Hi All,
just thought I'd post this.
I live near Evansville Indiana so if geography makes a difference,,
I just hooked up to Hughes after over 3 years with WildBlue.
I will NOT be going back to WB.
The main difference for me was FAP we had something (still don't know what) that did a 7 GB download over 30 hrs on our account so this Fapped us and was going to be 30 days to come off.
Wildblue has NO way to get out of this, we had already used our ONCE in a LIFETIME get out of FAP back when I was updating all the PCs and didn't pay attention to usage.
With Hughes you get one free Token a month and can buy additional for $6,,,,, PLUS your FAP is 24 hrs not 30 days. They are already running buy 3 get one free sales on tokens. I have not needed any yet.
HN offers a real time download meter that keeps tabs of your usage and runs in the system tray,, VERY NICE TOOL to have.
Hughes offers FREE downloads from 2am to 7am CST and they give you a decent download manager to allow this to work pain free.
As for speed WB had faster downloads, I ALWAYS hit above 1500 when I ran tests sometimes I hit 1700 but mostly I was in the upper 1500 to lower 1600.
With Hughes I have yet to get higher than 1250 and generally run around 1200 give or take.
Uploads are quite different, with WB I ALWAYS got 80 give or take now with Hughes I get 250 give or take and 330 is my highest so far. This makes page to page faster than WB.
I have less weather outage with Hughes vs. WB so this is a plus, I am slow today with clouds but I know I would have been offline with WB and slow beats dead.
With WB I have had 3 different dishes and 2 different modems and my performance never changed with any of them.
Customer service/Tech Support,,,, well with Hughes you are talking to India and WB you are someplace in the US.
Now I have only called Hughes TS once but at least the guy in India was quite savy compared to some of the US WB techs I had talked to BUT to be fair I have talked to Savy WB techs before also maybe 60% of the time.
The dishes do point different but I would say if you can get WB you can get Hughes since Hughes was more East but steeper,, WB was more West but lower angle.
I was disapointed in WB as for cancellation, when I signed on WB my dial-up company gave me 30 days with my email account to get everything sorted. WB shut my email down instantly which I was prepared for but still it's poor practice in my book. I have NO idea how Hughes handles this and now I just use my website for our email addresses so I won't have to bother with it ever again.
I am on the $80 plan with Hughes and was on the $80 plan with WB they DO differ,
WB 17GB in 30 days ----- HN 300MB in 24hrs (9GB 30 days)
BUT HN gives free usage for 5 hrs each day 2am-7am CST
Speeds are the same with each (1500 UP - 250 Down) as far as package but as I said actual is different.
So I have tried to leave you with an honest unbiased report here, if you want to know more just ask. I was happy with WB for a few years but 2 weeks into Hughes I already feel better but keep in mind my experience may not mirror yours that is why I put my location way back in this post.
just thought I'd post this.
I live near Evansville Indiana so if geography makes a difference,,
I just hooked up to Hughes after over 3 years with WildBlue.
I will NOT be going back to WB.
The main difference for me was FAP we had something (still don't know what) that did a 7 GB download over 30 hrs on our account so this Fapped us and was going to be 30 days to come off.
Wildblue has NO way to get out of this, we had already used our ONCE in a LIFETIME get out of FAP back when I was updating all the PCs and didn't pay attention to usage.
With Hughes you get one free Token a month and can buy additional for $6,,,,, PLUS your FAP is 24 hrs not 30 days. They are already running buy 3 get one free sales on tokens. I have not needed any yet.
HN offers a real time download meter that keeps tabs of your usage and runs in the system tray,, VERY NICE TOOL to have.
Hughes offers FREE downloads from 2am to 7am CST and they give you a decent download manager to allow this to work pain free.
As for speed WB had faster downloads, I ALWAYS hit above 1500 when I ran tests sometimes I hit 1700 but mostly I was in the upper 1500 to lower 1600.
With Hughes I have yet to get higher than 1250 and generally run around 1200 give or take.
Uploads are quite different, with WB I ALWAYS got 80 give or take now with Hughes I get 250 give or take and 330 is my highest so far. This makes page to page faster than WB.
I have less weather outage with Hughes vs. WB so this is a plus, I am slow today with clouds but I know I would have been offline with WB and slow beats dead.
With WB I have had 3 different dishes and 2 different modems and my performance never changed with any of them.
Customer service/Tech Support,,,, well with Hughes you are talking to India and WB you are someplace in the US.
Now I have only called Hughes TS once but at least the guy in India was quite savy compared to some of the US WB techs I had talked to BUT to be fair I have talked to Savy WB techs before also maybe 60% of the time.
The dishes do point different but I would say if you can get WB you can get Hughes since Hughes was more East but steeper,, WB was more West but lower angle.
I was disapointed in WB as for cancellation, when I signed on WB my dial-up company gave me 30 days with my email account to get everything sorted. WB shut my email down instantly which I was prepared for but still it's poor practice in my book. I have NO idea how Hughes handles this and now I just use my website for our email addresses so I won't have to bother with it ever again.
I am on the $80 plan with Hughes and was on the $80 plan with WB they DO differ,
WB 17GB in 30 days ----- HN 300MB in 24hrs (9GB 30 days)
BUT HN gives free usage for 5 hrs each day 2am-7am CST
Speeds are the same with each (1500 UP - 250 Down) as far as package but as I said actual is different.
So I have tried to leave you with an honest unbiased report here, if you want to know more just ask. I was happy with WB for a few years but 2 weeks into Hughes I already feel better but keep in mind my experience may not mirror yours that is why I put my location way back in this post.
Last edited:
