WSJ is running a story on WildBlue, a satellite broadband company that hopes to sell good-speed connections to consumers and businesses who are off the high-speed Internet grid. I wrote about the whole satellite trend last week. But this quote from Greg Caressi, a senior manager with the consulting firm Frost & Sullivan sums it up: satellite operators can’t seem to put together the economics to make the service comparable” with terrestrial options, and that will make it difficult to survive 10 years from now.
Maybe if they have figured out how to increase the speed of light…
In my mind the solution is LEO satellites, which in turn means lots of satellites. To get lots of satellites you need to be able to orbit them cheaply ($5M per bird). There are lots of people working on this and competitions like the Ansari X Prize help. Sadly, like many revolutionary things this technology always seems 10 years away . . .
exactly…. the satellite broadband is not ready for prime time and is economically not viable, unless of course providing access to government agencies and all those who can pay mucho dineros.
Wildblue internet access is not intended for people with cable or DSL access. It is for rural people with no other options, like myself. I am in rural Arkansas and love the thought of being able to finally surf at broadband speeds and keep my bill in the $50 range.
Wildblue makes money at less than 1 million subscriber’s. According to insiders at SBC project lightspeed will not make it to rural towns in Arkansas before I retire.
There are 52 Ka band orbitial slots that are useful in the United States expect speed to go up and price to come down within a few years.
Satellite Interent is here to stay in rural americia
I have WILDBLUE satelite internet
the download claims are within expectations
the UPLOAD speeds are terrible at best.
this causes serious problems with HAND SHAKE and packet information exchange.
you can FORGET the use of a WEBCAM.
not even CLOSE to claims.
WILD BLUE CLAIMS to provide 200kbps upload.
my service is running in the SINGLE DIGITS. and on rare occasion reaches 45kbps.
the service is next to none.
the support team is very nice and helpful and does everything in their power to help.
unfortuately the work order is trashed or not followed up on.
NOTHING comes of any problem tickets.
this is a company destined for disaster.
the left hand knows nothing of the right hand activity.
I have had the basic wildblue since mid Jan06 it has NEVER done as claimed. Only real plus is quick DL of large email files. It surfs the net slower than my dial up 32k connection. Upload of same email, with 42k attachement…32 sec on dial up, 73-90 on wildblue!! That is fast??? 13 hrs on phone with tech support, and finally got a service call in mid June…no fix, no help…service still stinks!!! it is SLOW for surfing, SLOW for sending email, STINKS gaming and webcams. What stinks worse is their service and all the false promises made that have NEVER occured. I think it is time for all of us to band together and let Wildblue know…Class Action Law Suit!!!!
Everything here said about Wildblue has happened to me as well. I just might as well have stayed with Direcway if I wanted abuse and no service. Only diffence is that at least Wildblue speaks English.
I have had a terrible frustrating experience with Wild Blue Satellite. Would not give the bandwith promised, so my recently purchased Vonage service would not operate. I was left with no phone for more than 3 wks. I sent equipment back, and now will not be reimbursed for possibly more than a mo. Customer service is so very unhelpful, knows nothing. I am given the impression that Wild Blue is doing me a favor by taking my money. I will be angry about how Wild Blue’s so called Customer service treated me for a long time to come. Can say nothing good about Wild Blue Satellite.
my experience is the same as those above. upload and download speeds were far below those advertised and were often much slower than dial-up. i think these folks are asking for a class action lawsuit.
these folks were involved with the ipod lawsuit against apple:
http://www.girardgibbs.com
i suggest contacting them. i have and am awaiting a response.
We have Wildblue and we HATE it. We just moved to a rural area and now realize how spoiled we were with DSL and Cable Internet. When our contract is up, we are going back to dial up. It is just as fast and a whole lot cheaper. Plus, it HAS to be more reliable than what we have.
