To me, this shows the level of dedication they have to serving their customers. Unless they can get their network operations centers stable again, I suggest STAYING AWAY. They have me locked into a contract for another 15 months with a $400 penalty if I cancel. member for 17.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 17.2 years ago lodged 17.6 years ago
Review by RCC4 - Location: Osawatomie, Miami, KS, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Is decent when it works. Poor installation, then no way to get anyone out for a repair May be attempting to use Kansas lemon laws to get out of contract.
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My dish was installed while I was at work, my wife was present, but did not climb the ladder to see the loose bolt, and mess. I called WildBlue to have someone come check it out since we were having to reboot the modem daily, it took 3 attempts to contact anyone, staying on the phone for over 2 hrs. each time, then giving up and leaving a message, which was not returned. I finally contacted tech support they said they would create a ticket. Two months later, I decided to attempt to call them again, since no one had ever contacted me to do anything with the "ticket". After MANY failed attempts I was able to contact someone about our intermittent internet (the modem was needing reset daily, and if it looked like rain we would loose connection until the sky cleared). They again assured me someone would contact me regarding service. It has now been 6 months that I have "had" WildBlue, and the service has quit completely. I called and was lucky, and was able to speak to someone on the 2nd attempt, but they were laughing with coworkers, and did not enter anything "into the system", so after 3 days waiting for someone to call us, we called back. There was no record of the call, and so we had to tell them everything over again. Now we have been 9 days without service (second light blinks in pairs, indicating a uplink problem), and have not been contacted for a single service call, even yet!! I think I can honestly say they suck!! One "tech" actually told me I am "on beam 21", I live south of Kansas City, and Beam 21 is for California, I believe. I have all of my phone calls with them recorded, so I can prove what I say. (Kansas allows phone calls to be recorded if one party is aware of the recording, so we record all of our phone calls automatically via our computer.) member for 17.6 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 17.6 years ago
T4K join:2002-03-13 Fort Lauderdale, FL |
T4K
Member
2006-Sep-7 7:18 am
Connection went too crap here too.Recently with not a cloud in the darn sky. The signal DIES. An ours was actually installed pretty damn well. Then two months later, it turned in to utter crap. I use to get 200KB/s downloads I am well below my cap. I am like 45 percent below. So I think I am going to call them and cancel. $80 of crap services is not worth it, if dial up can work in the rain! Let's not forget my evdo card which connects at 153kbps stays on all night. I can deal with that much better.
You're right it was great when it worked. Now I have this crap on my roof that I have to scaple up some crap to cover the holes on the roof that this useless service cost me. | |
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BLane
Anon
2006-Oct-27 6:03 pm
Don't buy thisI've had my service for a little over a month now. So far, so bad. Download isn't bad, but I don't download for 8 hours a day, I surf. It's waiting 20 seconds for a page to load up that bothers me with this "high speed". If it rains, even a little, service is out, if the wind is blowing 10 mph or more...out. I called on the 28th day before I could cancel (without a cancellation fee), the rep told me to let someone come out and try to fix the problem first. I asked that even though it's going to be past my 30 day cancellation date, will I still be able to cancel. The rep said "yes, you won't be charged, in fact, I'm going to look into getting your first month refunded to you". Wow, thanks! Tech comes out does a "realinment". Service still slow. I call 2 days later and tell them I do, in fact, want to cancel. My answer was "sorry sir, I don't have anything on record showing they said that". Bottom line, I'm screwed, if I cancel, I'm charged 600 bucks, if I keep it, I have to pay 600 bucks for the rest of the year for crappy service. I'm not saying everyone has a bad experience, but I'm saying I have. The "reps" don't keep records of phone calls. I would avoid these people at all costs. | |
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Review by Vintage1445 - Location: Yazoo City, Yazoo, MS, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
When it works its good service Too many to list Company sucks
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Have had the service (or lack there of) for 1 month and a half! It seems they like to rip people off with the metal pole in the ground scam ($150.00) ! Plus the tria isnt water proof , the cables are not the authorized size and therefore work sporadically ! The worst part of this company is the fact that there are three companies involved . One is Wild Blue , the other two companies consist of a sheduling company and then technicians company thats three separate companies and none of them are on the same track , I scheduled service through Wild Blue got an order number ,the scheduling company never recieved it ,this is how they treat you !And they bill you for service not done ,even though the contract says not to be billed for service in the first 90 days! Then theres the scheduling company , they schedule you an appointment , make sure your there between 8:00am and 12:00pm they show up at 5:pm , apon arrival they dont have the proper tools or equipment "sorry ,I'll have to come back" . On the second appointment , the evening before there arrival they call and cancel , then they call the next day and tell you they will come out the next week , when asked I say "well you cancelled on me , I should be next in your appointments ," they respond "sorry cant do that " ,then next week comes and they cancel again , yep thats