NOTE: this page is for classic HughesNet satellite internet. If you are using the new HughesNet Gen4, please visit our Gen4 review page.
Terrible
The service is very, very slow and disconnects every 60 to 90 seconds. There ought to be a law to keep these people from operation.
What HughesNet DOESN'T Tell You!
I ordered HughesNet to replace my DSL service in the Rocky Mountains. They promised 5mg/sec speeds with no degradation when our little mountain town is full of tourists. What they didn't tell me was:
- There is a long, long, LOOOOONG delay as the dish sends and receives from the satellite. This delay is so long that my 3G cellphone and my old DSL completely blew it away.
- They didn't tell me that there was a monthly 10 gig limit on data...I do more than that with an iPad and cell phone!
- They didn't tell me that the dish and the pole (now set in concrete) were disposable and that they would NOT be removing them! Thanks. I always wanted and unsightly pole and dish in my yard!
- The didn't tell me that their technician would be the dumbest person on God's green Earth and that he would absolutely wreak of stale cigarettes and have a serious crack problem - too fat to keep his pants up, and too fat to work very fast! Or was he simply too stupid to work fast??
The bottom line is that the second tech they sent to "repair" what the first moron had done filled me in on the truth...the things listed above. He admitted that he used DSL also as he found HughesNet to be useless.
The so-called Reviews posted on the HughesNet Website were obviously bought and paid for - not one word of truth to them! Ask an installer first. Then buy another service. This one six!
Slow and Steady
I have had Hughesnet for two years and it has generally been reliable during that time. However, it is slow (like all previous generation residential satellite internet) and really makes almost any internet task a slow chore compared to modern broadband.
Currently I use it as a backup to my Exede setup. However, I plan on cancelling my 'classic' Hughesnet installation and replacing it with a 2nd Exede installation (or a Hughesnet Gen4 system).
Works but slow
I got Hughesnet last year and it was quite expensive. Where I am there are not many options so it was one of my few choices. Overall it works but it is very expensive for me because I do not have much money. I am going to look into getting hotspot capability for my cell phone and see if that will work better.