48 thoughts on “Wildblue Satellite Broadband Update”

1. Wow.
   What an eye opener. Thank you Hal…very informative…and sobering.

2. Thanks for this post. useful information indeed. Since dsl and cable is readily available here we won’t be looking at satellite (should we ever be able to come up with the cash to switch from dial up).

3. Hmm, I thought responded to this yesterday… weird. Anyway, I got WildBlue because I found it on this blog. I agree with everything stated (except that the wildblue.cc site is not related to WildBlue, it’s independant).

   I also found out that my Belkin router didn’t have a long enough timeout to DHCP from wildblue…

   Also, interative gaming is pretty much out on the satellite because of the latency.

4. I feel your pain. Troublesome ISP connections and support can be maddening once we become accustomed to that always-on connection.

   You probably already know about:

   http://www.dslreports.com/reviews/2554

   Also, Dish Network (EchoStar) recently announced that they will use WildBlue to provide satellite broadband to their customers (starting in Fall 2006). Dish will handle the customer support. Perhaps they will be provide stronger customer support.

   Regarding the network pings. These ICMP packets will often be dropped when a network becomes saturated (they are placed into lower priority queues within the router, which services them only when possible), so the high latencies you see with ping won’t always translate into your download or burstable download speeds. Still, they provide useful information and troubleshooting.

   There is a solution for faster than a dialup connection when DSL, cable, wireless, satelite and ISDN are not options. Its called Multilink. Certain ISPs will allow multilink connections, which is multiple dialup lines connected simultaneously to provide a wider connection. Thus, users can go from 56k to 112k with the addition of another telephone line. This is often much cheaper than ISDN, but obviously does not provide access to the phone during use. I configured my mother’s networking in this fashion some time ago, and she was pleased with the results (she’s moved onto high-speed wireless since then).

5. MrC – So far, I haven’t felt the pain of tech support, but tomorrow will be my first stab with the tech support at NRTC (my Wildblue agent telephone company). I would like to rule out hardware or installation problems before escalating this further.

   I have been following Broadband reports since January, when I had Wildblue installed. Many of the reviews complain of the same problems that I am having, without finding any acceptable resolution to their problems. But, as is the nature of these type of venues, many times customers who have their problems resolved remain silent about their experience, thereby giving the impression that the universe is only populated by unhappy souls. I am optimistically hoping that I will be one of the silent, satisfied customers.

   Regarding Echostar/Dish Network and Wildblue, many are fearful that the additional customer load will tax what is perceived to be an already overloaded system. On the other hand, the arrangement is resulting in another satellite being put into orbit to divide the load, so maybe the problems might ease in the not too distant future.

   NRTC is my agent/tech for Wildblue, as well as being my local telephone company. NRTC was the company who provided my ISDN service, and so here is my plan of action. If they cannot resolve the technical problems with the satellite service at the moment, I will request that they re-establish my ISDN service at a reduced rate (I still have the equipment and the house is still wired for ISDN). If they are willing to do that, than I would be willing to keep up the Wildblue service while it goes through it’s growing pains. That way I would have ISDN available for use whenever Wildblue goes haywire, and I wouldn’t be pulling my hair out whenever I need to be on-line for business affairs. Since the 256Kbps ISDN only costs $40.00/month, they just might go for it as a compromise solution. We’ll see what happens.

6. Oops! The ISDN speed in the last comment should read 128Kbps, not 256Kbps. Sorry.

7. Great discussion. I was hoping for a rosier picture, but it’s good to know as much as possible before leaping. I wonder how Hughesnet (the former Direcway) satellite broadband compares to Wildblue?

8. Here are two interesting bits of information gleened from various forums pertaining to Wildblue. The first bit of information relates to Wildblue marketing. Each geographical region links to the satellite via it’s own numbered spot beam. For example, my area links to the satellite via Beam 35. Beam 35 is combined with several other spot beams, and relayed from the satellite back down to a terrestrial data processing center known as a gateway location, which in the case of Beam 35, is located in Syracuse, N.Y. There are several gateway locations throughout the United States. The gateway locations are where the satellite transmissions are physically connected to the backbone of the Internet.

   It is reported by installation techs affiliated with various coops that Wildblue has suspended new installations for certain spot beam areas (Beam 35 being one of them) for a period of 30-60 days pending deployment of new software, which is supposed to increase bandwidth and reduce bottlenecks at the gateway locations. This seems to be a tacit admission by Wildblue of performance problems at their end of the network system.

   The second item of importance is that Wildblue has an additional satellite scheduled to be launched this fall, which will hopefully ease the traffic bottleneck that seems to be occuring in many locations.

   As an aside, several contributors to forums have noted that widespread slowdowns of the satellite service have occured during peak hours in the summer months, presumable when school is out. Perhaps the traffic situation will ease as schools across the country return to session.

9. FloridaCracker – here is a link I found to a comprehensive comparison of the Wildblue and Hughesnet offerings. I think it is purposefully minimizing the degree to which users are experiencing difficulties, and this should be kept in mind as you evaluate performance.

   http://www.wildblue.cc/sitenews.htm

   Also, here is a link to a web page from Wildblue which tells if new installations are available in your area.

   http://www.wildblue.com/getWildblue/availability.jsp

   When I put in my zip code, Wildblue displays this message:

   “We apologize, but due to overwhelming demand, we are not currently performing installations in your area. We hope to resume in the coming months. Please register and we will inform you as soon as installations resume in your area.”

10. Good information. I just moved to a rural area myself and I’ve been trying to see what my alternatives are. Most of my neighbors either have dial-up or Hughesnet. So far I haven’t met any local Wild Blue customers although their web site says it is available in my area.

    I’ve also been advised that cellular may be an option where I live. This seems to be marketed more for travellers but the signal is availible in some rural areas.

    One thing you did not mention is the “fair access” rules. Has this come into play for you? Although I don’t download movies, I do download applications now and again but I don’t have a sense of how much this adds up to.

11. Bill – Sorry for not including any commentary about the Wildblue Fair Access Policy (FAP). The reason that I did not is that I have yet to come even close to it’s limits. The policy limits me to 17GB of downloading in the past rolling 30 day period. Since I don’t use VoIP telephony, and I am not a movie downloader, I doubt that I will ever come close to my limits, but I see from the Wildblue forums that some users do. I suppose it depends how much downloading each individual needs for their own Internet uses. For me, over .5GB per day (on average) is far more than I need for my purposes.

12. Wildblue is the worst company I have had to deal with in my memory. Started service in 3/24/06, went down 1st time in 3/28/06 and has service has deteriorated since. Service since June 2006 has been equilavent to my 55k dial up service I had previously, and I am paying 3 timed more for Wildblue.
    Had many hours of down time, with hours on hours of phone conversations with their “techs”.
    Repairman came out 8/2/06 and reaimed dish to correct problems, went down 2 times that afternoon after he left. Had modem and dish replaced 8/8/06, was told by that repairman that dish had maxed out their service and was trying to launch another satellite. New equipment did not help upload speeds , went down again 8/17/06 for several hours. 10/25/06 a new workorder was issued for equipment. I have been told 3 times a repairman would call for a time (today is 11/14/06). Also I have asked 3 times to released from 4 months remaining on contract. They refused.
    I have contacted BBB, My Attorney General, My senators, and House Rep.
    Mastercard will not stop charges to my card, even if I cancel my card acct.
    Please do not entangle yourself with Wildblue, you will regret it …Don S.

13. I read Clark Howard,s web sight on occasion. ( he is a syndicated radio show on consumer rights) . To my horror he has a link to Wildblue Comm. I called his consumer action center (404-892-8227) and suggested they check the web for complaints against Wildblue and their similarity to each other. Please call his # and report your problems, Wildblues arrogance and poor service should not be ignored or encouraged. Don S.

14. We had been with Directway DW4000 system (now Hughs) with nothing but problems. Lost connection for hours, problem with your signal or Directway Web accelerator, but had signal of 70 which is tops for my area.
    Changed to Wildblue by Northland Connect in fall of 2005. Late spring the problems started with no internet. The warmer it got the longer the outage.
    Determined that it was a bad TRIA (what sends and receives the signal) due to moisture in what is supposed to be a sealed device. After 3 months being told I did not know what I was talking about (15+ years in Electronic engineering R&D and failure analysis to component level experience) and 3 TRIA’s later we finally got reasonable Internet connection but not what we started with.
    Now we have latencies approching 0.4 sec. and packet drops not lower than 23% and as high as 63%. The high packet drops not only make it difficult to use the Internet but artifically inflate my usage.
    I woild not recommend Satellite Internet to any one if thy have another choice.

15. Thank you, both my wife and I have been having the same problems with Wildblue that you describe. It is almost as slow as dial up, its not reliable, and when you call up customer service they are not accountable. We use it in the mountains outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. I am in the process of contacting the Attorney General’s office here at the State Captitol. The contract that we got is unreadable without a magnifier glass. We got the system last April and use it about 1/2 the time. The other half time we are in Los Angeles where we have DSL which is reliable and fast. This is a bait and switch type fraud. They do not deliver the speed of service they promise and when you read the small print they claim that you can’t count on them to deliver the promised service. Although the service is in New Mexico we must obey the laws of Colorado where their Corporate offices reside. Lets get together and do a class action lawsuit. My phone number in Santa Fe is 505 466 3367 in Los Angeles it is 323 661 7276. Thanks again.
    Michael L. Schaffer

16. Hi Michael,
    I too am having problems.
    I already had them change out a non-working tria, under the 30 day warranty. Now I’m down again and have been for over a week. I have a service ticket allotted but have not been contacted by the sub-contractor(DSI).
    I called the service again yesterday, they said they would call DSI and call me back. Didn’t happen.
    Also the installer (also DSI) screwed the dish to my roof but failed to make it a water proof installation. The net result of this is that my bathroom ceiling came down. So I was trolling the web(courtesy of my dial up connection, which I kept)to see what my recourse might be.
    When you read the small print they are not liable for anything.

    regards,
    Ron Cummins.360 876 9254

17. Very well said…. I am also a WildBlue customer that is EXTREMELY unsatisfied. I wrote a little post in my blog about some of my problems – not nearly as detailed or well written as your post. I would like permission to link to your post if that would be alright?

    I have tested my connection various times – that is when I can stay connected long enough to finish the speed tests…. very bad.

    Your post was very informative – thank you.

18. I tried for years to get DSL and finally gave up and got Wildblue. Guy installed right away and everything worked fine. I work full time and am full time student and now have two weeks to complete my final paper which requires internet access — guess what — I have no access!!! I am four months into my contract, so I must pay $75 for a service person to come take a look — and he’s too busy to come out for over a week. Called Wildblue and they will only allow the person who installed to be your service person. So… while I was not all that unhappy with Wildblue before, I am now considering buying out the contract because they leave you at the mercy of a local service person who does not care about your internet connection.

19. I could cut and paste Marty V’s message above. Early February service drops, multiple appointments to get a tech out and required to cough up $75 to check and realign the dish. My dish was installed in late September. The tech has scheduled and no-showed 4 times in the last week and now sets the next apointment out to Thursday, 4 days from now. Class Action comes to mind, but I would expect that they would just close their doors and open under a new name in a different state. I selected Wild Blue becasue I live Southwest of Fort Worth TX. and currently we do not have a DSL option. I’m sorry that I agreed to Wild Blue’s contract, I’m sure I’m stuck, but I can warn others not to make the same mistake. DO NOT USE WILD BLUE.

20. I also have had enormous problems with Wildblue, intermittant connections, no shows and no calls from the local installer, a replaced Tria, and the next day my service went down for good, no internet at all, calls to Wildblue support are pointless , they do not call back nor do they care, I will be disputing the charges on me credit card and will cancel my contract at the end of the one year, ( only 2 more months), I am also looking into a way to file complaints against Wildblue. I have asked them to stop charging my card while my service is down, they will not, they say they will credit me when the service is back up…….who knows when that will be, I would NEVER recommend Wildblue to anyone, horrible horrible service….actually there is no service. DO NOT USE WILDBLUE YOU WILL BE SORRY

21. I have had Wildblue for over a year. I was aware of the latency issue and was told it could be up to 800ms latency. Which was the case for about 1 year. And the first year it was great! 1.5mb connections or close to it and 200k uploads. And the 800ms and even 1200ms latency was not a problem!

    But… since December the latency has been over 3000ms and the speed 200k down and we are lucky to get 40k up. In the past when we called tech support they were always quick to reply. Now they purposely keep us on the phone for an hour or more asking to reboot and run test after test and then transfer us again and again to person after person who says they are escalating the call. With finally telling us they are transferring the call to their network person who will call us back. I should be billing them for my time! We called in February and as of yet have not received a call back. In the meantime we have called them several times and after being on the phone with tech suport for over an hour, they inform us that satellite varies but varies means that at some point we should get speeds close to the 1500k we are paying for!! We no longer EVER get the 1500k speeds or anything even close to it! I have fought with tech support for months now and I am tired of waisting my time when nothing seems to come of it!

    Finally I discovered what has occurred. I began looking on the internet for as to why and what is going on. It appears they have overloaded their satellite and did some sort of software fix..the “high latency fix” is my guess. I am very dissatisfied but as of yet there is no other option for us. We are contacting wildblue billing to see if we can get a huge discount on our bill to compensate for the low speeds. If we can get a hold of anyone in billing. Wish us luck. If any other broad band comes available in our area I will be the FIRST to switch!

    In the meantime I have kept very good records of our upload and download speeds over the past few years through DSL reports. Seems to me that there should be some kind of CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT possibility with all the complaints I have seen on the internet!! They are taking our money and not returning the services paid for mainly the 1500k down and 256k up speeds!
    Thanks,
    Sue
    z
    q

22. I have had wildblue for 10 months. It was my only option besides dial-up. I live in a very rural area(northeast Wisconsin) I am very disappointed with wildblue. They claim 512kpbs download speed and 128 upload speed. What a joke. I check my speed using TESYMY.COM daily and have never had an up load speed above 60kpbs. I have had frequent upload speeds of 4kpbs–6kpbs with a load time for a page change on same web site of 18 minutes. Needless to say I would NOT recomend this site to anyone. After my lock contract(1year) I will terminate wildblue service. I am sending all the information compiled over the last 10 months to the Wisconsin attorney Genral (consumer Protection) for prosecution. They are not providing the service advertized. The way their contract is written you can’t do much but pay till your year is up and then terminate.
    Thanks,
    Ron

23. Just read all of the above comments and if I hadn’t seen the “WildBlue” name, I would have sworn that all of you were talking about Hughes.net. I’ve been with Direcway/Hughes for over 5 years. The years with Direcway were great. But as soon as Hughes took over, we had nothing but problems.

    When we signed up we were not told of any limits to our service. We paid over $1500.00 for the equipment and install. They tried to sell us a DS7000 modem several months ago and since then, as if they were pushing this modem, our service has been down more then up.

    I’ve just signed up with WildBlue. We live in a very rural area of Northern MN and every single ISP is long distance. We don’t have a choice if we want Internet here. I just hope that I don’t experience the same problems you are having. BTW…I’ve reported Hughes to the State Attorney General of MN office and have joined a class action lawsuit against them.

    Wish me luck!

    Susie in MN

24. I ordered Wlid Blue several months back. Paid $333.00. After finally receiving the equipment a technichan came out to hook it up. He finally came four times and could not get it to work. The last thing I heard was that another tech guy was to come on 05/18/2007. He never showed up nor did he call. I am now sitting here with a dish on my roof a cable through the wall and a modem that is not connected to any thing. Plus I am out $333.00. I can not get any one on the phone at customer service no matter how long I wait. Could you tell me if there is any one I can contact to resolve this matter.
    Thanks
    Hoyt

25. Is there a class action suit?

26. It is too bad to hear that there are so many of you who are not happy with your wild blue service. I am a independent installer of this equipment and have had a lot of success with wild blue. Anyone in the state of maine who would like some help feel free to drop me an email..
    jharris_installs@yahoo.com

    i have made a living off doing installs for the last 5 years and take alot of pride in it, it is too bad there are so many awefull installers out there who give the industry a bad name..

27. Sign me up on the Class Action List. What ever you do, DO NOT USE WILDBLUE!

    Wild Blue Execs should be castrated! They signed up to many customers. Greedy bastards.

    Yes we’ve sat for hours on the phone with the techs. Yes we have had lousy slow service. Even when I try to access my email from a different ISP when on the road in a hotel, I can’t.