right two weeks ,they dont coodinate with Wild blue , WB doesnt know anything other than the fact they were supposed to be there on the first day they claimed and thats what it shows to them and they just assume it was fixed! No sir this company sucks! Those of us in the "sticks" are screwed , but wait , I guess we should just buy Directwav at the outlandish price , ! Almost forgot , Wilblue charged me a $75 investigative fee , I asked what that was for and they said , when they have to come to my house for service they charge that and I said "thats after the 90 day agreement, its been 30 days " , she says,"oh, thats right, Ill take care of that" they dont know anything and always assume its the buyers fault, there techs are idiots , I work in sysadmin , Ive never seen so much bs in my life! The basic service is a slotch lower than ISDN even though it should be 512k member for 17.6 years, 1 visits, last login: 17.6 years ago lodged 17.6 years ago
Review by Dougdawg - Location: Douglass, Butler, KS, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Great installer, reliable connection None so far Far better than the wireless ISP we had
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About 2 1/2 years ago we went from dialup to a wireless provider that had just started up in the area. We were the fifth or sixth house installed after they got their tower up and running and we were thrilled to be able to get decent internet service. The decent service lasted about three months, then turned into a horror story. In the last six months our 1.5Mbps advertised speed topped out at about 300kbps and dipped down into the dialup range, when it was working. In the afternoons we couldn't connect at all. Calling customer service got a full voice mail and we couldn't even leave a message. We finally got fed up and started looking for an alternative. The Sprint Broadband Direct tower is too far away. Our local electric cooperative was installing Wildblue and several people in our area were very satisfied with it. We were worried about the latency and from past experience we knew that advertised speeds were nowhere near actual. I called on a Monday, the installer was there on Tuesday afternoon at exactly the time he said he would be, and we had service that evening. We've had it for a week now and everything has worked great. Advertised speeds are very close to actual speeds and it is usable any time of the day. We have the Value pack now at $50 per month and I'm really wondering how much faster the higher levels are. Watching the FAP usage now and it looks like it should be OK with the value pack so I can't use that excuse with my wife to try a faster level. member for 17.6 years, 49 visits, last login: 17.4 years ago lodged 17.6 years ago
Review by cmordecai - Location: Columbus, Lowndes, MS, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
The dish is small...will make a good target for my 30-06 when my contract is over. Horrible ping, outages all the time, poor customer service from Wildblue (not the Co-op), lousy equipment, etc. DO NOT fool with this company. Get Direcway or Hughes...whatever it's called now.
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*RANT* I was a customer of Direcway for almost 5 years. In that time I had trouble with Direcway and suffered outages. But in those 5 years I never, NEVER felt as ripped off as I do with Wildblue. Why did I switch? Because Wildblue was getting great reviews in January and it was about $20 cheaper for the basic service (which is not as good as Direcways). And my equipment was getting some age on it. I was looking at having to update my dish and box to the dw7000 and figured I'd save a little money and go with this company. I can say that it was the biggest mistake I've made this year. I see alot of people giving this company points for being faster than dialup (when it works). But that is being too generous. I'm on dialup right now because this company is having another one of it's outages. But this is just my rant. I'll get down to the meat of the review. *POINT #1* Ping time: when it works it's ok....averaging about 650ms. But when it's like it is today you end up with time outs and pings averaging about 1700ms. The worst i'd ever gotten with Direcway was 1200ms when it was messing up. Average was 700ms. So, for 50ms average savings I've lost connectivity. *POINT #2* Outages: From May till July I experienced major outages and timeouts. At the time I was too busy with work to have a tech come out and look at the system. But when he came out it was a bad TRIA on the dish. This is a normal problem with this system. Some people have had them replaced every 3 months. Something to do with water/moisture getting in the unit and messing it up. That's not that bad if they fix the problem and part that keeps going bad. What I think is bad that they knew the part was defective but continued to install them. *POINT #3* Costumer service at WB sucks from what I've read and from my experience with them. I've been lucky enough to have had a Co-op install my dish and service so I can get them to replace stuff pretty quick when it goes out. But that's got nothing to do with WB. That's the electric Co-op's service. Sure with Direcway you might not talk to someone that can speak English well, but at least they'll try to help you get the problem resolved. I spent an hour one night with them about something that wasn't even a service issue, I was just trying to find out how their NAT worked. They were very patient and helpful. *POINT #4* The equipment is crap. Cheap made crap. The dish has a plastic elevation adjustment bolt. WTF?? In 2 years it'll be dry rotted and broke off. The TRIA has already went out on my unit and is scheduled to go out again in 2 months if the tech person was right about the moisture problem. Did I mention the dish is small? Making pointing a chore and in the event that it moves even a fraction of an mm your service will drop like a lead anchor. And don't let anyone fool you, Ka is not better than KU. With Ka you end up being crammed onto certain satellites and in the case of this company you end up with too many people on one satellite and your ping and