Forget WildBlue - sorry planning on their part

[Stacy A]

Well, after waiting over a year for WildBlue to be available in my area they were up and running around four months when I fit the install into my budget. Lo and Behold, when I go to their website to find a local dealer, I find they are no longer accepting new customers in my area - the satellite is full.

Here is a copy of the on-line chat I had with a rep. You have to read it from the bottom post up.:

Stacy M. Akin: I see. So you have no more room on the satellite. Thank you. I will contact Direcway.
^ NEWEST ^

Hyman: or offer service to non servcieable areas
Hyman: to offer servcies in area's that are full
Hyman: if all goes well we hope
Hyman: we are launching another Sattellite in the fall

Hyman: it is hard to say when the servcie will be available
Hyman: sorry
Stacy M. Akin: Are you there?
Stacy M. Akin: I am attempting to give your company the opportunity to gain a new customer. Is there any way around this?
Stacy M. Akin: I am not waiting another period of months. I am sick of using dial-up and would like to have service now.
Hyman: you may want to call back later in the year to find out if we have room for your servcie.
Stacy M. Akin: And when might your service be available in my area again?
Hyman: yes
Stacy M. Akin: I have waited a year for WildBlue to be available in my area, and now that I am ready to go through with the installation, your website says they are not servicing my area "due to overwhelming demand". Is this true for my zip code 75669?
[Hyman - A WildBlue Professional has joined the session.]
A representative will be with you in about a minute.

So I think I'll have to go with Direcway. Obviously WB has poor planning on their part and therefore is not a reliable company to be in business with.

 

[dnet]

Well, after waiting over a year for WildBlue to be available in my area they were up and running around four months when I fit the install into my budget. Lo and Behold, when I go to their website to find a local dealer, I find they are no longer accepting new customers in my area - the satellite is full.

Here is a copy of the on-line chat I had with a rep. You have to read it from the bottom post up.:

Stacy M. Akin: I see. So you have no more room on the satellite. Thank you. I will contact Direcway.
^ NEWEST ^

Hyman: or offer service to non servcieable areas
Hyman: to offer servcies in area's that are full
Hyman: if all goes well we hope
Hyman: we are launching another Sattellite in the fall

Hyman: it is hard to say when the servcie will be available
Hyman: sorry
Stacy M. Akin: Are you there?
Stacy M. Akin: I am attempting to give your company the opportunity to gain a new customer. Is there any way around this?
Stacy M. Akin: I am not waiting another period of months. I am sick of using dial-up and would like to have service now.
Hyman: you may want to call back later in the year to find out if we have room for your servcie.
Stacy M. Akin: And when might your service be available in my area again?
Hyman: yes
Stacy M. Akin: I have waited a year for WildBlue to be available in my area, and now that I am ready to go through with the installation, your website says they are not servicing my area "due to overwhelming demand". Is this true for my zip code 75669?
[Hyman - A WildBlue Professional has joined the session.]
A representative will be with you in about a minute.

So I think I'll have to go with Direcway. Obviously WB has poor planning on their part and therefore is not a reliable company to be in business with.

Not really poor planning.. There's quite a cost into launching a satelite into the clarke belt, a little over 22,000 miles above the earth and setting a beam to each location on the U.S. and setting up servers at the uplink center FOR the satelite to support more people.. I understand what you're saying, but it's definately not cheap to gain more bandwidth for people.

 

[daboogas94e]

I work for Dish Network as a Tech and I will tell you this, Wild Blue is ALOT better than DirecWay. I have had DirecWay and hated it. Wild Blue is trying to expland services as fast as it can but there's so much demand for it. and honestly I appauld them for cutting off new installs until the new satellite is up so there is no slow down. With DirecWay, theres slow down ALL the time no matter what time of the day it is. I suggest waiting it out......you won't be disappointed

 

[Jared Twomey]

The service just went over way better than they thought it would. I am an installer, and although it sucks cause i'm not making any money off them right now, i'm glad they cut off activations to save the service for exsisting customers.

