While the late night free zone is not throttled, you can't expect to get the same speed as during the metered period. You might get similar speeds, slight to much slower speeds, and I suppose you might get faster speeds. LNFZ speeds are going to depend upon the download habits of the other subscribers sharing your beam. I've never noticed significantly slower speeds during the LNFZ myself, but then I don't do a lot of speed tests during the early morning hours. I do occasionally watch Netflix, and I have never had problem getting full 1080p HDTV during the LNFZ.
said by bbwithdrawls:recourse if system does not work as advertise 3 months down the road
There is nothing in Exede's contract to let you out without paying a ETF, but I wouldn't worry about that. Exede is good about under promising and over delivering on speeds. There's no reason that comes to mind to expect that your system won't perform just about the same 3 months later as on the day it was installed. I've been using Exede-12 for over 2 years now. When it was installed, I would often get download speeds of 20-23 Mbps. Now my speeds usually top out at around 19 Mbps which is well above the advertised 12 Mbps.
Are you aware of some inherent issues with satellite Internet such as latency (ping times) of around 2/3rds a second, weather related outages (which tend to be brief for me), and then the problem of secure websites (anything using SSL such as HTTPS) being "unaccelerated" and therefore rather slow to browse? If interactive online games are important you, then satellite Internet may not be right for you. (There is a gaming topic pinned at top of the HughesNet side if you do play Internet games.) VOIP works - the delay is noticeable but tolerable.
Browsing is a bit different experience with satellite Internet due to the latency and the HTTP acceleration. Pages don't load instantly. After clicking on a link, there is a pause, and then usually several seconds later, the page pops up. You'll get used to that, and web pages with images should open much faster than on a T1 line. The last issue that I can think of to mention is that satellite Internet more complicated than other Internet services, meaning that there are more things that can go wrong. But Exede-12 has been pleasingly reliable for most of this year, and it is just getting more reliable. (As I complained about it, I feel that I should point out that there was a problem with Yahoo and Yahoo mail earlier this year, but that got fixed eventually.)
For my uses, I would much prefer Exede-12 over a T1 line.