    Would be nice if they would tell us when they were going to do service on their system. Ahh but this would be too difficult.

    I have not been able to access my email for five days.
    They told us we need a new modem $150. Techs will come in a week!

    WildBlue, U Suck

    Where do I sign.

28. Wildblue is a mess. About 2 months ago, I noticed that I was receiving multiple copies of identical emails with identical time stamps. Frequently, after logging off and logging back on, the same emails would be received again, sometimes as many as 6 times. Definitely not spamming. I am using outlook as a mail client. When I contacted wildblue tech support yesterday, I was told that I was “downloading the emails too many times.” The tech rep was unaware that pop mailbox maintenance was a function of the server. I believe this glitch, or whatever it is, is the source of 2 fap restrictions experienced in the past 2 months. WB refuses to investigate the problem and will not even furnish me details of the supposed fap infractions such as download and upload times, etc. Most recently, one day after having my access restored while my upload and download stats were at 3783 mb and 900 mb respectively, I was again notified that my speeds werre being rerstricted because of another fap infraction. I had supposedly uploaded over 8000 mb and downloaded over 17000 mb in one day. All this with nothing more than 2 email accounts being used, no file sharing, no software updates, etc. I will leap at any chance for cable, ISDN, or DSL.

29. Wildblue is sorry bad service. Paying for $79.00 service at 131 kbps download & 25kbps up. What a joke this experience has been. Going on my 2nd year with this sorry company. Wish there was a class action suit against them to get their attention. Wildblue has TOO MANY people on the same bandwidth. They are money hungry instead of providing quality good service.

30. I haven’t found many active WildBlue blogs, but I’d like to get my voice out there.

    I would not say WildBlue is a bad “service.” The service itself is pretty satisfactory, at least as an alternative to dial-up. I am entering my second year with WildBlue. Like many others here, I am needing another TRIA to be replaced. This would be my third one–two every 6 months? Which makes me wonder how durable the TRIAs really are.

    However, the hierarchy of WildBlue is where I (along with most of everyone else here) find the problems. After speaking with various people within the company trying to diagnose my problem, I determined this:

    WildBlue – Manufacturer
    GotSky – Provider
    Local “Outpost” Companies – Outsourced Installers/Technicians

    Therefore, any problems with the equipment aren’t reported directly to WildBlue, but your local installer, who then in turn, get with GotSky to adjust/examine your service, who would in turn order a part (the TRIA) from WildBlue. IMO, the “passing-the-buck” bureaucracy is what really hurts WildBlue as an ISP. This is most unfortunate because I have to wait a week for the local installer to get out, while I’m paying $70 for a weeks worth of dial-up. WildBlue has been cooperative with my requests, so I expect to be re-imbursed for my downtime. Whether that’s getting a discount off my monthly bill, or not having to pay the technician his OUTRAGEOUS $80/hour fee to come replace the TRIA.

    In other news, I’m moving out of my parents’ house in a month, into a neighborhood where I can get broadband/dsl/roadrunner, so I just wish the TRIA would’ve lasted one more month, then I could’ve ended my contract with WildBlue. Oh well. C’est la vie.

31. As I have sought legal counsel, I have since terminated my contract since
    Wildblue misuses the FAP policy, which recently changed (August 1 2007 for
    WABUSE violations to activate at 70% instead of 80% . I lasted two months
    until, I realized the reason my brand new password activated my entry into
    wildblue.net. Phone calls substantiated this by a recording saying the
    wildblue email website was experiencing difficulties. The day I finally was
    able to access my account at wildblue and view usage, I was over the 80%
    mark (83.3%) and slowed down to dial up speed shortly afterward. I used
    testmynet, network utility to snapshot the progressive decline of my service.
    Clouds and rain are the least of my problems. Now Wildblue wants the rest
    of the year’s subscription plus fees and penalties for cancellation. No-win situation or basically “find ’em, FAP em, and forget ’em” tactic. Also Wildblue is considering offering Mobile satellite services. Zoom info’s website is very revealing of the corporate ladder and affiliations. Thank you for offering this blog Ranch Ramblins!