spead goes to %$#$. With KU there is no location restriction and there's alot more give on what the satellite can handle. And forget trying to realign the PoS yourself. Wildblue did not put a signal strength monitor on it's modem like Direcway. In fact, WB's modem is crap. There's no monitoring software on it at all. So, you have no idea if it's the satellite or your router or your computer when you have trouble. You have to rely on dialup and the forums at wildblue.cc for help. The Direcway modem tells you the signal strength, the problem the modem is experiencing, whether it is a reception problem or transmitting problem. The Direcway dish equipment is far better than WB. It's more commercial grade material. Sure it's huge and heavy but you won't have to worry about it blowing away or falling apart in a wind storm. Might take your roof off but the dish will still be in one piece. And in the 5 years I had Direcway I never had to have a part replaced I've still got the dish and modem and they are working perfectly. So, when my next 5 months of hell are over with I'm going back to a reliable service provider. Sorry for the rants but I didn't see many posts in these reviews that provided people with the information I have learned about this company. Don't get fooled by the large FAP that WB offers. Sure you can download large files quick but with DW you can ge more bandwith in the month if you use a monitoring program that throdles your dl speed. Anyway, I covered all the bases with this review. If you find it useful then GREAT if not then try WB out and see how you like it. Maybe they'll improve after they close some of the satellites because they have too many people on them. Maybe they'll improve when some of the service contracts are up in the coming months from people like me that got suckered into trying this company. Who knows. Either way, good luck. Thanks. Charlie member for 17.6 years, 15 visits, last login: 15.3 years ago lodged 17.6 years ago
h4x0r3d Premium Member join:2003-04-13 Oxford, MS |
h4x0r3d
Premium Member
2006-Aug-16 5:17 pm
."The dish is small...will make a good target for my 30-06 when my contract is over." This is why i like mississippi | |
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At Wits End
Anon
2006-Aug-18 7:44 am
Another disappointed WB customerThank you so much for your in depth review. I have been struggling with WB for 8 months - My experience with Customer NO Service has been the same - I have kept a dairy of who I talk to and when - will need to bind the book soon. I have the 'Professional' satellite - ABSOLUTE rip off, my download speed between 155 kbps and 1200 kbps my upload runs between 5kbps to 40 kbps - dial up would be much faster on most days. My calls recently have been 'escalated' according to WB...whatever that means, I have not heard from one person in over a week...same situation as you, can't spend 3 hrs a day fooling with it. If Customer NO Service would just call and say, we are still working on your problems, will be in touch in two days, and THEN follow through, I would not be as frustrated but continually get promises of calls, and only 1 time in 8 months of continued calls has anyone bothered to call me back. Have had 2 service techs come out - that's a whole story in itself for another day...in short, my noon appointments usually showed up at 10pm with no phone calls saying, I'm running late, etc. Like what are they suppose to do at 10PM? | |
| pgrace Premium Member join:2002-01-23 Belmont, CA |
pgrace
Premium Member
2006-Aug-19 7:09 pm
But DW isn't any better. In my case, it is much worse.I have not had the outage problems you have, but I agree WB ping is SLOOOW. However, Hughes hardware is hardly "commercial" quality. I have had 3 LNBs and 6 (six!) modems (4 DW6000, 2 DW7000) in 3 years. I have had WB for 5 months with no real problems (beyond slow pings, but I don't care about ping, it isn't very interesting)
DL speeds for WB are twice what I got from DW, and upload is 10 times as fast as DW.
I am keeping the DW dish and modem, for any emergency, but WB beats the pants off DW. | |
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I may not have satellite broadband but....Have you tried attaching the LNB/Transciever to a bigger dish. Sure, it may not be a WildBlue dish, but they refract at about the same rate, but bigger dishes tend to stay locked better. It's up to you bro, but I know with my satellite dish, I found a bigger saucer section, and mounted my dual LNB to it, and my lock is perfect, even in windy rain. Haven't have a hurricane to test with, but I know it won't work right thru that, just because of all the movement of the dish. Anywho, hope thats a possible option (or should be at least). | |
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essten94
Anon
2006-Aug-24 8:54 pm
Re: I may not have satellite broadband but....wildblue uses a triaa not an lnb as regular sat services do and from experience using a different dish will not work.ive seen em not work with a slight bend in the wb dish.also wb has a 2 degree window for sat lock.also if you remove your system and try this good luck getting locked on without the required tools,satalite pointer and wb pointing tool.and NO the satalite finder at radioshack will not work wb has twice the rated voltage that those finders are rated at. | |
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Wild Blue cost me dearly and I still have only dial up speedI wish I had it to do all over again and I would have never fell for the advertised "high speed" internet. Now I am stuck in a contract at $80 a month for the equivalent of Netscape dial up. I call and they want to "trouble shoot" by making me go to Toast and read back speeds. I have spent over $1,000 for their garbage dish in the yard and crappy service for the past six months. They will not send anyone out to fix anything and keep stalling me. I am even seriously considering lowing to their lowest speed at $59 a month and signing up with another high speed service at $30 a month just to mitigate my loses.
SIGN UP FOR WILD BLUE AT YOUR OWN RISK!!!! MAKE SURE TO USE THE SAME RULE AS GAMBLING... DON'T SPEND ANYMORE THAN YOUR WILLING TO LOSE.
