Last updated Friday April 19th, 2024
Beware
My experience: 1.5 years of inadequate service (unusable download & upload speeds, high packet losses) and inadequate response. Multitude of complaints to Wildblue/Exede/ViaSat tech & customer service via phone, email, online, and FB. 1 complaint to the FCC, 2 complaints to BBB and 2 rebuttals to inadequate response + lying about refunds. 1 letter to the CEO Mark Dankberg. 1 month of working closely by email with an engineer who seemed earnest in solving multiple technical issues that seems to have resolved the majority of the problems. Billing is entirely another issue. Still getting charged when they say there is a refund owed. YOU HAVE TO STAY ON TOP OF THE BILLING. Indeed, the CEO of ViaSat is compensated over 2 million dollars yet cannot adequately bring functional service and correct billing to its customers, many of whom have no other option for internet connection.
slow speeds
I've had this service for several years and it is OK at times. The speeds I get late at night are good but slow during the daytime and evening hours. This year, since Thanksgiving, the speeds have been horrible. I have to use my smartphone for internet since it operates 5-10 times faster than Excede (verified through speedtest.net). I was told by an Excede contact that their system is overloaded with the holiday shopping traffic which indicates to me they are not able to handle the amount of traffic for the accounts they have sold. Calling and asking for assistance results in the same unplug and replug routine while explaining to them that my service is good in the evening when everone else is offline goes right over their head. The modem, router, and ip are fine. They have just oversold their capabilities.
Worst Customer Service & Connectivity
I signed up for Excede about a year ago when it came as a bundle with Directv. I found out today that the promotional discount had expired. I called the company and after staying on hold while they checked other "offers," we were disconnected.
I started a chat online and informed the agent that I was disconnected and they were looking into promotional offers. The chat agent said "there's nothing we can do" and closed the chat.
So I call back to cancel my service and they offered me a $10 credit for 12 months to stay. I declined and then was told that I would be responsible for early termination fees. I explained to the agent that my service rarely works and I don't want to pay for a service that is not reliable. They said they cannot do anything about the fees and would charge my card the full fee! When I asked to speak to a manager, I was told no. Then switching the payment method on file was another story! She said "do you want me to stop payment?" I said, "you've already charged my card when I specifically said I needed to change the card that would be charged?" She said, "no." I replied, "then why would you stop payment?" She acted dumbfounded then. So I better not have 2 charges on my account for this stupid crap.
At the end of the day, I paid for internet for a year that was unreliable and when I decided to cancel, they offered no support or customer service.
I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND them to anyone.
Terrible connectivity
I signed up for EXEDE to obtain faster connections speeds. Unfortunately, I cannot remain connected to the service long enough to enjoy any speed. I have to reset the router so frequently, I mainly use the slow but reliable service (I kept it just in case and unfortunately the "case" materialized so I have two services now). When I did connect, it seemed slow. I tested it with several programs including the one recommended by Exede. It was slow! Customer service said that they could do nothing about it and ggave me a $10/ month reduction for one year. That is only good if you can use the service. I recommend finding a reliable service and forgoing Exede. Don't waste your money. By the way, I can't find a way to put my review on the Exede site. Obviously, they only allow positive reviews or create the reviews themselves.
bad user experience
For rural service they have been pretty good. You have to buy extra gigs, though, if you start downloading anything big. Can get expensive fast. No such thing as internet freedom. Now I'm moving and want to disconnect. Because our cells depend on wifi we can't call in to disconnect until we're leaving the house the last time. But they can't send the box for us to return their equipment in until we disconnect. Catch 22. So we're going to haul their equipment 1100 miles to our new home because they can send the box to our new address. Company policy. Not customer service.
I have NEVER received such TERRIBLE customer service in my life... And that\'s saying a lot as I switched from Time warner. Their customer representatives and rude, and they are ignorant. [...] There is absolutely no consistency in their department, and they do not attempt to resolve any issues, even when speaking with alleged supervisors (ie being charged data during their \"free nights\"). I will NEVER use their services again.. And I HIGHLY recommend that you don\'t, either.