32. I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Wildblue Satellite Broadband Update, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

33. I HATE Wildblue satellite service. We have had it for six months now and it has been a pain from the beginning. I call weekly for assistance. In July, we were out of service for 21 days. I called October 8 and cannot get service this time until October 29 – yes, this is typical for Wildblue service. We moved and Wildblue & Hughes were our only choices. Call other providers weekly to see if the will provide us service. Prior to moving, we had high speed through AT&T and it was a dream. Wildblue is down constantly, you definitely could not work from home with this server and it is often difficult to make purchases and do on-line banking. Did I mention – I HATE WILDBLUE ……

34. As a current user of AT&T phone service, I would highly recommend that management of AT&T give great consideration before partnering with Wild Blue. Wild Blue Corp. management apparently cares little about their customer base and in my estimation, little about their employees as well. I have made numerous attempts to contact management by e-mail with no response. I have also asked tech support for a direct number to management and they say” We have no way &no number for Corp. AT&T, I would not want my reputation tarnished by an associatioin with this customer no service mentality.

35. Wildblue has to set a new record for every way to screw a customer, I have had my service terminated, without any reason, but they still expect payment. when asked why they simple say that they can cancel a contract at anytime, without cause. The contract fine print also says I am responsible for all payments for 16 more months regardless of service. Well I won’t pay and we will have to go to court.
    I am very serious about a class action suit if anyone is interested they can email me at dbl268122@yahoo.com

36. I’m still doing the math, but it looks like my basic package’s FAP usage figures might be inflated. I have now put a usage monitor on our two computers and the numbers aren’t adding up right. We have been using way less than the 250MB per day allowance, but the rolling total isn’t coming down right.
    Has anybody had a similar experience, and have they kept good math on it, and do they have any input to add to this post?
    Thanks,
    Steve

37. Stephen
    We need to keep a eye on the FAP usage, I use du meter and now it
    seem to be close but WB always seems to be a little high around 10%.
    one thing is to make sure all connections are hard, not wireless. before
    I hard wired my lap top it was using around 3 to 4 times more, from
    what someone told me because of encription it will use more. But the
    thing that ticks me is the band width, must been in fine print and it
    was after went over had to get back to 80% and now the new fair
    access is need to get to 70%, hmmm would that be a change of contract,
    is that legal, why not got to 10% so get all of use to go to next plan
    I have twice, may be next is bis. plan , class action.

38. I am extremely disappointed with WildBlue satellite Internet service. There
    are so many things wrong with it but to name just a few: very expensive as
    compared with cable modem or DSL or dialup; very slow speed even though it
    is advertised as high-speed; even though you are paying twice as much as
    other services that offer unlimited bandwidth the WildBlue service limits
    the bandwidth you can use and if you use more than is allowed they punish
    you with 30-days of only 10% of their normally abysmal speed making it
    almost impossible to use the Internet. I am a programmer and a computer
    professional. I had to download quite a bit of data from Microsoft recently
    as part of my work. Without warning WildBlue now has put a sever limit on my
    Internet speed as a form a punishment. I have to say that I hate WildBlue.
    And I have never said that about another company. But there is something so
    infuriating about WildBlue’s total lack of customer support and their
    willingness to punish customers for weeks on end because their completely
    silly bandwidth limits are violated. I tried to call them several times but
    am told via a recorded message that the wait will be interminably long
    before anyone will speak with me or yesterday after a long wait a recorded
    message came on the line and said that I should call back in a few hours
    because they were to busy to take my call. Stay far away from WildBlue. Go
    with Hughes Net or anything else but WildBlue.

39. does anyone knows if there is any other information about this subject in other languages?

40. In reference to my post of June 22 of last year, it has finally happened: There is a new wireless internet provider in my area – shelbywireless.com – and I am dumping wildblue today. lousy service, frequent downtime for no apparent reason, rude tech support, high prices, their uncompromising fap, inaccurate usage tracking, etc. new provider charges a one time fee of 149 dollars, owns and maintains the equipment, and has plans fron 40 dollars to 60 dollars a month. no noticeable latency and speeds as promised. goodbye wildblue and good riddance.

