Hughes Network Systems

So we finally went with another service, unlimited data, for about the same price. I called HughesNet and told them to discontinue our service. They told me that it would be a $220 ETF. After 8 years! Apparently on June 30, 2017 we had a new box installed because the old one was faulty. We were told that it was Gen 5, but because we needed a new box, it would not count as a new contract. Of course we believed the lying technician. He probably got a nice commission too! So we are breaking a contract. After 8 years, we get charged $220. I warn everyone, steer clear of this business, they are dishonest and will cheat you out of your last dime! After reading other reviews, I feel that we got off light, as HughesNet only stole $220 of our disability income.

They said they would make a note on my account and issued me another case #. Still haven't heard from them, So I called, again today and NOW they don't have my service agreement added to my account, and billing is closed and they offered to set me up with an appointment for repair with NO SERVICE agreement, which will cost me the original $300.00!! WTF??? I DO NOT understand why a company that big can't get their ** together!! As I read all their bad reviews, I TRULY wish they weren't the only internet service I had to choose from... Oh wait THAT'S WHY THEY HAVE SUCH CRAPPY SERVICE and EQUIPMENT that won't last a year! So their story is: "when you have no choice they don't care enough provide a good quality service. Shame on Hughes Net!!!

After checking others, I called back and got a service agent, Kiley. I wanted to ask more questions and really compare what I had been checking all afternoon. She gave me a different rate of 64.98/month. Same installation fees. I then challenged her with what the previous agent had said to me. Her words exactly to me were, "Well that's wrong and that other person straight up lied to your face then because this is the only offer in your area". I then started to say I was not prepared to make a commitment and she hung up on me.

I wish it ended there, but, it doesn't. I called back because I was angry at this point and wanted to speak to a manager. Kiley answered my call again, and I demanded to speak w/ a manager and she hung up AGAIN. Last time I called, I spoke with a Tiffany, and she got me in touch with a manager. Well, the manager was JUST AS UNPROFESSIONAL AND RUDE! I tried several times to explain myself and he kept interrupting me and then told me I WAS WRONG WITH EVERYTHING and he was going to do nothing for me because I was not an official customer. He also said, "Well I don't believe that you have any other option for internet or you wouldn't have called us 3 times today and inquired this much". At this point it was NOT because I wanted to sign on, it was to file a complaint.

Needless to say, we are not nor will we EVER go with this company and I hope this review helps others realize that this is an awful company and the customer service is just terrible and unprofessional. I was not even a customer and so I would have assumed that they would give bells and whistles to shine as to why we should go with them, well they didn't and they lost out on a customer. Hopefully through this review they lose more customers or potential customers. Terrible service, terrible customer relations, and terrible prices for what apparently you get according to all previous reviews. Save your time and your money.

Wrong. They refused to honor the agreement of the just over a week ago even though they fully acknowledged it was the technician, not us, who canceled the order. The total increase in price over the 24-month contract would be $220. I stated that we had a contract. I agreed to use Hughesnet for 24-months and they agreed to provide install and service at a specific price. They refused to honor the contract. This is dishonest. It is also hypocrisy. Hughesnet expects a customer to honor a contract. They do not hold themselves to the same standard. I stated on the phone I was going to a competitor. This did not seem to concern them. Do not do business with Hughesnet. They are dishonest and do not value a customer's business.

We used to have Amazon Prime to stream movies but the cap and the slow speeds makes it useless. Even watching YouTube is a joke with the buffering. I was going to an online school that used virtual labs over an internet connection. It literally took me 2 hours to do a 30 minute lab because of the lag. Hughesnet is the WORST internet service I have ever had. It is also the most expensive internet I have ever had. Anytime there is weather, the internet goes down. Just this morning it's been yo-yo-ing up and down due to weather. I never had this problem with cable. As I am writing this review, it has gone down 3 times. I normally don't write reviews because I know Hughesnet doesn't give two squats about what their customers think but if I can get others to not use their service, it will be a good thing. If I ever have the opportunity for a better internet option, I will not think twice about dumping Hughesnet. If I could rate them less than one star I would.

My internet has either never worked well or simply not worked at all after 3 mos now August 2018. No one has been able to determine why. When it did work it was strangely slow or nonexistent in some rooms (house 2,800 sq ft); online speed tests I tried multi times showed huge speed changes 1 min to the next. Usually, it took 3-4 mins to load any page, sometimes they would never load -- even if I stood next to the modem; any Netflix movie I watched stopped and loaded at least 5x/hr or disconnected.