I have had Wildblue for several months and every month have been threatened with speed downsizing and possible disconnect if I can’t keep my thresholds within the range as stated in their FAP. I download frequently, but seldom upload and my upload is the one that is out of range. I did not know when I signed up that there was a bandwidth usage limit. I do not remember seeing it in the lit that the sales person provided. This is my first broadband experience and satelite is our only option at this time. Was I wrong to assume that when I signed up I would have unlimited use of my internet service that I pay for? Please help me.
Gary
I’m an eX-Wildblue customer
After having a huge billing error, at the time I signed up ( 1,500.00 ) taken out of my account, Wildblue refunded the money and made us a deal on equipment and instillation, and no contract. After 2 months they lowered the FAP which I was not happy about, but service wasn’t that bad for Satellite. Then at the end of July 06 service went downhill. I was a direct customer, (No third party) so a call to support, were over an hour for a person to pick up, most times. As of Nov. 06, Wildblue changed there service and it became totally unusable for our needs. Secure web sites would not load, or time out while doing transactions. Web surfing became slower and timeouts were the norm. 40 percent package loss and ping times going from what were in the 700 range, now went to to 1,400 +. Add to this Wildblue also changed the way they measure your usage, to the point my 2-Gigs to 2.5 Gigs per month, went to 5.5 to 6.5 Gigs with less time spent on the internet. I contacted the BBB of Denver, about canceling, as Wildblue would not let me, without paying for 12 months, and about 40 days later they cut off my service without warning, even though they were payed though the 11th of the following month. I am just happy to be done with them. Just my story…
I got Wildblue in October of 2006 and the service was great up until the middle of November. Whatever they did to it, it is now slower than dial-up. I am paying for 1.5mbps but my maximum download speeds are now around 20kbps. Please contact me if there is a class action lawsuit against this company.
I’ve had the same issues as everyone else.. I recently started receiving threatening emails from wildblue that they would start using their limiter on my service if I didn’t stop using so much bandwidth. Their useage monitor is a lie, I’ve had the system for about 3 months and didn’t even use it last month (since it snowed all last month and it doesn’t work when its snowing) They say I downloaded more then 10gbs in the last 30 days LOL. My system is free of viruses and spyware. This is a joke, when I first installed the service it was great, I pinged about 500-800 every where. Then the magic update in November totally ruined the system, it spikes very bad and ping is 1500-3000. Seems like a bait and switch routine to me. I really hope someone starts calling their lawyers about this horrible business practice. Not even a 30 day money back guarantee. I know an installer, and he hates their service too, they package the systems bad and they are usually broken when shipped. I wish they would go out of business before my contract is up, that way I can go back to my dialup which is a better deal.
Hahaa, Thanks everyone. I was trying to get this service but they tell me it is “so popular” that it would be another three months before they put another bird up for new service in Arkansas. Guess I will be looking elsewhere. Some power companies will be acting as ISPs through the power lines. Perhaps, then I will get broadband.
Its nice to see i am not the only one being screwed by wild blue. I have had the service for about 7 months and it is the worst service i have ever had. i even unplugged my whole system for a week and checked my bandwith usage while at work and it just kept going up and up, when i sent them a letter about it they told me to unplug it for 24 hours. i gave up on even trying to get it through there head that it had been unplugged for a week, i did let them know that there service stunk and i had better service with dial up.i plugged back in and my son has been uploading and downloading on a regular basis and all of a sudden my bandwith goes down. what a screwed up service
Dealing with this company is the worst experience I have ever had. My system has been down for 3 and 1/2 weeks, and I have missed 3 days of work and my granddaughters birthday party waiting for these non-existant installers. I still have yet to see them!I had originally had Earthlink and went to Wildblue to get a higher speed. I deserve 40 lashes with a phone cord, because that’s what I am having to use in order to use the internet at all. It took them a week just to get the interium dial up going. I work from my home and this has caused untold amout of difficulty for me and every time I call, I experience an hour wait time, to be told another pile of lies and placed on hold again. Maybe we need to see about filing a class action suite in order to get the “manager or supervisor”‘s attention because every time I call and ask for one, I am told they don’t have any. Cute, Huh?