There is absolutely no recourse either, they keep taking the money from your account which they make you agree to in the beginning and threaten to take the remaining contract and cancellation fee if you quit. | |
| jhedge join:2006-08-22 San Luis Obispo, CA |
jhedge
Member
2006-Aug-22 2:55 am
Wild Blue Satellite ProblemI think you could consider buying a signal measuring device, I've seen them on ebay for about $100. Before I signed up for WB I made sure this was an option in case the tech response was inadequate. I like the idea of a larger dish that someone suggested because it should provide more gain but you may need to be more careful about aiming as the directivity (beamspread) will likely be tighter. I was able to tweak my azimuth by trial and error, and by the way it is by fractions of degree's not mm's. Check the azimuth and elevation for the Anik F2 at a satellite finder website like satsig.net, mine was slightly different than what the tech left with me. Good Luck! | |
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Cg_A
Anon
2006-Aug-25 2:05 pm
Wildblue Satellite Internet SUXX. period. end of sentence.The review of Wildblue by Charlie could have been written by me. I signed up in April and have NEVER gotten what was promised, even remotely. Everyday is a nightmare of slow, intermittent and outright not working. NO ONE IN WILDBLUE has been able to help or even understand the problem. ????? Where did these guys come from ? Management is unreachable to talk about a cancellation. Management is dodging my calls and failing to return them. Management has no intention of dealing with my complaints, that is obvious. Tech support has a canned set of responses relating *everything to something in my computer* which delays discovery far past the thirty day cancellation period. Finally they say, "It's your TRIA". The simple fact is: The service dies periodically every day, every hour, sometimes every minute and if it's the TRIA, then IT IS DYING. Can't someone find a way to get these guys out of business, off my roof, and out of my life ??? | |
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Re: Wildblue Satellite Internet SUXX. period. end of sentence.It's a shame that so many people are unhappy. It doesn't help you guys, but for what it's worth I'm still fairly happy. | |
| | | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman
Premium Member
2006-Aug-29 7:58 pm
WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....I agree Hammer. There are lots of "ideas" given here that just make no sense. The MAIN Crux of being a WB owner is to MAKE CERTAIN THE INSTALLATION IS DONE CORRECTLY. If you "expect it to be installed and work" without ever paying attention to WHO is doing it, and HOW they are doing it, in the sat isp world you are taking a huge risk. This goes for ALL sat isp's. If it is installed wrong, guess what, it won't work.
I have had the service since it came out of beta and my contract has already expired. I could quit ANY time, but I won't. Why? My dish was installed correctly, period. The right cable was used, its the right length, the connections are good, etc. etc. I have one of the FIRST units out of production, so if they were ALL lemons, then I would certainly have one....and I don't. No tria replacements, no modem replacements. I am NOT saying that all these people with problems are at fault themselves, heck no. BUT, this is HIGH TECH stuff, so you need to KNOW what you are getting into, and what questions to ask BEFORE it is installed. There are a TON of installers out there who do NOT know what they are doing, but there are also a TON of them who do. How do I know that? Because HERE at BBR, WildBlue went to Silver level in customer satisfaction faster that any other sat isp, and if I remember what one mod posted, he said that it went to silver faster than most cable or dsl providers. It is still carrying a higher rating than the others out there, so I am NOT blowing smoke up somebodies skirts here.
The main issue is to know WHO is doing the install, ask the RIGHT questions, read the forums here at BBR regarding WB, perhaps find a GREAT installer here at BBR, and then have it installed. I FIRMLY believe a majority of the disgruntled customers are actually customers of DSI who is the main master distributor for WB OTHER than the NRTC Coops. I think they are using (in many cases, not all) bad or poorly trained installers. I was lucky, the NRTC coop locally had the product, was looking for somebody to test it on, came out and installed it. It didn't work for almost 2 weeks, but hey, I was there first one. They kept at it and it has been GREAT ever since.
Bottom line, the product does NOT suck at all. If its installed right, you will be most of the way towards a GREAT experience like many of us here have documented.
HDMan
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| | | | RCC4 join:2006-09-06 Osawatomie, KS |
RCC4
Member
2006-Sep-6 11:58 am
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....How are we supposed to "Make certain it is installed correctly!!? Come on, really, we pay WildBlue to have our dish professionally installed, and they hire some guy with a pickup and a cell phone who calls himself a "professional installer" to call us and make arrangements for installation. If they properly screened installers maybe I would also be among the lucky few who has not experienced their customer disservice. My dish was installed while I was at work, my wife was present, but did not climb the ladder to see the loose bolt, and mess. I called WildBlue to have someone come check it out since we were having to reboot the modem daily, it took 3 attempts to contact anyone, staying on the phone for over 2 hrs. each time, then giving up and leaving a message, which was not returned. I finally contacted tech support they said they would create a ticket. Two months later, I decided to attempt to call them again, since no one had ever contacted me to do anything with the "ticket". After MANY failed attempts I was able to contact someone about our intermittent internet (the modem was needing reset daily, and if it looked like rain we would loose connection). They again assured me someone would contact me regarding service. It has now been 6 months that I have "had" WildBlue, and the service has quit completely. I called and was lucky, and was able to speak to someone on the 2nd attempt, but they were laughing with coworkers, and did not enter anything "into the system", so after 3 days waiting for someone to call us, we called back. There was no record of the call, and so we had to tell them everything over again. Now we have been 9 days without service (second light blinks in pairs, indicating a uplink problem), and have not been contacted for a single service call, even yet!! I think I can honestly say they suck!! One "tech" actually told me I am "on beam 21", I live south of Kansas City, and Beam 21 is for California, I believe. I have all of my phone calls with them recorded, so I can prove what I say. (Kansas allows phone calls to be recorded if one party is aware of the recording, so we record all of our phone calls automatically via our computer.) | |
| | | | | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman
Premium Member
2006-Sep-6 5:05 pm
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....said by RCC4:How are we supposed to "Make certain it is installed correctly!!? Come on, really, we pay WildBlue to have our dish professionally installed, and they hire some guy with a pickup and a cell phone who calls himself a "professional installer" to call us and make arrangements for installation. If they properly screened installers maybe I would also be among the lucky few who has not experienced their customer disservice. OK, lets dissect what you stated: First you did NOT pay WildBlue to install your dish. You paid a 3rd party to install that dish. That 3rd party is DSI, or perhaps, a local coop member. My guess is that your service is NOT via a coop because you would not be getting the run around from a local coop as you have had. If it was via a local coop, why aren't you calling them???? The main issues is that DSI is NOT screening the installers properly, nor are they training them. I am NOT dissing the many fine installers for WB who come here to help, because they have clearly shown that they know what they are doing. I am dissing the MANY installers who DON'T attend training, and assume that a bi-directional sat connection is the same as a TV connection. Most coops, I don't belive, let their installers get away with that because they can't hide behind a long distance phone call for very long. Most coops are in your neighborhood and you would show up on their doorstep if you had problems like you are having. The problem is with the 3rd parties like AT&T and DSI and their installers. They use the wrong tools, adapters, connectors, grounding methods, cable, etc. and then leave. That is where the CONSUMER has to be responsible to make CERTAIN the people doing the job know what they are doing, and have done it CORRECTLY many time before they ever get to your door. Otherwise, you need to do what I did. Since I was the first one installed ever in Wisconsin, and certainly by my installer, I agreed UP FRONT to be their first. My condition was that I would sign NOTHING and PAY NOTHING until the service was up and running to MY satisfaction. It took 2 weeks, they learned a ton, I learned a ton, but when it was all running, I signed the contract. I wouldn't do it ANY other way today. So again, you MUST understand that this IS rocket science and not just ANYBODY can do it. If you assume that, then you would have been MUCH more careful when you allowed them to install it. If you couldn't be home when they installed it, too bad. Then you should have insisted that they don't get paid until you were certain it was up and running well. However, I would have made certain I was there. I do that for ANY work being done on or at my home. If you assume all people will try to rip you off or do a bad job, then you will live your life protected against those who would, and pleasantly surpised by those who don't. More often than not, I am surprised and pleased by the good work most people do, but that doesn't mean I haven't prevented some from scamming me. HDMan | |
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Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....So when i hire an electrician, i should spend weeks studying electrical work so i can look over his shoulder and make sure he does his job?
When I take my car to the mechanic, I should take a course in mechanics, and spend the day looking over his shoulder making sure he does his job right?
When I hire a network technician, I should spend a few years first learning about networks, so I can watch him and make sure he knows how to do his job?
I've been living the same nightmare, my dish was strapped to a fencepost with zip ties, and i paid an extra $150 for this, after expending hundreds of dollars on making no call/no show appointments before we moved in, because we needed the internet to live here. Now 6 months later, I'm going out at least once a day to wiggle the dish back to solid greens on the router, sometimes being without service for multiple days trying to get it realigned back up. Same story with no returned calls, missed appointments, days spent waiting on no calls/no shows, etc...
I ordered my service from Wildblue directly. They didn't give me any choice on installers. They picked the installer, not me. It is a normal expectation that a person knows how to do their job, and that shouldn't be on me. Wildblue has picked this company to represent them, and none of us has any control over that!
And today, I was informed that I would have to pay up to $400 more to another technician for him to be even willing to come fix the first technicians screw ups! I was also informed it was my responsibility to take the 1st technician to court to retrieve the $150 I paid him? I didn't select these people to do the work, wildblue did, how is all of this my responsibility? I could accept all this other responsibility without having to pay a company $80/month for! | |
| | | | | | | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman
Premium Member
2006-Sep-19 8:26 pm
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....OK Moron....it must be my fault then....
WTF is wrong with you people?!?!?!? This is a NEW technology and one that not just ANYBODY can install. Thats why the DON'T let homeowners install it. I could care less if you are living your nightmare and I'll tell you why. You attack me with your rants trying to make ME feel bad for liking the product. Back to the trailer and WWF with you. Leave me alone please.
Jeeesh....
If you would have asked for help, I would have given it. But to make ME feel bad because you are too F'ng stupid to figure out what is and isn't a good installation gets you nothing. Enjoy the nightmare. WildBlue rocks for me....because I DID MY RESEARCH before it was installed. Oh.....and BTW, WildBlue did NOT pick the people to do your install. A company called DSI did.....