I have called a total of 9 times now in 3 mos. Agents had me "troubleshoot" multi times but nothing could be ID'd so they sent a service agent out and replaced my modem after 6 weeks. The same problems continued. I continued to call. They reimbursed me a month of fees acknowledging they could see from their data records there were gaps of no service. They set up another service visit. After 2 mos in and 2 mos of problems with multi attempts made to fix the service, I opted to cancel the internet. They told me I would be charged $350 because of a 2 yr contract. I explained the service never worked and that I should be able to cancel given all the failures I'd encountered. I pointed to my multi calls and "troubleshooting" sessions with multi-agents. They refused to cancel the contract.

I specifically asked how many problems I would have to encounter in order to get out of the contract. They then claimed, "it was my expectations" that were the issue --yes they said that-- AND THAT SLOW SERVICE (which they kept focusing on instead of all the times the net was truly not working) WAS STILL WITHIN THE NORMAL CONTRACT. I am not kidding. If you sign up with Hughes Net and the service is slow or doesn't reach throughout your home, too bad, but it is not a good enough reason to cancel the contract. How does this exist in the US?

Truth is I cancelled my prior CenturyLink DSL service after 4 years and switched to Hughes Net because I was tired of fee hikes and excited to try satellite. I'm not super tech savvy but this satellite service is actually much slower. I now have CenturyLink running again and have NONE of the problems I have with Hughes Net. I am using the same computer and tv.

To add insult to injury: When I signed up for Hughes Net I explicitly asked SEVERAL times, "are you sure there are no hidden fees beyond the monthly 49.99?" I was assured there were no hidden fees. Lie. There is a 10.00/month modem rental fee. My bill each month is around $73. When it does work it is not just a little slow -- it is REALLY slow compared to my DSL CenturyLink service. I now have both of them running. Bummer.

They also did not always make notes about my calls. One call I made was 30mins+ and the agent was able to do something remotely that got me back online. Next day I was offline again and called back (this was becoming a regular occurrence). They looked and looked and there was no record of my call the day prior. By this time, say call 7 to them, I was pretty frustrated and so began asking them to make notations on my account each call.

Today August 6, 2018 I called and there were none of the comments I had asked them to include in my case. They want me to have ANOTHER service call to my home again to see if hardware can be fixed. I guess they provide much needed rural services in some places. With many options in Salt Lake City, I urge you to think twice about this company. They aren't standing behind their product.

They also said I had Gen5 service and I could only hook up to the Gen2 service. Also when I asked for a receipt for my disconnect bill that I already paid for they said they couldn’t send me a receipt to my correct address which they did not correct a year ago. I had no contract for more than a year and I have no paperwork proving that. They then took $280 out of my account without approval from me. The only thing I agreed to was taking the payment out monthly for $70. I expected a bill in the mail but they can’t do that either as they refuse to correct my address. I would never use this company again and I mean never. Overcharged and all the wrong information. They are a terrible customer service company and should be shut down!!! Thank you for your time.

Updated on 08/15/2018: We recently moved to a small community in Missouri and requested Hughes Net to provide us with internet coverage. This was the last week of June, 2018. For a two year contract, they hooked us up with Hughes Net Gen5, and we were told that we would be able to stream movies and music and that they would provide enough power to be able to do this at 25mbps. On the first day of using their internet, everything we attempted to do was buffering...web search, sending emails...even the simplest task buffered. When we called they told us to give it a day so that it could set itself. It didn't help, so we called again to tell them that it wasn't working. They told us they would send someone out to check on it. A week later, no one had come, so we called again. The agent told us that the person we needed to talk to was not available and that he would have them call us.

He never called, so we called again...and again...and again...with no resolution to the problem. They finally called back and they couldn't help either. At no time has this ever done what they said it would do. So, finally, we called yesterday and told them that we wanted to cancel their services because they did not fulfill their contract by providing us with what they told us they would provide. We were then told that the 25 mbps that they said we would get was actually 16, and since we had gotten online, it was considered functional...(even though we could not use it for anything other than reading our email, and with much buffering...doing web searches).