I am so relieved to hear everything that is happening to me has happened to others. I feel so totally scammed! Wildblue has a neat little system whereby they will not do anything unless you have called them a bunch of times, (average wait time 1 hour or more) and even then they totally screw things up. They love to “rebuild” accounts and at one point had me down for three different accounts, did not provide service, and won’t let me out of my contract! I have just had it…out of 9 months of service so far I have been able to use the internet for less the half of the time.
Poor service, poor service, poor service.
A storm came through my area and a lightning strike got my modem. I called tech support and was told that they would ship a modem to me overnight. I went in Saturday to get the modem. It didn’t come. I received an email Monday that a repair tech was coming to my location to replace my modem. My warranty states that replacement modems will be shipped directly to the customer and the customer can replace the
modem without a service call ( $75.00 ). Neither WildBlue or the service company would back down until I told them that I would not allow a service man on the property. I believe this is a common problem and have allready talked to lawyer about filing a class action law suit. If you believe you should be part of this action let me know. cbritt5253@aol.com
Please correct the above e-mail address ccbritt5253@aol.com .
How to join this lawsuit? I run a non-profit saving dogs about to be killed and finding them homes. E-mail is critical. E-mail constantly down.
I have had WildBlue for about 3 months, and had Nothing but problems. I have kept a log of time spent on the phone, 22 Hours on hold, 4 1/2 hours with Tech support, and 5 million grey hairs later, I just want to Blow these Lying B@stards outta the sky. Half the pages I try to load dont. 80% of the files I download are corrupt. 99% of what I do I can do on Dialup, and can not do at all on WILDBLUE. I feel there should be a Lemon Law on Electronic services, That would make these companys that lie, about there service Shut down. Companies like WILDBLUE Lie to get you as a customer, Lie to keep you a customer, then Charge the H3LL outta the customer that isnt happy about being screwd. They expect people to drop there service. That way they can sell it to someone else, while charging full price to the one’s who leave. All I have to say to WildBlue is Remember the Cellphone company “Aerial”… They lied to everyone, Where are they now? NO WHERE 🙂
I have WildBlue for 1 week. I have the “PRO pac” $79.95/mont.The upload speed WildBlue advertise (256 kbps)does not exist. The WildBlue services turn to be unusable for me.
So far customer service refused to cancel my “contract”. (The contract is 1 sheet left by installer). Class action law suit should be filed for “Breach of Contract and false advetisement”.If any of you know how and where, count me in. buresp@gmail.com
i got wild blue back in april 2007.it has never worked right since day one. i called and complained over and over again. it would go out and not work for days at a time. and quit working several times a day.after 3 months of calling in complaing finally a tech. came out to check it and and did not fix it.i called back in and told them i want out of my contract, and i want my money refunded, they told me it was not refundable,i tried to resolve this by talking with wildblue and dish network. so i contacted the atty. generals office over them not wanting to refund my money for services that did not work properly.the atty.anyone having problems with wildblue contact your atty. generals office.