 

[dirkleearm]

I work for Dish Network as a Tech and I will tell you this, Wild Blue is ALOT better than DirecWay. I have had DirecWay and hated it. Wild Blue is trying to expland services as fast as it can but there's so much demand for it. and honestly I appauld them for cutting off new installs until the new satellite is up so there is no slow down. With DirecWay, theres slow down ALL the time no matter what time of the day it is. I suggest waiting it out......you won't be disappointed

I install both systems and I find the HN equipment to be more reliable. Also as far as speeds go, HN runs faster for comparable packages, at least on speed test I do upon installation.

 

[Stacy A]

I work for Dish Network as a Tech and I will tell you this, Wild Blue is ALOT better than DirecWay. I have had DirecWay and hated it. Wild Blue is trying to expland services as fast as it can but there's so much demand for it. and honestly I appauld them for cutting off new installs until the new satellite is up so there is no slow down. With DirecWay, theres slow down ALL the time no matter what time of the day it is. I suggest waiting it out......you won't be disappointed

It's not a matter of waiting it out anymore. I did the wait. They showed up, and before I could get a chance to subscribe, they closed the door. My wife could do alot of her work from home if we had a highspeed connection. Right now she's working until 8pm or 9pm, and sometimes has worked until 1am or 2am in the morning. We are both sick of not having highspeed in the sticks. I've been in contact with someone from HughesNet and I think that's the way we're going to go. The startup cost is high, for me ($600 + change), but I think overall it's a better service. From what I understand the FAP is much better and more equitable than with WB. Another thing about WB: You know that not everyone that signed up for their service in my area are going to stay on contract and will drop off. I could take their place, but the WB people didn't even offer me an opportunity to get on a waiting list. I just got the distinct impression that they didn't give a rat's ass about getting me as a customer. It all added up to the idea that you get what you pay for. Yeah, it will cost more up front and yeah I'll be paying more per month, but I get a company with a more experience, more satellites, and better customer support.

 

[Neutron]

Sorry to hear about that Stacy.

At least you'll be getting some sort of high speed with HughesNet.

 

[N4ST]

Dodged a bullet

Getting shut out of a Wildblue beam may infact be "dodging a bullet." I have had WildBlue for 11 months and was completely satisified until about 6-weeks ago. Beam 37 (basically NC, VA, MD) has been oversold to where browsing performance in the evening is on par with dial-up. Reading these forum threads takes over 1-minute to load each page. I can still get good speed-test results and can upload/download large files reasonably well, so it's great for getting software patches and maintaining web sites, but browsing is just soooo.... slow..... The recently "tweaked" traffic management keeps everyone connected, but with a very slow response time. Pinging www.yahoo.com will result in 40%-60% packet loss.
Wildblue may be able to shift some of the load if/when they get their new satellite launched, but they will lose customers and take a PR beating until things improve.

 

[anthony2005]

Hi.
I'm new member WildBlue, Please, help me???

 

[skyviewmark]

Hi.
I'm new member WildBlue, Please, help me???

And what kind of help may we offer You? I am a Wildblue Retailer and Certified Tech. Do you have a question?

 

[KE4EST]

I don't know this for sure but I bet WB's FAP changes with the new bird.

 

[KE4EST]

I will just be so glad when it(the new Satellite) is up. WB works better and their installs are easier than HN.

 

[meitedlce]

- also Dish installer and Cert. wild blue installer

ya stacey, this again not "poor planning" I hope you did not settle for anything less as wild blue is much more reliable then prob anything offered right now for residential customers. Pricey, but nice service for what you can get. The anikf2 SAT filled up quickly, but recent in last couple of months they have the WildBlue1 SAT up and running now and taking on thousands.... of new connects. If you havent done so, call dish back and get set up. If they say "not available" in your area please call a local retailer, I know from previous customer's dish's sales reps dont always know what's going on and are misinforming their customers about availability.