Therefore, in order to cancel this 2 year contract, we had to pay them $400, plus any incurred expenses during the removal of said equipment. We told them that we did not believe that was justified because they were the ones that defaulted on their side of the contract; thus forcing us to find something that would work. We were told that they would send us a bill for what we owed them. I am sure the $400 will be on it.

When doing business with a company, it is my understanding that the expectation of both parties is that one party provides a service and the other party uses that service. Before we signed up, we asked if we could stream movies and music with the limit that we purchased and were told that indeed we certainly could. What we were not told that it would only be for a day and then the power would be dropped down to 1.6 mbps. You would thank that they would be held accountable for falsifying their advertising and unethical business practices.

This would continue for the entire time we "tried to watch" a program - the on/buffer was so annoying you really couldn't watch, much less enjoy any show. Called tech support to report the issue (I still hadn't done a speed check at that time). After struggling through the maze they call the phone system I waited for close to an hour before I actually talked to someone. This tech told me they were going to log into my system and perform some tests and please hold - I held - finally my phone disconnected. Did I say earlier that there isnt any cell service here, well there isn't so we opted to get our phone service through Hughes too. Called back to Hughes tech support again, struggled through the phone system and waited for another 45 minutes before another person answered. I explained the issue (again) and once again the person put me on hold to check the system - phone disconnects again (starting to be a normal thing).

I called back again and this time 30-45 minutes later was talking to a tech. I pleaded with the tech not to hang up on me again - which I'm sure put him in an awkward spot not knowing what I was talking about. I explained to him everything that was going on and how every time tech put me on hold I was disconnected. I also told him if he could to please call me back on the Hughes landline # they gave me earlier that day (from the installer), he said he would. Got disconnected again, waited 30 mins and called back to tech since nobody called back. Talked to #4 explained everything again, it appeared this guy had it together - well sort of - he figured out that I was being disconnected because the other techs kept rebooting the modem - fee no modem, no phone. The solution by this tech will seem quite appropriate - not - the solution was to call back on my cellphone or a different phone that wasn't going through Hughes Net.

Did I mention earlier there is absolutely NO service here? I was a bit shocked - let's see, most people would spend an additional $30 -40/month to have a second land line, right? - I explained again to him that my cell doesn't work (it's 25+ miles from any reception @ the house) and the only landline I have is through Hughes. He still couldn't understand (or comprehend) that there are actually places like this in the US and again told me to fix the problem I would have to call them back on a different line that wasn't going through the satellite. Are you scratching your head yet, I was! Then before I could say anything else he said goodbye and hung up. By this time I think I was quite unhappy (maybe even really pissed off). I decided to call his bluff, so I got in the car, drove over 25 miles to get reception on my cell and called tech. To my absolute surprise, they told me they couldn't help me unless I was in front of the modem, go figure ;).

After explaining WHY I called being 25+ miles away from the modem, the tech actually started laughing uncontrollably, which was actually a relief to me. He actually apologized for laughing, but also realized that I knew they couldn't help if I wasn't there, but...we spoke for several minutes 15-20 I think. And he said he put several things into my service record so that even the first line people could understand NOT to reboot the modem without getting my phone # and to make sure they called me back after the modem was finished rebooting - he told me in the record, all the previous techs stated "customer hung up" in the log. On a positive note, I wouldn't be a bit surprised if this part doesn't end up on some tech blog of craziest cases.

So I'm sure you now think everything is okay, nope. Tier 3 (or advanced tech) called back a day or so later to try & fix the problem, asked me to go to testmy.net, use manual download @ 25mb, do this 3 times so they would have an average: 1mbit, 375K, 350K - gee, not quite the (up to) 20Mbit they boast of, or told me when we first ordered it. Tech jumped into modem said they were seeing 12-15mbit d/l speeds, I tried again, same parameters, 450K, 300K, 125K - Smoking internet (I would've loved to had that speed when the bbs's of the 80's had us use 300 baud - not K - or even all the way up to the blazing 56K a couple of years later, but not now when I'm paying for (up to) 20Mbits ;)). I don't think tech believed me so they sent out the installer again.

The installer couldn't find anything wrong with the install - but saw speed was slow - so he said he would update my record and tech would call me. Tech called a couple days later. Couldn't find anything on their side so elevated to engineering - I asked if it could be the modem since it showed good on their side, but was told that those modems don't go bad. A week later, engineering called, we went through the obligatory speed tests (best speed was 1Mbit) and engineer decided it must be the modem (duh, why didn't I think of that) and that the installer would be back to put it in. After some discussion we decided to have "everything from the ground up replaced, just in case- by the way, did I say earlier the installer comes out of a different state? The contracted company is out of MO about 1 1/2 hours away).