Thanks to all who have written about wildblue. I was set to have it installed on August 23, 2007. I called to cancel my order. They did not want to refund the $199.00, but since I’m a dish customer they will credit that amount to my dish account. I will stay with starband. Thanks again,
Don
We started using Wild Blue service in May 2007. I have never had a runaround from any service like this one, in the 9 years I have been on line.They say one thing and do another.We have had problems since day one-when service is required they haven’t showed up for the appointments 3 for 3-The customer service passes you around for hours on the phone,and end up telling you a lie one after another call after call.If you request a supervisor and he tells you it is out of his hands and passes the buck to the next person. The company that installs the unit is a seperate business and they pass the blame back and forth.We are waiting at the moment for the service to be repaired for the third time and the servicman did not show up for the appointment yesterday.I had to open a dial up account 10 days ago to stay in business with my on line store.I am writing this to WARN PEOPLE-BEWARE! WILD BLUE MAY NOT BE FOR YOU!-They will take your money,show you plenty of disrespect and not return it even though there service is built on false claims.If you sign up you are one your own.BEWARE!JNR
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 ……
I am another dissatisfied Wildblue customer. Once in a while it works, well sorta, but most of the time it’s only marginally faster than dial-up. I spent over an hour with a tech today and I could hear the stress in his voice – he truly felt bad since he knows what’s REALLY going on. The Sats are saturated and with each new subscriber, the pipe gets slower – and somehow they need to finance new birds. Unfortunately, there aren’t any new birds to put up to solve the problem so we’re outta luck.
A class-action lawsuit won’t solve the problem since it will only probably put WB out of business unless the lawsuit’s intent was to force them to fly a new bird or two sooner and invest more in their infrastructure.
Ya, same problems here with wildblue. Heres another problem. You won’t be able to view websites hosted by godaddy (page can’t be displayed) if you use wildblue. I spent an hour on the phone with wildblue and an hour with godaddy and they both blamed each other. I have found out that it is wildblue’s problem. So if your a wildblue customer and have no other options please do some research on hosting companies wildblue doesn’t block. What piece of shiiiiit company wildblue is!!
My wildblue is great, Over 2 years. My speeds are always higher than 600kbs.
We have had WB for about 9mo. now and have hated it for 9mo. I made my first complaint the first week when the speeds I noticed were no where close to what they claimed. I talked to a supervisor about it but she was deceptive and really didn’t think it was there problem and it must be on my end. I am no rookie when it comes to computers and networks and have a degree to prove it. I let her know it was not on this end and wanted a refund but she just said good luck. I am waiting for the contract to run out so I can get out of the wild bluues they have me in. I also complained about my web space won’t let Dreamweaver upload to it. but of course that is Dreamweavers fault not theirs. funny, I have used Dreamweaver with 4 other web hosting companies and it works fine. Class action law suit would be a welcome. Count me in. taylorva@dishmail.net
Pardin my french but this service pisses me off!!! To start with I paid for the equipment up front… Had a ship date provided when I bought it… Called a few days after it was suppose to be rec’d by me… Wild Blue told me “Oh well its on back order, might be another month” That made me pissed off at the time… but it got alot worse… I pay for 1.5 mbps which is the $80.00 package suppose to be top notch… It is top notch in ripping you off… After the install finally had service was great for sat. connection (use to have cable but moved to rural U.S.A.) Then I had problems with packets sent/rec’d you know what I’m talking about “page can not be displayed” checked it on ms/dos , still nothing… (weather was clear) was told the gateway was in texas… So ok I was a fool and bought it for now… Next time called in oh well your gateway is in Maryland… Gateways dont change… but thats not the only reason I hate Wild Blue… I called in about a problem and a woman told me about the issue and asked if I have been receiving my email alerts… told her I dont use WB for my main email so no… she changed it and I havent been able to login to my WB account since… I called my bank and put a block on Wild Blue withdrawls until they fix it… Paperless transactions I know why… so the crooks (Wild Blue) think they cant be tracked… hate to tell them this but their service is out dated… and can be tracked…lol Anyways Thankyou for calling wild blue we will be with you in about 48 hours please stay on the line…(what a joke!!!) all for the class action!!!
I’m another screwed Wildblue customer. Started having problems from day one when installation took over twelve hrs and the techs couldn’t get the Wildblue email set up. Took another two weeks to get it set up. I started calling the first week about the speeds not being what they sold. I was told by tech support that they only are responsible that the dish is getting a signal, the integrity of the signal wasn’t their problem. There is always an excuse, from having AOL on the computer (even through it was removed), having Norton antivirus, using Windows, wind, clouds, snow, rain and leaves blowing ANYWHERE in the USA. I got this as my job went to telecommuniting where I need a reliable connection to our server. I was advised by the tech supervisor that their system isn’t suppose to be used for work, school, with routers, or anything where a daily connection is required.