41. I have had wildblue for over two years. The service has been very good except for loss of signal when water droplets adhere to my dish. Not good in Oregon. Sooo I have found that a black garbage bag placed over the dish will keep the droplets off and my signal is good. Have the value package and much much better than dial up. Not as good as a hardwire system but all that is available in rural setting.

42. I totally agree with many of these posts especially Blued, Glued and Tattooed: “No-win situation of basically “find ‘em, FAP em, and forget ‘em” tactic. ” I upgraded to the $80/mo plan because of the frequent FAP violations and now they are telling me that I will be in violation again. At $80/mo I should be able to download anything I want anytime as often as I want!

    I have frequent outages as well. I call frequently too and go through the machinations of rebooting everything and “Viola” by the time we’re done doing nothing, I have my service again. I strongly believe they use a brown-out / black-out procedure to cut back on customers so they can conyinually add more customers even though they don’t have the capacity to handle them. As soon as you call, I bet they turn you back on so it looks like the customer support actually helped you out. This last time they tried to tell me my computer had a problem giving it’s IP address and I would have to take it to a repair shop. Of course the next day, I was able to get on with it – no problem. Guess it magically fixed itself overnight.

    I would like to break my contract – anyone successful at that? I cannot afford a bad credit report.

43. I signed up for the top level of service from WildBlue Communications in June of 2007. Since May of this year (2008) my service has been spotty at best, and for long stretches of time has been completely non-existent.

    I called to cancel my account in August, and was asked to give them a chance to correct the problem. They scheduled a service call and the technician was dispatched within 2 weeks — with the wrong part. I was told it would take 2 days for the correct part to arrive. It is now December, and the technician still has not received the correct part.

    For 4 months now, I have been shuttled back and forth between technician, dsi, and WildBlue technical support and customer service. Everyone points fingers at everyone else.

    At one point, I was offered a terrific deal of paying only $39.95 a month instead of the $79.95 I pay until they resolve the situation. What a deal! $40 for no service instead of $80 for no service!

    December 8th, I contacted WildBlue to demand a refund and cancel my service. I was transferred to a customer service specialist in the corporate office, K. Gregory, who assured me he would take care of the problem by 12/12/08. He further assured me that I would receive a phone call from him no later than first thing in the morning of 12/9/08 with a status update. I have received no call. I have called the number he gave me DAILY, but get his voice mail, and he does NOT return my phone calls.

    Further, you can’t reach any of the executives at WildBlue. There are no phone numbers or email addresses available for anyone except their call center employees who, obviously, do not have the authority or ability to address customer service issues of this magnitude. To make matters worse, they can’t even give you contact information for anyone who might be able to help, but simply send you back to the website that provides only the phone number to the call center.

    If you, or anyone you know is considering WildBlue for your internet service, RUN don’t walk to a different service provider.

44. Please go to my website to see the real deal between Hughes and WIldBlue

45. Wild blue is the slowest most overpriced internet I have ever seen. I thought I would be gettin on over on the cable company by going WILD BLUE, and now I pay $70 a Month to go over my limit and wait, and wait, and wait, and lose the page. My girlfriend just hooked up Hickory Tech at her house, and I can’t believe the speed to cost ratio compared to Wild Blue. I swear that I upgraded to the $70 package, and it slowed me down even more.

46. Cancelled my WB 5/21/2010 after 3 years of bad service. Paid a prorated bill and one month in advance day of installation. WB has now turned me over to a Collection Agency and is demanding payment thru 6/21/2010. Amazing GotSky/WB can do this when I paid for a month of service up front. Looks like I’ll have to pay the bill and file a small claims case to get my money back. I have read WB/GotSky TOS and found they are in violation of their own TOS. Service was continually slow, if it worked at all.

47. I have horrible service very slow and many disconnects. My contract is up in Feb. 2012 can’t wait. I use Verizon MiFi and have great wireless service also cost less than WB. I am counting down the days till my contract is over.

48. I hate WildBlue… It took me 3 times trying to send this to get it to work. The people who work for this company are rude and don’t care about service. I have tried numerous times to get them to just autopay from my checking account and these rude idiots can’t figure it out. Plus, you have to speak Ebonics to communicate with them. They also charge 3 times what CenturyLink charges. My Android is faster than this company’s internet service. I will never let anyone I know do any business with this terrible company. I could complain all day about WildBlue.