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Review by BioScanJim 
member for 2.8 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.8 years ago
updated 2.8 years ago
 Anthony,Dona Ana,NM
 Contract price not specified.  "The sales staff was very knowledgeable, though connectivity issues were not revealed" "Connectivity is very poor. Technicians blame the router, so today I've been connected directly, with the same slow service" "I am strongly considering dial-up, and hate the fact that I'm tied to a two year contract with WildBlue."
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Bottom line is right now I am not satisfied. I was used to Comcast cable internet connection and find WildBlue does not live up to their sales hype.
I was not planning to connect a land line at this rural location, but may be forced to seek that alternative, if WildBlue can not provide the speeds they promised.
What concerns me most is the "Speed Tests." Why do they show things are operating smoothly, when it takes thirty seconds or more to load a simple web page? Are the speed tests rigged?
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Review by crktcrkt
member for 3.1 years, 29 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
updated 2.9 years ago
- Guthrie,Logan,OK
- Contract price not specified.
- "Ordering was a snap and the price was right."
- "It is what it is."
- "I've wasted a lot of money trying alternatives, but this is the best we can get."
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I switched from dial up to Cricket. I had absolutely no problems with Cricket other than our area is their 1x data, which runs in the neighborhood of isdn. For the same amount of money I was spending, I decided to go back to satellite. I'll admit I was gun shy after having Hughes, but decided to give WildBlue a try. Ordering was a snap. I haven't gotten my first bill yet so I may scream a little there, but the installation coordination and ordering process went flawlessly. Of course, I had to try it out being as it's new too. Speeds are decent on the select plan. I downloaded all of the software I've been needing for some time without incident. I'm also still getting accustomed to how the web portal works, which seems similar, but a little different than Hughes. I did have to call tech support to help me with my computer configuration. That wasn't their fault, but was something that needed to be done. I was surprised when they answered the phone and I didn't have to get my three foreign language dictionary out to try to talk to them. They were right here in the states.
So far, I'm satisfied. Ask me again in a month or two and we'll see if I made the right choice once the new wears off the modem.
UPDATE: A little over two weeks into the service
We received our first bill. I dreaded the experience after reading how many people had mistakes in theirs. Ours was correct to the penny. The service has also done well. We haven't had any phantom data loss or speed issues. We do check our bandwidth usage daily to see how we're faring on the 17 gig allotment and it seems that we're doing fine and haven't had to change many of our surfing habits. In fact, we should have a bit of a buffer between us and our FAP limit by the months end, which should allow us to use our service as we need without any further issues.
I'm happy with the service. Satellite is what satellite is. We can't change that fact. We also can't change the fact that the telco has written us off for broadband and anything else that would benefit us so we're happy to have WildBlue.
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Review by ewing453
member for 4 years, 30 visits, last login: 2.7 years ago
lodged 2.9 years ago
- Liberty,Liberty,TX
- Contract price not specified.
- "Available where nothing else is"
- "Horrible service, horrible install, horrible refund of fees, horrible support"
- "When will this nightmare end?? Worst ISP I ever delt with"
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This is the worst service I ever tried to use. I worked for a telco before moving to the country. I designed WAN networks for customers using ISDN, Frame Relay, T1's and Gigabit Ethernet. I helped write the tarriff for ADSL. I eventually got a cable modem because it was 10Megs! What else could you ask for?
I have a service business and do onsite service calls. I remember a customer having Wild Blue and it seemed to work OK. So, when I moved to the country and the wireless ISP couldn't get a clear shot to my house I was in dismay. I thought back to that customer and decided to give Wild Blue a call.
To start off they did not show up when they were supposed to. When they did show up they did not have the right equipment. I had to call the 3rd party install company which was horrible to deal with. I missed 3 days of work waiting around for theses guys. Come to find out the installers didn't know what they were doing and had put the dish mount together wrong. I was finally able to get the install assigned to another company.
When it was finally installed the service was quiet disappointing. I was getting less that 200k! Horrible delay. I drove over the the neighbors house and tried his hughesnet. It was not "broadband" but it was much better than Wild Blue. So I canceld a week later and had Hughes installed.
To make a long story short they kept charging my credit card for 4 months. They told me the "30 day Money Back Guarentee" Never existed. I told them I had a printout of their website before I ordered the service. They finally changed their mind and said they would give me a refund if I sent the equipment back, but I would need to pay $200 for a professional "de-install"!!! What the heck?? I again pointed out the fact that I had printed the page from the website stating the customer could uninstall the equipment during the monay back window.
