I am sorry to say but I have Hughesnet in the middle of rural North Carolina. The area of which of live is way out in the boondocks, surrounded entirely by old people who won't concede to petition for cable since they feel that nobody in the area needs it (which is entirely bogus).

When Direcway first came around, it was added as a part of our DirectTV bill, which only added around 30 dollars extra which is one hell of a deal. It was a pain whenever there was bad weather but other than that, it was a really good satellite Internet provider. Then, out of nowhere, Hughes comes in and takes over (dun, dun, dun!).

Configuring from Direcway to Hughesnet was a pain to a nightmare to hell on Earth. Being thrown from one Indian serviceperson to another, it took me almost two weeks to finally get some Internet and thank god snail mail was still around for some bills.

Hughesnet started out well in terms of speed though the price was pretty ridiculous for it, almost 70 dollars a month. Then out of nowhere, my speeds went down a deep, deep, DEEP hole. I called customer service to figure this out. After about two hours of being thrown around from one offshore serviceperson to another, then finally told me about the "Fair Access Policy" or the FAP as their silly acronym. They told me I am given a certain bandwidth to download everyday. If I go over, then they penalize me by intentionally slowing down my Internet speeds BELOW dial up speeds for 24 HOURS. And I asked what this encompassed in terms of activating the FAP. They told me that anything outside HTML viewed e-mail and browsing low-intensity websites would not run up the FAP so fast. But almost every website has all sorts of instantly activated videos, audio files, and moving pictures, that pretty much you will run up the FAP in about a hour and a half to two hours. I asked why they implemented this, and they said it is to give "fair access" to all subscribers. I then explained the above statement and they said I could upgrade to the "Pro" level for an extra 30 dollars which adds an extra 100-150 megabytes to download, with the standard (which I had) is only 200 megabytes. I was so upset I explained how ridiculous this is and then they rudely told me that that is company policy and if I don't pay it then I will have no Internet other than dial-up. They then said their is unlimited access to the Internet, not unlimited BROADBAND Internet, even though their stupid commercials say otherwise. Then they added, "How else can I help you today?" I had no choice but to pay. So they get to laugh at my plight of not getting better Internet and take all my money in the process. They are rude, incompetent crooks who take advantage of those who can't get any better Internet in their area.

Please everyone, those who have no other choice but Hughesnet, do not sue HughesNet. It is pointless and a waste of time. Write to your Congressman about how they exploit you by telling you that you have unlimited access to Internet with constant high speeds, but then they tell you after you get it that you don't have unlimited broadband access. Also write that they never mention their Fair Access Policy and their prices are outrageous for thei horrible service from this horrible company. Hopefully in the near future, Congress will pass a law making these Fair Access Policies, misleading advertisement, and hidden terms illegal. I don't see HughesNet changing their scamming ways so I hope to see them go out of business and see their executives and other superior employees poor and on the street for their scamming, rude, and greedy ways.

You said it so much better than I did. They are simply misleading .