Over and out... | |
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Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....So no other responses to any of my analogies? Wildblue picked DSI to represent them, i didn't have any choice in the matter. And no one is attacking you, just your attacks on anyone that complains of a legitimate problem, that the paying customer should not be responsible for. I used to be an independant network consultant for a company called inacom, who was contracted by dell, who then contracted me. If someone did a shitty install, the customer called dell, and dell was on top of it, because they understood that the company they contracted, had a direct influence on their image. So they followed the work order until it was closed, usually within 24 hours. This is how every company i've worked for, from Compaq, to IBM, to Southern Company. In fact i've never experienced a corporation that acted as you say they have a right to. They never had the excuse "We paid someone else to handle it so it's not our problem anymore", "and you should learn everything about anything you have done so you can make sure the "professional" knows what they are doing". That's a joke, and anyone who has told you otherwise either has you completely programmed, you just don't have any experience in the corporate world, or you're working for wildblue. Some of us already have so much going on in our lives that we can't learn every aspect of everything. That's why there are "professionals" in different areas, because no one has time to learn everything, unless they don't work. That's how a company should work, and your blind support of the company, and rumbustious attacks on anyone that complains, tells me your probably sitting in your wildblue corporate office right now trying to hold the company together. Maybe if they would just address their problems, rather than paying someone like you to attack anyone who has them, there wouldn't be so many complaints. It's all good though. I just ordered a satellite signal meter, which should be here tomorrow, and then ii'll just handle it. Thing costs $100, but that's a lot cheaper than the stress, and potentially paying 10 different installers to to the job until it's done right, and then being responsible for taking the 9 installers that i didn't choose to court for screwing up. Just keep on cursing people that have legitimate complaints, that will defiantly help build wildblues image ! | |
| | | | | | | | | skinnypuppy4 |
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....And the name calling is just childish. Someone that speaks like that is never taken seriously, just so you know for the future.
It's the typical response when someone can't argue the points, they just start name calling. Pathetic. | |
| | | | | | | | | | skinnypuppy4 |
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....And no one said this is "your" fault. I don't understand why your taking it that way. What is "Your" fault, is attacking people with legitimate issues.
If you are an installer for wildblue, i feel for you, because i agree you shouldn't have to spend your own money to go fix another installers screw up. I think you're taking this more personally than you should be. I do think if wildblue selects the installer, and he doesn't do his job, THEY should pay YOU. Not me, not you covering it out of your own pocket, wildblue should pay you to get it right. If I had a choice of installers, and i did my research and picked one that sucked, then it would be on me, but i didn't make that choice. And again, it shouldn't be the next installers problem either, it should be wildblues problem, to make sure the right people are paid the right amount to be a good representative for their company. | |
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cdpepper to hdman
Anon
2006-Sep-9 10:24 pm
to hdman
We are scheduled to be installed on Wild Blue later this month, so i am very interested to hear your thoughts on what makes the installation right. Please help me out on the specifics if you can..... What are "the right questions"? --maybe i've already asked them, but now you have me wondering! How do i know what is the right cable and the right length? I prefer that the dish be mounted on a pole in the back of the yard--where we have the DishNetwork dish. Apparently that is abt 120' from the house. I've already talked to the installer once, but I'm collecting questions and plan to call him back before he arrives.
Also, any thoughts on wireless routers that work particularly well or that we should stay away from when connecting to WB? Thanks for the ideas and tips! | |
| | | | | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman
Premium Member
2006-Sep-10 7:06 pm
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....I would make certain he is aware that there is a list of approved cables for bi-directional Ka satellite. A TV installer would try to use TV grade cable, and it will no work in most cases, or will cause problems. I would also ask if he uses crip connectors, or sealed connectors rated for the WB signal. Finally, if it is on a pole, I would ask him his "theory" of grounding the dish and tria. BOTH must be PROPERLY grouned to the SAME ground that your electrical service is grounded to...and not simply the same piece of dirt. If he drives in a new ground rod, then that rod MUST be connected to the same ground rod or water pipe that your electrical service is connected to.
To weed out the bad ones versus the good ones, ask him HOW MANY WildBlue systems he has installed. I would care less about how many TV dishes he has installed because this is a whole different world. I would also open a new thread in the WB forum here and ask the installers here who frequent the forums the same questions. When your install is done, I would take pictures of everything and post them in the forum and let the installer experts let you know it was done correctly. If not, you MUST insist that they come back and fix it. Finally, if you have not paid them, I would not sign anything or pay anything until the system is working to your satisfaction. If you have paid, then I would not sign the contract until YOU are happy.
As far as routers go, I use an old Microsoft wireless router and it works great, but can't be bought any more. LOTS of people have posted that they run the standard old WRT54G from Linksys which is $49 at Walmart and have no issues with it.
Good luck and please report back when it is all done!!
HDMan | |
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cdpepper
Anon
2006-Sep-10 9:40 pm
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....Thank you for the ideas & tips. I'm ok in this questions up to a point, but I need to know more about these terms before I start the conversation...such as "tria," "Ka," an one i saw inanother thread, "lease time." Any suggestions on where i can learn more about these terms and the concepts? Thanks.
Still learning... | |
| | | | | | | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman
Premium Member
2006-Sep-11 1:15 pm
Re: WildBlue does NOT SUK.......Period....End of Sentence.....The tria is the feedhorn unit that sticks out in front of the dish. It points up at the dish. It has 2 functions in that it sends the data at the dish to be focused back to the bird in the sky AND the dish focuses the signal coming back FROM the bird onto the tria unit and then into the modem. This unit has a ground screw on it that MUST be grounded along with the dish itself.
Ka is the name of the band used in this technology. WB uses spot beam Ka technology which has specific beams for specific areas of the country. Not something you will need to worry about, but the issue comes into play when an installer is good at installing TV dishes and he thinks that ISP dishes can be installed the same way, and he would be very wrong. These units are MUCH more susceptable to wind, misalignment, etc. He needs to make sure that before he leaves that your dish is PROPERLY and EXACTLY pointed at the right spot in space. If not, you will have problems with wind, rain fade, etc. You should never lose your signal in a light rain. Mine takes the kind of downpour that has the rain drops dancing on the blacktop before I lose my signal. An improperly aligned dish will lose signal on cloudy days or during light rain.
Read the forums here at BBR, especially the early ones dealing with installation issues, cable, trias, etc. If your installer is not well versed in the system and how to install it, send him home or do NOT sign a thing until it is working and working WELL. If the install is done properly, you will be like me and will have no issues. I have been VERY happy with my system and I am positive that it is because my installer cared about his work to do it right. I was his first, as I mentioned, and he took 2 weeks to get it right, but I could tell that he was all about the quality and my happiness. Thats ALL it took for me to trust that he would come back and fix it right. He did.
HDMan | |
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rkhunt to Cg_A
Anon
2006-Sep-6 12:29 am
to Cg_A
We live in are area that has dial-up only! WB is a step down not up. Tech support has been non-existant to some what helpful. The installer came back and installed another modem - today 9/5 we have been off line ALL DAY with uploads to the service. Why on the day after a 3-day weekend? Couldn't they have done it on Labor Day and saved their subscribers headaches. I'm ready to trash the system and bring in a phone line for the computers only! What a step backward. WB's marketing says they are up 24/7. That's a joke. Today I was told that we'll be charged for time we couldn't use! I agree, management doesn't care and are unreachable. If anyone out there is thinking of moving to WB - in a word - DON'T. All you'll have is a headache.... | |
| | hdmanFlt Rider Premium Member join:2003-11-25 Appleton, WI |
hdman to Cg_A
Premium Member
2006-Sep-21 8:20 am
to Cg_A
Nope, I am NOT an installer nor am I in any way associated with WildBlue. I was one of the very first installed when it came out of Beta. I have spent countless HOURS here helping people with their systems and issues they have with their systems. To then get lanced open by some clown who complains because HE let HIS installer mount the dish to a fence with tie-wraps and he somehow doesn't feel ANY blame for that. I'm sorry, this is like ANY other product in so much that it is Ex Caveat Emptor and the buyer MUST be aware that they are culpable if they allow shoddy work to be done and then PAY FOR IT without so much as inspecting the work. I would have gladly helped him get in touch with people who could have helped him as I know MANY installers who help out here and would have made certain his issues were addressed. He blew that chance and I will not help anybody who comes at me in the way he did. So.....this is my last post in this thread as I will concentrate on helping people who are truly interested in helping ME help THEM. He can simply fly around the web and whine to his hearts content and hopefully not piss off the next person who COULD have helped him.
HDMan | |
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fotno_ join:2007-01-02 Lumberton, MS |
fotno_
Member
2007-Jan-2 2:08 am
WildBlue is a gigantic pain in the butt...sometimesIt took 2 1\2 months to get my equipment installed. Every time I called WB it was another excuse. I threatened to send the stuff back and they said they would still charge me.I finally got it installed and granted it is slower than I was expecting it's alot faster than the old dial up,so I'm not gonna bitch about that. I just can't get over the fact that I'm an offshore Electrician/Electronics tech. and I had to wait on some kid to install my equipment for me.He didn't know much about the equipment just enough to install it. | |
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Review by BillyGoat123 - Location: Live Oak, Suwannee, FL, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
High speed where previously unavailable, friendly & knowledgable installer, fast tech support Sketchy hardware. Eyeball failure in less then a week, DNS problems sometimes Excellent alternative to dialup in areas where DSL and cable are unavailable.
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Instead of writing a book here I will hit on some main points. GOOD - I've had very good reliability during weather and thunderstorms, Wildblue signal outlasts our Dishnetwork television. - The installer was very knowledgable, friendly, and able to help me troubleshoot over the phone a little bit before he made the special trip out. - The download speeds are very good, averaging between 150kbs and 200kbs on large downloads for me. - Tech support was in ENGLISH, IN AMERICA! - Tech support was quick and easy to work with. There was no long waiting listening to elevator music or what their new monthly specials were. The lady I spoke to on my one call was very friendly and informative. - The ticket system for support seems to work well. My CSR at wildblue made a ticket for my installer to come out and check my system after the eyeball failed. Installer contacted me next business day and he had me check a few things before he set a date to come out and look at it. _______________________________________________________________________ BAD -The hardware failure in less then a week is really pretty pathetic. The installer did point out to me the differences in the new one he put on and the old one that came off. The new one is sort of shielded and looks like it is protected better. I've read of problems on the forum possibly being causes by heat, perhaps this shielded type will fix that problem. - I don't like the "Optimizer software" that they make you install to act as an "accelerator" for internet browsing by caching parts of the page and using a proxy. This caused numerous problems with many different sites I visit that require timeout type cookies (forum, for example) including my own forum I manage where I was unable to log into the administration panel. After disabling this "optimizer" everything returned to normal with no more issues. - DNS is sometimes a little bit sketchy, and everyonce in a while I have to reload a page to get it to come up. This is probably a by product of me disabling the optimizer software but I cannot be having the problems associated with it. ______________________________________________________________________ OVERAL I think Wildblue is a great alternative to dialup. It is not without problems, although nothing is. People might say dialup is more reliable but I'd be willing to put it to the test. How often does your ISP disconect you off dialup after you've been connected several hours, busy signals re-dialing, poor and noisy phone line quality severely hindering the connection, page times outs, ect. Wildblue is subject to some of these same issues, however they are not as abundant and the speed makes up for it in my opinon. If your looking for always on, cant have a single mistake anywhere on anything internet connection, then Wildblue or computers in general are probably not for you. If you can deal with and be understanding of a problem here and there in return for a great connection that knocks the socks off of dialup, give Wildblue a try. member for 18.8 years, 38 visits, last login: 5.5 years ago lodged 17.6 years ago
Review by noskaj - Location: Sumner, Bremer, IA, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
Fast, excellent performance! Better than dial up.