They then told me where to ship it to and that I would get a refund when they got it. In case you don't know where this is going.....they never gave me the refund. After numers calls and to the point of verbal insults and profanity on both sides of the conversation I was finally transeferd to the VP of accounting. I told her I was disputing the charges on my credit card. She laughed and said "Good Luck, we never have chargebacks." At this point I wrote off my $300 plus investment and decided my stress was not worth dealing with them anymore.
A somewhat happy ending, about two months latter a check came "out of the Blue" pun intended. Go figure....probably an accounting error on thier end!
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Review by WolffyIL
member for 2.9 years, 1 visits, last login: 2.9 years ago
lodged 2.9 years ago
- Mackinaw,Tazewell,IL
- Contract price not specified.
- "rural access, cost (over HughesNet)"
- "cost (over anything else), speed, reliability, billing, no VPN"
- "Avoid unless this is your LAST DITCH option"
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Sometimes, the only option you have is between poor and nothing. If you happen to be in a rural area that is not serviced by DSL or Cable, you're options are pretty limited, HughesNet and WIldblue. If this is your case, then you are between a rock and a hard place.
OK, Wildblue is better than dial-up in terms of speed. However, coming from a 10M cable connection (via the oft maligned Comcast) stepping down to 1.5M was a bit of a shock. Yeah, there is a noticeable delay when opening a web-site, and worse if the connection is secure. Download speeds for file transfer are tolerable; downloading a game from Big Fish (for example) is best down over lunch, or while you do a chore or two.
Streaming audio works fine (even at the 1.0M level). I had no problems listing to Rhapsody online. Streaming video is right out however; even at the 1.5M level I have been unable to stream video or use a web cam. Also, VPN is disallowed (bandwidth consideration) so if you need this to connect to your work network -- forgetaboutit. I had to use LogMeIn or GoToMyPC to get around this on the rare occasions I had to connect from home.
When it works, it works pretty well -- but note that I said WHEN! If you are coming from dial-up, you should be pretty impressed by the speed boost -- compared to a mule, a horse looks pretty good. It's probably the same rush I got going from 1200 baud to 9600 baud!
The problems are legion however. The biggest problem is reliability of the uplink. We have found the even in a light shower we will loose connection to the statelite -- some times for only a few minutes, other times for hours as we wait for a summer storm to pass. If you are dependent on our internet connection, this can be a major (and even costly) problem. I would estimate loss of signal at least 1 per month -- more often in the rainy season (or snow for that matter). There is also a second point of failure here in that the signal must also be downlinked from the satellite to WildBlue, so there is a second point of failure here are well. However, the uplink rom WildBlue to the satellite is a much more powerful signal, so it takes a fairly major storm (in my case over Happy Texas) to knock that out.
Installation must be done by a technician; this is required by the FCC as you are actually broadcasting to the satellite. At this time, Wildblue is not offing installations in my area (very interesting). When I had mine installed however, the technician came on the appointed day, and got everything setup and working in about 2 hours (in one of the coldest April rains I can remember). This dish itself is slightly larger than a DirectTV or Dish Network dish. The run from this dish to the modem is limited in length however, so I had to have the run terminated in the basement rather that in the office as I planned -- so I needed to run my home network over the house wiring (it was not possible to retrofit cable between the basement and the second story).
Also remember that your data will be making a 52,000 mile trip from your dish, to the satellite and then back again to Texas -- and this takes time, known as latency. The probably adds about 0.5 seconds to each interaction. I really don't notice this too much, but if you are into real-time gaming online, this could be a problem. Also, don't expect for VOIP to work over a satellite link. This is not a specific problem to WildBlue -- it just is.
WildBlue requires a 2-yr contact, and will impose a $15/month early termination fee if you break it. After about 14 months now, that $15/month doesn't look so bad.
You are also limited to the amount of data that can be down linked (or up linked) to 17GB/month (with my plan). This should be plenty for most (remember video streaming is right out), but I remain conscience when I need to download a really big file (like a 3GB ISO image for example). If you exceed the limit, your speed is downgraded for up to 30 days (down to 256KB I believe)
Finally, I'm not really pleased with the billing department. You MUST us a credit card and have your monthly bill charged to it. WildBlue is not very forgiving if the payment is missed (in my case the card had expired on time, and my debit card was bankrupt the other). Shortly after the missed payment, you will get a e-mail that basically say you have 10-days to pay up from the date of the e-mail or be disconnected. Don't believe it; I had my service terminated after 5 days (which appears exactly like a lost connection -- they could at least redirect you to a web page that explains why you are disconnected). When I called, I was told that, No you have 10-days from the date of missed payment -- even though the e-mail was very specific. Also, support has no way to delay disconnection (if you have a small cash flow problem for example); I know of no other utility that can not make a reasonable accommodation for a late payment.