The last time a service tech showed up this weekend, he told me that as long as the light is blinking he couldn’t do anything ($95 for that comment). He just looked at the light and that was it. I even showed him a history of speeds from a system I set up that tests hourly. His response was for me to get a cingular card to use when the system isn’t up to speed since I needed a more reliable connection. Can’t cancel them without still paying the full year since they don’t promise speeds, the contract just says it COULD get that high. They also never said their system would work ALL the time as outages are to be expected. There contract is air tight where they don’t have to provide anything they sold and you still can’t get out because it uses terms such as: UP TO, COULD, SHOULD & MAY. If people had a chance to read that contract prior to signing up, nobody would. Basically they are saying we got your money, don’t care if you cancel, your still stuck paying and we’ll just get another sucker to take your place.
Need a class action lawsuit to stop their fraud. Please email if you plan to proceed with your suit. I kept a book of every call, badge # of all reps, times, dates and copies of phone calls.
add on to the above. Forgot to leave my email. It’s twillobee@yahoo.com. As you can see, I don’t use that crap Wildblue site for anything.
Just add me on to the Wild Blue screwed customer list. I see the first complaint on this thread was Feb 05. That’s about the time we signed up. It’s now 08 and problems are worse than ever. They reduced the maximum upload and download numbers shortly after we signed up and it’s been down hill ever since. We lve in an age when more video, software and virtual world experiences are available than ever before and we are being threatened to lower our band with usage. Our speed is throttled down on a regular basis and with their fair access policy you stay near their limits all the time. I think they know their product has a limited life span and therefore are selling, seling, seling. Service really sucks!
I also have Wild Blue “service”. After they switched over to Google
Mail, I have been unable to contact them by email, phone or online chat!
My upload speed sucks. (40 kbs last time I checked) I am signed up for
the middle tier of upload speed of 1 mbps. At most (per Toast.net and
Speedtest.net) I get about 500 or 600 kbps. I only use Google mail for
surfing, as Gmail is almost as slow as dial up. Why Wild Blue changed
is beyond me! Well, not really, it is the almighty dollar and forget
the customer. Wild Blue has been incommunicado for almost three weeks
now and you cannot even contact them to cancel your service!!! I have
disputed my last months bill with my credit card company. Maybe that will
get their attention!
WildBlue customers have enough for a class-action lawsuit against them. Has anyone heard of one being initiated? The mislead on the amount of bandwidth they supply the customer and the customer service gets you nowhere.
I have had WildBlue since Sept. 06. First the service kept going off line even when the weather was good. I called and they told me that was the way satilite worked. I thought I had to put up with it. I have a friend who had wildblue for his business he lives about 8 miles away from me. His service was always up. So I called again. They told me they would send a tech out and that it would cost 75.00 for the service call because it was past the labor guarentee date. I had them come out and they replaced the “tree” Everything worked fine for about 6 months then the same thing. another 75.00 and another “tree”. Well now it works fine but they changed to gmail. My email will not work with it and I’ve spent over 30 hours on line and phone to no avail. I simply explain to them I don’t want their email I only want a port to get on the internet. I appears I have to do another start up with Hughes net and start over.
WildBlue sucks, plain and simple. I don’t see how they legally justify their “Fair Use Policy” it may be barely legal, but it’s dishonest as hell. Those rotten SOB’s know that when Joe Sixpack pays over $50 for monthly internet access, he expects unlimited usage. NOOOOOOOO!
So the wife and I decide to upgrade to the “Gold” package, which according to my math, would allow 62.4% more bandwith that the “Silver” package…..but we were still crawling. So the wife puts in a call to tech support….Oh mam,…because you exceeded our “fair use policy” you won’t get your normal speed back for 30 days!!!!!
