i install wildblue... and soon hughesnet, but i have no first hand knowledge about hughes.
So far I have installed a few hundred WB jobs and have only had 2 disconnect, and they were both because they were trying to game over them (even though they were told it would not work before we ever installed).
That said...
there is latency, which is normal with satellite internet
there is occasional slow down times (yesterday evening for example)
download speeds are normally pretty close to, or higher than advertised... but uploads are almost always slower than advertised
As far as reliability, it is a pretty good system. Weather does not affect it too bad (if installed right), and in my opinion, it is a pretty well designed dish.