Different installer came back replaced everything except the post and the metal shield looking part of the system. Let everything come back up and still nothing more than 3Mbit - relief, they can't call me a liar again. He (installer) called his "special tech #" and luckily got someone from engineering who decided to change the satellite I was using, this of course required turning off the modem - recall earlier about phone, cell & otherwise. When installer changed satellite there wasn't any change in speeds, when he called tech back he wasn't as lucky and after about 20 minutes he got off the phone and said "you are going to hate me for what I have to tell you". He went on to say he couldn't do anything else, tech elevated the matter up to engineering again.

I couldn't get angry with the installer and he did have me sign something that specifically stated that the problem wasn't fixed. Engineering or tech called back a week later saying they fixed the problem. I did the obligatory speed tests and it showed 12-15Mbits d/l, how about that! I told tech NOT to close out the ticket because I needed to make sure it wasn't temporary and I wanted to do speed tests for a day or two to see how consistent it was. It wasn't, next morning was back to <1Mbit. Called Hughes Net to cancel service and get reimbursed for two months of service I couldnt use. Was told I couldn't get out of contract because tech states everything was working fine and a $640 early termination fee would be assessed. I couldnt believe this, I'd already paid over $200 in monthly fees for a service I couldnt use, plus I had to pay another $640 (or $100+ recurring payments) for a service that doesn't work!

Needless to say, that made me quite pissed and I told the idiot that on the other end of the phone - he promptly hung up on me. Fast forward to the end of month 2 of this lovely internet & landline "service", as much as I was dreading calling them back, the wife forced me to call again. Prior to calling & just a day or so after the last call above, we unplugged the modem & totally disconnected the Hughes system and had the local phone company run copper to our property for a real landline (closest box was ~1/2 mile) - not cheap, but at least we could call during an emergency. We checked sat phones, but the upfront and service price was just way too much. Called Tech - only had to wait 30 minutes before I spoke to someone. The tech listened and researched the issue and said essentially the same thing the last person said - I did NOT get angry this time - wife was quite impressed because she was getting really pissed.

Instead of yelling, I carefully and calmly restated my case, he said he would check with supervisor. Ten minutes later he said nothing could be done & I'd owe $640 if I cancelled the service. I once again, calmly requested to speak with the supervisor. The tech put me on hold for about 10 minutes and came back on saying that his supervisor would be right with me and that she was just finishing up with someone else. Time passed - literally 30+ minutes passed when the supervisor came on - maybe they were hoping I'd hang up, but I remained calm (believe me I really could've used some ** or similar, but alas nothing was available). She asked what she could do so I explained that I really felt that I shouldn't have to pay an early termination fee, and I actually should be reimbursed for the two months of "non-service".

She looked at my account and said it must be working okay, that I'd used almost 20Gb of data in the first 2 days of my billing cycle - really, hmmm, did I say earlier I disconnected the system? When I brought this up she looked deeper and said that in fact she could see when I disconnected and that everything was downloaded between 4 & 8pm the day I was on the phone with tech. Well, that's convenient that would be a bit less than 10Mb/s running the entire time I was speaking with tech. I told her this and even she thought that wasn't right - chalk one up for the good guys! - then she said on another day we downloaded another 5gb (turns out that was a day we weren't home & had proof). Now I'm up two! She said she couldn't jump into my modem - didn't I say I had disconnected the system?

She wanted me to hook everything back up and was blaming the data use on everything from a neighbor using our system (not hardly, our closest neighbor is a mile away, my wifi is good, but not that good!) to our cell phones, to our dish network system downloading movies (the Dish network isnt hooked up to internet because it was so slow - she didn't believe me). I told her I'd hook everything back up and she said she would call me back in 30 minutes to 2 hours. She did call back in about 45 minutes and was surprised that nothing was hooked up to the modem. I told her I checked the speed when it finished booting up and it averaged under 1Mbs - I think she finally realized I wasnt trying to cancel the service due to "buyers remorse" but because the system just wasn't working.