Horrible Customer Service
We live rurally and purchased this service as our only option for "high" speed internet. Boy are we sorry we did. We are on their "unlimited email/web browsing" plan that supposedly also has unlimited data from 3am-8am (who is up at this time anyway???). Initially our plan only had 5 GB anytime data, they recently doubled this to 10GB. Only two or three netflix episodes on lowest resolution)- and bam, data gone for month. Not to mention constant interruptions to service, slow downs, etc. No email notification if you are getting close to your data limit (you have to log on to their website, which most of the time gives you a message of "current data usage unavailable")- so how am I supposed to keep track, especially if I cannot log on to website without access?
Anyway, yesterday, out of the blue, our modem goes offline. I try powering up and down by unplugging it, it comes back on for a couple of hours, then goes offline again (power light on, but not connecting to anything). I called the company tonight, and first she tries to tell me that it is down because our data limit is reached (which if you remember we have unlimited email/web browsing, so that should not be the issue for basic connectivity). Then she comments that "oh, your modem has been offline for 32 hours." Yes, I know this, this is why I am calling! Well, if you have already powered it off and on again, we will have to send a technician to look at it. Okay, when can you have someone out here? "The earliest technician appointment is 12/18 (today is the 11th)!" What?!? a whole week? To trade out a faulty modem? My husband uses this to work from home!! "Well, I can wave the $95 service call fee for your inconvenience" WHAT?!? your equipment failed, and you want to charge me to come out and replace it, a week later?!? Sorry, never thought I would say this, but even comcast was better than this! On top of that, she tries to tell me that I have 30 GB of free data to use, but she can only apply it to the account in 5GB increments. "Shall I apply this credit now? They will expire at the end of the month." So, you are going to apply 5GB of available data credit (that no one ever notified me that I had until I call in with a service complaint) to an account that I cant use for a week because you cannot get a service technician or replacement equipment out to me sooner, but once you do resolve everything, then I have to figure out when my data is up and call you to add each additional 5GB to my account to use them all by the end of the month?!? And you want to charge me to fix my connectivity problem too?? We will be looking for other options, and filing a BBB complaint.
Scam
Paid Exede to install service. They canceled the install and refuse to refund money. They even tried to charge me for install fees a second time after they canceled the install. This company is no better than an email scam stealing money from people. Why is theFCC not prosecuting this company's?
Bad internet service
I regret switching to Exede. I would not recommend it to anyone. Our data last about 5 to 10 days and we are without the remaining days. I think it is sad that we pay for a service that doesn't last any longer. I will be leaving this service soon. It is making me select a star rating. I would like to make it a negative star rating.
Don't do It!
dont do it, I cannot say it in enough ways. I wanted the service off after 1 week! a cloud rolled by the house and we lost service for over 24 hours!! I called to have it cancelled, the rep lied and said it was done...that was the end of Aug 2014. We had 0 service all of Sept 2014, thought not much of it...Then in Oct 2014 they stole 99.00 from our account! We called to complain and get our money back, they said we were never shut off from service BS-remember Sept. So this lady said she would shut us off and we had to wait to get a box to send their stuff back..NP. Nothing much happened, they refunded our 99.00, we got the shipping box delivered and sent it out...The next week a guy shows up at our door demanding the equipment, I told him it was mailed back to them. 10 minutes later I get a fraud alert call from my CC company, they stole $330.22 out of our account!!! NO JOKE, they will not return our money, claiming that we signed an agreement(that we never signed) for early termination fees!!!, And the worst of it is that it is now DEC 2014 and they just sent me an email stating that they are going to be taking out our monthly service fee on the 12th of this month!!! WE have had noooo service from them since August, RUN do not let them in. [...]