My Cyberonic/Sprint ISP started working better, slow but better, then I got a new card in the mail and instructions to return the old card. My old card was immediately disabled and all the old problems began anew. But after a couple of weeks, things improved, so they sent me another card. This one did not work. It turns out that I was never getting Sprint service directly, I was always on roaming in spite of using a high gail direction antenna and ultra low loss coax. Sprint decided that I could no longer use roaming and that is why the last card would not work. So they quit me.
I had been going to the local library everyday and using their wireless and Comcast connection. That worked good for me except for the 20 mile round trip drive. Today I got the new Wildblue Exceed service and so far, it is working as advertised. My past experience has been to expect about 1/3 to 1/4 of what they claim but so far, this is probably 80% or more of what they claim, or about 2x to 3x of what I expected. I hope they don’t oversell the service and slow it down the way HughesNet did. The tech said that the new satellite is courtesy of the feds and should not ever see full capacity. BTW, HughesNet is getting a similar satellite in the near future so that should solve their problems.
BTW, Cyberonic is a reseller of Sprint services and was making a better deal on data than Sprint offers. Sprint decided that Cyberonic customers could not use roaming. I guess that costs Sprint more money. I did not deal with Sprint directly and I do think that Cyberonic was genuinely trying to provide me with good service, but due to my location, it just wasn’t going to happen.
Was connected through a satellite (HughesNet) for about 7 years, then tried the cell phone type (a variation on MyFi) for about 7 months, now back on satellite (WildBlue exceed) for 2 days so far. I have seen speeds of 9.4 Mbps, comparable to Comcast.
I Googled for WildBlue complaints and found plenty of them for the old service, nothing but good for the Exceed so far.
I live in the boonies of West Tennessee, known to the middle and east Tennesseans as “Oh, that place” (you have to hear the tone of their voice to fully understand) and also called “the county north of Memphis” by John Grishom in “The Rainmaker”
Wow. It’s good to hear you’re making progress. I know you’ve been struggling for some time now, and I have great respect for your willingness to continue to try to help others despite your struggle.
Hi Keith. I have Hughes Net and have no problems with it at all. I have the 9000 system. Its more than fast enough for me. I am sorry you had a bad experience with Hughes Net. I install Hughes Net once in a while for a friend when he get behind. My guess is you had a bad install and installer.
My route to HughesNet was not direct. I started with Earthlink who sub contracted to directway who contracted to HughesNet. Directway did the installation and because I was not getting their TV service, I was relegated to the old weststar satellite. Earthlink quit satellite so then I dealt directly with directway and saved $10/mo. Then directway decided to drop internet service so then I dealt directly with HughesNet, and saved another $10/mo.
I was with them for a total of about 7 years. The service began to deteriorate after awhile and they would not do anything about it. I wanted to upgrade to the 9000 but they wouldn’t let me because I was an existing customer. Eventually it became unuseable.
I figured that after a little time away from them, I would see if they would then consider me a new customer and let me have a system 9000, but I got this excede deal first and I am happy with it. The guy who did the install also installs for HughesNet and he told me that HughesNet would soon have their new satellite. According to him, the throughput (bandwidth) on these satellites is tremendous and they won’t run into the throttling problems that the older wildblue had and that HughesNet currently has.
I did not really mean to badmouth HughesNet, but they did have customer service problems at least for awhile. I did have a lot of good experiences over the years with their customer service, but for some reason had trouble with them toward the end.
I did some internet searches on wildblue complaints before signing up and they had plenty for the older service but the excede had no complaints, only good reviews. Maybe the same thing will happen at HughesNet.
HughesNet still has the daily download limit and that is a problem for me. Excede has a monthly limit, but today I did a security update on my wife’s computer. It sucked up 2.2GBs of my monthly allowance of 7.5GB, but at least I could do it. Under HughesNet, it would be impossible. This was a big one because I had not been able to do one for quite awhile.
People badmouth Time Warner, but I’ve had really good service with them ever since they came to my old place of residence 10 years ago or so. When I moved, I was relieved when they said they had service in my new town, so I just transferred my account from there to here.
Time Warner, is that the same as Comcast? Comcast will not come out to my house, not enough potential subscribers in the area. My brother in law and my daughter have Comcast and they love them.
Dial up is no longer an option. The phone cables were damaged a couple of years ago so it is had to even use the landline for voice calls. AT&T is scheduled to bring a fiber into the area in the next year or so, so they don’t want to invest anymore money into the copper structure.
No idea, haven’t heard much on Comcast. Not sure if they’re even available around here.
Dish, Direct and Time Warner are the only ones I know of around here