It took a lot of screaming on my wife’s part, along with threats to cancel both our WildBlue and Dish accounts to get my speed restored. That was yesterday, so we’ll see how things work out. I would have been better off staying with PeoplePc. If your thinking about WildBlue…..DON’T!!!!
you can contact me for any future reference at rcshaff@aim.com
My service worked great for 2 weeks, after two weeks with no service. They pro-rated my bill and after the two weeks. My service slowed down to less that dial up speeds. After numorous calls and waiting on the phone for hours,(They hung up on me on more that 5 occasions, even though I was being nice) I was in violation. Violation of what? Checking my e-mail and doing my online banking? If anyone knows how to join this class action suit, please let me know. I AM IN!!
Same old story I would gladly join in a class action suit against Wild blue . I was not advised about a fair act policy, and was not left a copy of a contract to review I was only aware after being shut down can’t even access email most of the time. I have attempted every means to contact the company only to be advised that “you signed the contract and it states….” I have been put on hold 6 times only to be hung up on when transfered. I have been told there is no corprate contact. and I have basically been told tough luck sucker… I will pay half of what I am ended up after the first month of non service by wild blue to begin a class action suite or join any that may be in the works.
So how is this class action suit coming along? How about some real info on the matter instead of just complaints. Yes I had crappy service…only been a customer for 5 weeks. I want out but early termination fee says I can’t. Contact me at lkisnerock@yahoo.com so I can join and fight to stop this one evil in the world of many!!!
I am almost hesitant to post this entry. It seems everyone but me does not like the service from Wild Blue. I have had the Pro-Pack 1.5Mbps service thru DishNetwork for a several months and have not had one problem. The initial installation was done by a competent technician. He showed me the signal strength which was high. Except for a few thunderstorms, I have not experienced any interruptions and even then, the system came back after the clouds moved away. While I do not play any games, I use secure sites for bill payment, manage my son’s YouTube video uploads and purchase from iTunes regularly. I have my own domain name and my email is web-based so I don’t have to play around with any email applications. Throughput is much, much better than dial-up. However, the upload speeds can degrade from time to time but still, I am happy with the service. Perhaps I got lucky. I hope you other folks can resolve your issues with Wild Blue and finally be able to enjoy your service.
I have had wildblue for a small time and i dont like what i have been reading here but i really enjoy my service and the tech support agents are helpful,i play online games,email,use online banking and some music and it really beats the hell out of dialup. thank you wildblue!
I have had this service since 5/1/07 and I am totally unsatisfied with it. Pat of the dish failed on the 14th of July and I had a sympathetic field tech come out to replace the defective part today, 7/26/08. When I called to report the outage, the helpdesk tech, or should I say HELPLESS desk tech ran me through the same old tired troubleshooting actions after I told her this was already done. She had to “make sure” for herself. I am not one that is computer illiterate, but I had to play the game anyway. Then I was told it was a system issue on their end. I called later and was told their issues were resolved and I should have access. I told them I still did not and had to do the same old tired actions again just to satisfy them. I was them told it has to be an issue on the dish and would need to field tech to resolve. I advised the tech, this is costing me $200.00 a day in lost income and will demand a credit; of course they could not do that themselves and I would need to send email requesting a credit for lost air time. I wondered how I would do that without internet access, I was told to send it in when access was restored. WHAT AN ANSWER!!! WHY DID I NOT THINK OF THAT!!!! To make a long story short, the field tech was not going to be available until 7/30/08, even though I am losing income from no internet access, but I was then told I could have dial up. I said “WOW”!!!!!, REALLY?!!!! I then asked how I was supposed to run a business with dial up when I need my phone to to be accessible to my customers? Thankfully that sympathetic field tech called me to advise he would be here today, 7/26/08 to replace the defective equipment. He got here, took him about 1/2 hour to get the connection up and running.
