dslreports logo

Six Month Rating
1112 reviews
167 good · 623 bad
Submit a review by email click here

Review by erthlinksukz See Profile

  • Location: Augusta, Hampshire, WV, USA
  • Cost Contract price not specified.
Pre Sales information:
Install Co-ordination:
Connection reliability:
Tech Support:
Mail,DNS,News:
Value for money:

We're in a rural area that only supports dial-up or satellite. We made the mistake of choosing Earthlink with Directway/Hughes satellite. From the beginning, our connections were spotty.

Technical support is the absolute worst of any company I have ever encountered. After waiting forever to get to a real person (in India or Pakistan), you can hardly understand the accented English. Plus, they are completely in the dark--almost no technical expertise at all. I found myself having to educate technical support staff on the basics of Internet connectivity in order to explain why their knee-jerk diagnoses were completely wrong.

Moreover, if the problem has anything to do with your satellite, Earthlink can't do anything--Hughes must be connected, and YOU CANNOT TALK TO HUGHES! Earthlink is the unhelpful middleman and it takes weeks before anything can be accomplished.

Finally, after months of awful service (at $90 a month), we found out that our problem has to do with an unadvertised policy that Hughes has to limit your bandwidth after you have downloaded a certain number of KBs.

We had initially switched to dial-up in order to be able to get streaming video so that we could watch instant Netflix movies and so that my wife could take on-line courses. With Hughes' bandwidth limit, we would get 15 or 20 minutes of a movie (or college course) and the bandwidth would shut down to under 56K!

But enough of the downsides of Earthlink/Hughes satellite--you can look forward to losing your connection whenever there is a cloud overhead or the slightest threat of rain anywhere between your home and Hughes' satellite uplink station!

We are back to dial-up and left with $600 of satellite equipment for which Earthlink/Hughes gives no credit whatsoever.

I hope this horror story keeps some of you from making the same mistake we did.



member for 16.5 years, driveby review (so far)
lodged 16.5 years ago


Hughesanon
@myvzw.com

Hughesanon

Anon

EarthLink/Hughes Sucks

You make it sound as though Earthlink and HughesNet are somehow related. As far as I know there is no connection between the two companies and Earthlink has nothing to do with Hughes crappy service. If you are unhappy with Hughes and they are unwilling to help you, write to your Better Business Bureau. That way you will hear directly from their Executive Customer Care. They actually speak English! If you are still unhappy with the service tell them you would like to return your expensive equpment for a refund. You do not have to return the entire satellite setup, only cetain components and it is not that expensive through the UPS store. Just make sure you track your shipment.

Commander
Duty is ours. Consequences are God's.
Premium Member
join:2007-07-29
Keeling, VA

Commander

Premium Member

Re: EarthLink/Hughes Sucks

You make it sound as though Earthlink and HughesNet are somehow related. As far as I know there is no connection between the two companies and Earthlink has nothing to do with Hughes crappy service.
Do you know what a reseller is? EarthLink is a reseller of more than just HughesNet services. They resell DSL and dial-up all over the country.

Folks should go to the source and not pay EarthLink one thin dime.

Hughesanon
@75.116.82.x

Hughesanon

Anon

Re: EarthLink/Hughes Sucks

Even if Earthlink is a "reseller" I don't see how they are responsible for the totally crappy service by Hughes. I'm sure it is Hughes, not Earthlink who is making the millions off of us poor suckers by overselling their service and then not being able to keep up with the demand. Hence their F-ing FAP! Just a "legal" way to screw the customer!

Commander
Duty is ours. Consequences are God's.
Premium Member
join:2007-07-29
Keeling, VA

Commander

Premium Member

Re: EarthLink/Hughes Sucks

You're right about HughesNet. They s**k!

Earthlink is not the cause of the problems with the services they resell, but they are responsible. A user can't bypass them and go to HughesNet. Of course you and I know even if they could it wouldn't do any good.

If HughesNet was ever in a contest for the company with the worst customer service and support, they would win. No question about it.

rowdydog_tx
@encoremed.com

rowdydog_tx

Anon

DWay Service

I had DirecWay from Nov 2001 - Oct 2005. I had several technical issues with them during that time where I had to call their support. It was almost impossible to understand them. They would tell me to try the exact same things I had already done to troubleshoot. It finally got to the point that the service got so slow, I ended up cancelling it and switching to DSL. Streaming video and audio was always way to choppy.

Belinrahs
I have an ego the size of a small planet
Premium Member
join:2007-09-07
Nashville, MI

Belinrahs

Premium Member

Re: DWay Service

...if you were able to get DSL why exactly did you get Hughes....*doh!*

Sun67
@la.us

Sun67

Anon

free Internet

Well i had satellite with hughesnet because i live out in BFE. but i also have aol for highspeed only because my parents like the simple-ness of it. well i cancelled my subscription with hughesnet so everytime i tried to get on the internet it redirected me to the hughesnet home page and said to pay my bill to use the service. well i was able to get on aol and bypass all of it and use its built in web browswer. so basically i still have my satellite internet as long as i go through my aol service. and its still satellite speed. (notice i said satellite speed and not high speed.)

the day the satellites take over is the day online gameing DIES!!!!!!!

POd in Colorado
@direcpc.com

POd in Colorado

Anon

Hughesnet

I've been a hughesnet customer for nearly 2 years, and I have to say it totally blows. I have consistently had trouble with this system. I repeatedly called customer service and advanced technical support and they continually pass the buck to someone else. I've spent hundreds if not thousands on additional service calls to apparently correct the problem. Not only does it not alleviate my frustrations, but it has cost bundles of money in productive time. I've spoke to my attorney about this, and relayed the links to hundreds of other complaints about direcway/hughesnet, he has suggested a class action suit, with the grounds being false advertising and breach of contract. Any takers?