Satellite Internet Reviews

Greetings and welcome to today's random thought.

Well it took me a little over 3 weeks (or is it 4?) to reach 200 Facebook "friends"

Aren't you impressed?  I did not blog yesterday since I was out late at mom's house watching the Colts win over the Dolphins.  It was a very exciting football game but I think I over did it on the pizza, chips, veggies & dip, soda, ice cream, etc.  We did not get home and into bed until around midnight and only slept until about 5:30 so tonight I bet we will turn in early.  While I was over at mom's, I set her wireless router up for her.  I brought my laptop to test the connection so I was able to play around a little during the game and I realize how much I miss high speed internet at home.  I once again did some research into satellite internet for the home.  The up front cost is around $300 no matter how you slice it (assuming that I do not want to attempt installation of the dish myself).  The monthly cost for any kind of throughput pushes $80 in most cases as well and they all require a 1 year or 2 year commitment.  Every provider is about the same really and offer about the same choice of packages so it was on to some review sites for the various vendors.  I found one site with over 100 reviews per provider for the 2 providers that I was looking at.  Let me give you some random, actual quotes...

• After having awful issues in ### with an internet service provider named ###, I didn't think internet service could get any worse and then my girlfriends family got ###.  It's awful. The setup and installation costs were ridiculous.  Not only that, but our "premium" internet is barely faster than dial-up, which is completely inexcusable in this age of data and technology.
• It's not so much the slow speed and total lack of internet for hours at a time that I am disgusted with. It's their fraudulent sleazy business practices.
• BE AWARE! THIS COMPANY WILL MAKE UP FALSE CHARGES & CHARGE YOUR CREDIT CARD...THEY WILL SAY WHATEVER IS NECESSARY TO GET AROUND THE TRUTH....BE AWARE...THIS INTERNET COMPANY WILL LIKELY COST YOU HUNDREDS!!! FOR ABSOLUTELY NOTHING.
• This is the worst company in the history..well, in the history of companies. My co-worker and I have been trying to resolve a fairly simple issue for the past few weeks with no answers in sight. Today alone, their "customer service" dept has transfered us to dozens of different people, has kept us on hold for hours on end and has hung up on us three times.
• Horrible. Never use this. Ever. Their customer service is set up to blather uselessly in foreign languages until you give up.
• Do NOT use these people. There is NO, zip, zero, nothing but an excuse for tech support. they keep jacking around w/ their settings and don't tell you till you spend 2+ hours on the phone with their so called tech support and that's IF you can understand them AND IF they can understand you.
• ### is a lousy company because they sucker people (through false advertising) into thinking they will be getting a service that will meet their needs and then some. When in fact, if you wanna do more than just check the weather now and then you're ###. And you better forget about updates, or streaming video, or any type of useful downloading you might do.
• DO NOT GET THIS SO-CALLED SERVICE! It will be the biggest mistake you've ever made. Everything they advertise is a lie, I don't know why they haven't been indicted by the FTC or FCC.
• Never, never go with this company!!! The support is very bad! The service cost way to much and never works like they advertise. Getting your money back once you have shipped the equipment back is like getting water from a rock. Video tape the return!!!!
• It is slow when it works at all which is increasingly seldom. Customer service is awful - from the incomprehensible accents of thier reps, tech support is from probably from India. Are there any good class action attorneys out there? I'll sign onto a class action suit in a heartbeat!
• They are horrible and prey on people who live in rural areas.
• ### is the most horrible "service" that I have ever been scammed into. Instead of listing the several reasons for why ### smells like a dead rotting fish, I will provide a story of my experience with these malovelent fiends...
• etc

Those are just samples, there are 100s like that for each choice.  Now I know that typically only the complainers leave reviews, but the sheer volumes of this one site is amazing and has scared me off.  Couple that with the tall tress all around my property and I think I am better off sticking with dial up.  Furthermore, after doing the math (gotta love spreadsheets), I had to add a column of the total price over 2 years of service versus ACTUALLY MOVING to a place where normal high speed internet it available.  Amazing when it might be cheaper to sell your house and move rather than sign up for internet access.  So for now we are sticking with diap up and our $10 / month charge.

Man, am I tired now, sorry for the limit of original material tonight in this entry.

Thanks for reading my Random Thoughts.

Jon