I hate satellite access!!!!!!!
Add on to my last entry. If there is a class action siut against WildBlue, please contact me at: lperil@yahoo.com, make the subject title “WildBlue lawsuit”.
this service is the worst. most of the comments about poor service from wildblue have happened to me. if there a class action law suit i want to be made aware. i have only been a wildblue customer since march 2008 and i have given up trying to resolve any issues with them. i was thinking about just paying the cancellation fee and moving on.
What ever you do Don’t buy this service…. All the negative on this page is true. From day 1 I was never able to complete a download, even if it was only 2 mb it would stop in the middle of it. Pages turn slower than my dialup. My dial up is 95% better…. Never made it over 20 mb worth of downloads and could hardly surf the net, then I started getting the warning emails that I am approaching my limit. There is no way possible this could happen when you can’t even surf. Don’t know if it was the modem I received or what but they don’t care about us, all they want is your money.
Ever since the warning notice been luck to access 5 pages a day. Before that I may have seen 20 pages. They suck…….
Well, looks like they’ll have to move to stratosphere balloons.
Seriously though, WildBlue has *miserable* customer service. I can’t get them to replace my broken modem. Stay away!
Without too much elaboration, I’ll simply say that the negative experiences detailed by previous posters seems to be accurate. BUT, I just had (on Sept 17) an unusually positive, helpful, no-denials session with WildBlue Technical Support. In fact, the response and behavior was so different than past contacts (mort recent previous one in July) that I suspect that the complaints may finally be getting attention at HQ. Now, I may be premature in my conjecture, because the latest scheduled service call has not yet taken place… I will follow-up with another post once that event happens. (Btw, the current problem is download far below spec AND slower than upload, the latter in fact on-spec.)
Where did everyone go after September? I know service hasn’t improved because I have 2 neighbors plus my system and they all suck as far as performance and don’t come close to what you are led to believe you will get! Mine got as low as 27k and 34k on 1/18/09 and I filed complaints with three different agencies and my speed went to the high 300’s to the low 400’s the next day. I haven’t been close to my unadvertised limit that they tell you about after you are tied into their contract so they were just regulating my speed because they could! If anyone knows of a class action lawsuit please let me know! I think they need to provide what they lead you to believe you will get or get out of the business!
I have spent so much money on wildblue I am ashamed to admit how much of an idiot I feel like. I finally had it out with them and told them no more excuses. I’m paying for their pro service and it no better than dail up. They kept sending me emails about their fap so I kept upgrading my service. I have replaced 3 computers because they convince me it was my old computers. Upgraded to the best router avail. The installer could not put the dish where I needed it, so I paid and electrician to wire my house for computers. All at the advice of their so called tech support center. My total cost for everything above plus their equipment. 7000.00 No Joke We need to file a class action lawsuit hopefully someone is working on it. My email address is dsatovich@wildblue.net
I’d like to hear more about wild blue or mybluedish.com vs. dialup internet. Is this supposed fast dish really that much of a pile of crap?
I had Wildblue installed for business purposes. It says it can support certain VPN’s. Preferably SSL if you go with the Propac plan. I did just that and it fell flat. I dropped my connection everytime. I tried to cancel after only 1 week and now they want me to pay a $345 cancel fee. Their service is terrible, as previous people said, slower than dial up. I would not advise anyone getting this service. If a lawsuit is initiated, count me in. Brandy32868@aol.com
My husband and I had WildBlue installed back in April ’09. In the two months we had it, it NEVER worked right and they pretty much robbed us of $600+. We’re currently looking to join a lawsuit against WildBlue.
im 11 but im a computer wiz i hava wildblue but my webcam always worked till a couple days ago u can still make a video but when u replay it it fastforwads its self like its sounds like gibirish can any of u help.
WILD BLUE-Complaint.
My name is Jorlene Post and I live in Sylvania, Alabama, Dekalb County.
