Caps and traffic throttling are a major reason why the reviews for satellite broadband provider HughesNet are so painfully mediocre. HughesNet customers who exceed the company's daily, rolling bandwidth caps (aka "the FAP"), which range from 200MB to 1250MB depending on tier) find their connections throttled for 24 hours to speeds easily bested by rural American dial-up -- circa 1995 (users say around 7-14kbps).

Even when not throttled, we're seeing a growing number of customers complaining that the service has slowed substantially since the start of this year. Speeds during peak usage times are particularly unimpressive. In some cases, users paying $80 a month for 1.5Mbps/200kbps connections are seeing their lines deliver 101kbps/6kbps. Complains one user:Says another:The company is currently in pre-commercial testing for their new Spaceway 3 satellite, which should ease congestion as it enters commercial use later this year. We recently tried to conduct an interview with HugheNet surrounding their network capacity and FAP, only to be told they'd only accept written questions. We submitted those questions last fall and have been waiting for a reply ever since.