| Pre Sales information: Install Co-ordination: Connection reliability: Tech Support: Mail,DNS,News: Value for money:
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I've had WildBlue for a year and we have really liked it a lot. Speeds are very consistent and down time is rare. It's not cable or anything you can get in the city, but it is broadband and is much better than having dial-up. Equipment and installation was reasonable at $299 (that includes the dish, modem, power surge, and installation). The installer was very professional and helpful. I wanted to go with Direcway, but when I heard of WildBlue coming, I decided to go with it and am glad I did. I am on the basic (Value Pak) at 512 kbps download and 128 kbps upload. It's $49.95 per month and it's really worth it when compared to dial-up for $21.99 plus we had two phone lines, so there's another $20-25. I'm impressed. I know I can't speak for others, but if your local NRTC is offering this service, go with them. They are the best to work with as I have heard some horror stories of people going straight through WildBlue. Below are my speed test results as of tonight. :::.. Download Stats ..::: Download Connection is:: 597 Kbps about 0.6 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Download Speed is:: 73 kB/s Tested From:: » testmy.net/ (Server 1) Test Time:: 2006/08/04 - 3:52pm Bottom Line:: 10X faster than 56K 1MB Download in 14.03 sec Tested from a 579 kB file and took 7.951 seconds to complete D-Validation Link:: » testmy.net/stats/id-BYCZ2WSQVUser Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.8 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3 [!] :::.. Upload Stats ..::: Upload Connection is:: 114 Kbps about 0.11 Mbps (tested with 579 kB) Upload Speed is:: 14 kB/s Tested From:: » testmy.net/ (Server 1) Test Time:: 2006/08/04 - 3:54pm Bottom Line:: 2X faster than 56K 1MB Upload in 73.14 sec Tested from a 579 kB file and took 41.6112 seconds to complete U-Validation Link:: » testmy.net/stats/id-U8Y7GP5QKUser Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/418.8 (KHTML, like Gecko) Safari/419.3 [!] member for 18.3 years, 8 visits, last login: 17.6 years ago updated 17.7 years ago
Review by cobra429 - Location: Calhoun, Ouachita, LA, USA
- Cost Contract price not specified.
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Concerning some of the gripes and complaints I've read here,some are fueled by ignorance or misconception. First some customers are computer stupid and don't know a bit from a byte. I am a WILDBLUE installer and I have seen alot of dumb people. Some don't consider their computers have antique processors or they just have so much crap in them. Also,this is not DSL!,you will get some rain fade in bad weather.As far as installers go,you get what you pay for.Nobody wants to work anymore,they want a paycheck,but thats it.That is way jobs get rescheduled so much.Just last week I went out of my area to help in an area where there were over 125 job scheduled and no techs to do them.I do have a problem myself with the way DSI does their scheduling.They schedule 125 jobs knowing they have no techs.Not the techs fault. member for 17.7 years, driveby review (so far) lodged 17.7 years ago
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CharlieM
Anon
2007-Jul-20 6:28 pm
Sooooo.... inretrospect........Well, it's been almost a year from my comment about how much WB sucked, and I see this spokesman for WB and his comment below mine. So, I figured I'd post a little reply to this WB fanboy. First off, do you have Wildblue service? If so, then disregard this because by now you should know how much they suck. But if you don't then you should keep your advertisement bs off this forum. This is for reviews. It's not for morons who benefit from other peoples mistakes (i.e. having wildblue installed). As well, being able to install a satellite dish does not make you a computer god. Any moron can get out on a roof, level a pole, set skew, elevation, and azmath with the proper sat meter. I have setup satellites before myself and it's not rocket science. Anyway, do not presume because people think this crappy service is lame that they do not know about computers.
As for wildblue, it appears your beloved WB is really turning out to be a stinker from what I've been reading about it in forums. Before I left the pings were a very annoying 1400 on average. Pings like that not only slow down gaming and things that WB isn't intended for but also slows down web browsing, which is basically all it's good for.
Anyway, I'm no computer scientist, but I'm no ignorant fanboy that's going to post stuff on these forums for the purpose to attack others for their honest reviews of a service. | |
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