I want it known that Wild Blue dish network is guilty of false advertising, bait and switch-over-charging, damaging installation work, slow internet speed, and shutting the service off multiple times without notice. They’re representatives also claim they have no way of knowing the exact amount of money that has been taken out of my account, since they don’t keep those records.
I signed up for the installation for $99.00 and was told at the last minute that I needed a mounting pole for an additional $50.00. Since 12//18/2009 I have been charged, not the 54.00 that appears on the contract, but $125.00 every month, plus an additional $190.02. My checking account bounced, forcing me to pay $70.00 in late fees as a result of these overcharges. Add to that, they have shut down our service twice without notice, costing my brother, Chris Stevenson who is a best-selling author, to lose hundreds of dollars in lost sales and miscommunication with his agent and publishers.
The technician, who installed the hardware, left a 15ft section off the mobile home trailer skirt and lost all of the fastening screws, requiring it to be reattached at expense. He simply left the skirt laying in the dirt when he finished the work. The installation process took more than five hours, with the tech continually trying to get the proper sat signal into the receiver.
On two occasions, we were told by customer support that they were sorry for the overcharges and promised to credit us for two months. They continue to charge double the monthly fee and claim to know nothing about any verbal agreements concerning monthly credit allowances.
The dish has been installed in front of the main entrance to the house, and is pointing directly at the roof eave. No doubt this has slowed the service down to a trickle due to bad reception. Snow or overcast days knocks the signal completely out, where we lose days of service.
I am on fixed income, and this has shattered my household financial status, and I will probably never recover from it.
We need a class-action suit against this company Now! Please email me with how I can participate in this class-action suit against Wild Blue.
My brother would also like to be contacted, since he has more damaging evidence against them. His name is Chris Stevenson and his email address is below:
stevenson_333@msn.com
Thank you,
Jory Post
I had Wildblue for a year, and called about once a month to complain. Finally I got a Sat finder to prove alignment, and recorded their download and upload speed for three months.
In the middle of the night they occasionally would have the speed they claimed. Most of the time i would be lucky to get 95Kbs downloads speed. Finally I told them I was done with their service, and I sent their equipment back. They are trying to charge me the rest of my contract, and have threatened to turn me over to a collection agency. Wildblue has been purchased by Via Sat, so I contacted them and told them I will be forced to make a small claim on them to retrieve all of my losses if they could not resolve the issue that I may owe them something after ripping me off like this.
With the buy out it is questionable as to whether the contract I had with them would be any good even if they were an honest vender.
I was just curious, do you do any type of online gaming? I am looking into the whole satellite internet thing, and was told they don’t do well with internet gaming. Have you found any games that do work? Also, just to ad to the conversation I have heard of people complaining about both services, but I do know that ViaSat, just aquiared Wild Blue, is supposed to launch a satellite next year that allows speeds faster than what is currently available with DSL at supposedly no additional cost.
I see Widblue, mybluedish has made very little to no improvements over the last five years. That’s why we have Hughsnet. For about a year I had rural satellite internet providers Hughsnet and Wildblues, dishes side by side.
Copy and Paste any of the links below into your browser window.
thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2008/11/15/rural-satellite-internet-hughsnet-vs-wildblue/
thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2008/11/17/my-hughsnet-vs-my-wildblue-my-speed-test/
thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2008/11/22/hughsnet-vs-wildblue-new-speed-test-rural-satellite-internet/
thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2009/01/14/hughsnet-vs-wilblue-satellite-internet-speed-test-january-2009/
thespiritdog.wordpress.com/2009/03/25/satelitte-internet-speed-test-hughsnet-vs-wildblue/
http://thespiritdog.wordpress.com/?s=wildblue
Now I know every corporation is going to have customers that are dissatisfied with their services or products. I could have tolerated wildblues slow speeds. What was absolutely unacceptable was No signal half the time.