And a final thought on e-mails (and the web site as well): The e-mail contains a link for live chat with support; presumably to assist you with the payment (the web site has one for recovering a lost password or establishing a new password on the billing system; which is separate from the WildBlue site). While the live chat was answered quickly -- in the six times I've attempted to use it, I've been instructed to call the 888 number "for security reasons". When I inquired about why the web site and e-mails would direct me to live chat -- the agent disconnected.
Bottom line then; if you have no other alternative, WildBlue may be your only option; it is an improvement over dial-up. However, the reliability is a major issue. Cable internet has now become a option for me, and I'm going to terminate early with WildBlue and go with the local Cable company -- at this point, it's worth the $150 termination fee just to save myself from the pain of when it rains!
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Review by Rainbow58
member for 2.9 years, 3 visits, last login: 1.1 years ago
lodged 2.9 years ago
- Casco,Saint Clair,MI
- Contract price not specified.
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Nice improvement over Dialup. Not as fast or cheap as nearby larger Cities cable or DSL
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Review by imcintyr9
member for 3 years, 0 visits, last login: 3 years ago
updated 3 years ago
- Denver,Denver,CO
- Contract price not specified.
- "Good question... Early termination charges are reasonable I suppose."
- "Where to begin? Oo, I know the sales department lying about available services!"
- "Steer clear of WildBlue (but HugesNet is just as bad)"
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WildBlue subcontracts their inbound sales team. They have ZERO scruples. I was told that there was no such thing as a business account and my only choice for our company was a residential account.
Of course we used too much bandwidth so the trickle of bandwidth we started with was choked down to a 5 second interval drip.
I can't understand how these companies stay afloat but the do...
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Review by larry1934
(review was emailed in)
lodged 3 years ago
- Augusta,Butler,KS
- Contract price not specified.
- "Usually redily available and reliable"
- "I'm keeping WildBlue"
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I also had very slow connectivity May 6 PM and was finally able to connect to WildBlue forum. I found out there I was not alone. I learned of the service to test my download speed via testmy.net which told me what I already knew. This AM (May 7) connectivity again was very slow. I rebooted my satellite modem and now all is back to normal. The last testmy.net check showed I now had over 4 X the speed I had yesterday.
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Review by wahoo50
(review was emailed from domain yahoo.com)
lodged 3 years ago
- Edgewater,Volusia,FL
- Contract price not specified.
- "None"
- "Poor service undisclosed setup fees unreasonable cancellation policy"
- "Reported $203 cancellation fee to credit bureau showing unpaid 120 days past due."
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I am glad to know I was not the only customer to have a horrendous experience with this company.The installation required an additional $180 undisclosed fees.The service was slowwwww support was pitiful and the regulating authorities should investigate.About 15 months into my \"contract\"I was no longer able to afford because of permanent disability fixed income and foreclosure of my home.They still wanted their $203 \"cancellation fee\" for service I never got!!!.I too would like to be made aware of any class action suits.This service was initiated through Dish Network at location 5015 Tranham Rd Whites Creek Tn 37189.
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Review by (hidden by request)
(review was emailed in)
lodged 3.1 years ago
- Epping,Rockingham,NH
- Contract price not specified.
- "none"
- "got service thru Blacksheep ,got equiptment can't get it installed!"
- "crappy service from the start"
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I was referred by Direct TV to go thru Wild Blue which then put the order thru Wild Blue wholesaler Blacksheep. I have the equipment which has been sitting at my house for 2 weeks and neither Wild Blue or Direct Tv will take the responibility of installing this equiptment.
Both of these compnaies are playing he said she said and I'm stuck equiptment,no service and the worst customer service from both on the entire planet!
All I wanted was internet service but all I've got is no service or installation what so ever....
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Review by Luxe
member for 3.2 years, 97 visits, last login: 2.3 years ago
lodged 3.1 years ago
- Mcalester,Pittsburg,OK
- Contract price not specified.
- "Downloads faster then dial-up"
- "FAP limit extremely unreliable connection latency expensive (69.95 a month excluding installation fees and equipment) )"
- "I don't think I would suggest the service to a gamer or a casual browser"
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I recently moved to an area where DSL and Cable were not available (of course) Oklahoma is scarce when it comes to internet. I ordered the 1.0mbs down and 200kbps up with a 12Gig threshold. I have had hughes.net at a different location just as bad except, I like the FAP controlling better (daily not monthly). Our service is down often, you cannot game on it, steaming is difficult, FAP limit. Go with dial-up this service is overpriced and overrated.
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