She said she could waive the early termination fee ($240) on the landline (since she could verify I wasn't using their voip) but didn't have the authority to waive the early termination fee of $400 on the internet. I told her (calmly) I appreciated her waiving the one fee, but it seemed as if I should be getting a refund for the last two months - she put me on hold and came back saying the max she could waive was $200. Long(er) story short(er) it's costing me $200 to cancel the service without getting reimbursed for the 2 months of "service" I had. I do applaud the efforts of this supervisor, but it really shows what Hughes Net is really all about - sucker you in with promises and do their best to charge you outrageous early termination fees so you will stick with a system that really doesn't work.

Due to the fact that I needed to be able to work and not being able to get service from HughesNet, I got another ISP installed. I disconnected the HughesNet modem on the 20th and had to shut my Debit card down to keep them from charging me for services that I did not receive and could not get repaired. It was them or my job! They are now wanting to charge me for an early disconnect fee. I am not willing to pay that fee. They have not provided service or customer care. I have had continual issues with slow speed and loss of service. I have documented the speeds and the issues I have had along with the times that I have tried to call and get the system brought back up to speed with no results. They just tell you something that is not true in an effort to buy time to try to get the speed up. They are not reliable and their customer service is non-existent.

They told us a refund would be issued in 3-5 business days. 10 business days later, still no refund. Now they are telling us we have to provide a tracking number for the radio transmitter, even though we never had one, and secondly, we used THEIR shipping label to return the package. They should have the tracking number on file. They are now refusing to refund our money that they have STOLEN and are going to charge us again on August 19th. This company is ridiculous.

When Spectrum did show up at our newly purchased home less than 30 days after we moved in, (after they told us we had to wait until May 2020 to get high speed internet in our area), I called Hughes Net to cancel my service. I explained to them that we only went with them because we didn't have a high speed internet provider in the area, and that now Spectrum offered to buy us out of the contract, we wanted to cancel.

We are still well within the 30 days of starting the service. I asked about the stuff on their website in regards to canceling within the first 30 days of service and the guy I spoke with was very rude. Not only did he try using scare tactics to keep me using their service (threatening to charge us the early termination fee even though it says they won't, and telling me I would be on the hook for an additional $400), but he also tried to trick me into staying with them for another month, which would put me outside of the 30 day grace period.

After I explained to him repeatedly that I wasn't interested, he continued pushing me to stay with them, trying to confuse me about the terms of the cancellation etc. It wasn't until I demanded he tell me what the policy was regarding canceling within the first 30 days, that he told me to go to the website and read it for myself. I reminded him that I was a customer, and as a customer service representative he should be able to tell me what the policy was. After going back and forth with him, he finally put me on hold for about 2 minutes while he read it for himself (I suspect for the first time), and then told me I was right. I have to believe he as well as other representatives have misrepresented the situation to other customers who have tried to cancel just so they can charge the $400 plus the early termination fees.

When I requested a supervisor to discuss how he handled the situation, he transferred me to another representative who said they were the supervisor who basically read word for word what it said on the site. She offered no apology for the strongarm tactics or for the way the previous representative misrepresented the situation. The service itself, I would rate 7/10 (Compared to other satellite services I've used), customer service 1/10. If you prefer honesty, don't go with this company.

I live in a remote area so I am forced into satellite service. I had DSL at one point running at 1.7 mbps and unfortunately I switched to HughesNet. Honestly, DSL was faster than HughesNet 75% of the time. To add insult to injury after my first 12 months elapsed the Bill went up. To give HughesNet credit they did reduce my monthly bill by $30 a month because they cannot resolve any of my complaints. I suspect they have more customers than their infrastructure can handle. Reminds me of the Token Ring era. If you want to keep your sanity find a service that is consistently reliable, HughesNet is not it.

Seriously, within the first 30 days, what kind of service is that? To watch one movie on Netflix it would take 4 hours of constant buffering. We could only use screen mirroring on our TV with our cell phones. Our family could not take it anymore, I called to cancel and had to scream at the person to cancel it as they would not listen to me. It cost me $250.00 and I went back to cable. I may have to make 10 payments on my credit card to pay off that money but we can actually watch a movie in 1 hour and 46 minutes, my kids can play video games, and I can actually use my laptop again. I wish I had read the reviews before I ever agreed to the DirecTV package with HughesNet. You might as well take a few $1,000 and throw it out the window because that's how good your money would be worth for this piece of crap.