HughesNet Customer Reviews

Overall the service works pretty well, but we run out of data generally within the first week of the month and are then stuck with the slower speed which makes it impossible to watch any online videos. Web surfing becomes fairly painful as well and email is about the only thing that functions ok after reaching your data limit. I upped the data limit to 30 GB a month and it lasts a bit longer but still generally run out of data by the two week point. I was told that 20 GB was plenty for an average family. My kids don’t even play online games and we still run out of data. We don’t stream any movies because we never have enough data. The equipment works well but the price for the service is ridiculous. $70 a month for basically one week, maybe 10 days of usable internet each month.

Satellite internet is all that's available in our area and truthfully it's better than nothing. We do a lot of video streaming and usually use our allotted usage in two days, then our speed is cut from 30 Mbps to around 1 Mbps. I can't understand why there's a 95 per cent drop in speed, to me it's just their legal way of saying unlimited usage. I wish they weren't allowed to drop speeds over 60 or 75 per cent. Oh, you can get tokens to increase your speed, but you have to pay out your nose. I could live with 10 Mbps or even 5 Mbps, but 1 Mbps to 1.5 Mbps is ridiculous. It will have to do until something better comes along and when it does, I'm out of here!

Right out the gate, let me say that HughesNet gets the job done. I'm in between major areas out in the country, and I have internet. That's about as positive as I'll get. The main issue I have with them is the data cap. My wife and I pay ~$90 a month enjoy high speed internet for at best 20 days out of the month. After that, we have reached our data cap are throttled down to 120kbs. This is fine for the two times a day I check my email, but beyond that, it is simply not good enough to browse the internet with any semblance of efficiency. The other issue is the ping rate. My ping is well over a second making online gaming, formerly my hobby when I lived in an area with good internet, nigh impossible. That can't be helped due to the speed of light and the fact that satellites are hundreds of miles in the sky, but it is one more reason why I say that if I had another choice, I would NEVER choose HughesNet. I gave the Customer Service a 3 because I haven't used it, so maybe it's fine. I gave their speed a 2 because it's adequate for half the month, but the ping is awful. Reliability would be higher were it not for the crippling data cap. Value would be a zero if there were an option, so go ahead an pretend I put zero. I would not exchange money for this service if I had another choice. It's literally worth no dollars.

If more than one person is using Wifi here, it blows. We have to go to an inconvenient area of our house, where the HughesNet monitor is, unplug everything, wait a minute, plug everything back in, wait approximately 5 minutes, then get back online and try again, just one person at a time. It's not an unlimited service. It's more than $100 for 50 Gigs per month. Upload speed is really slow. Download speed is average. Not much of a choice when you need to get your internet via a satellite dish. :(

I have had this company for close to 9 months and only on a few occasions has the speed reached even close to what they advertise. This of course only happened while on the phone with a representative as they worked to correct the speed. They have even changed out the router and the dish with no change in service quality. They also advertise "No Data Limits" even though they limit your data and once you reach that limit they limit the speed until the next billing cycle. Oddly enough the 1-3 Mbps Limit on speed is roughly the normal speed for this company anyhow. I am normally between 1 and 6 Mbps even at the beginning of a new cycle.

I have been a Hughesnet subscriber since Gen3, and upgraded to Gen4 and Gen5 as they became available. I really can’t tell much difference in the speed of each Gen upgrade. For many years my data allowance was 10Gb and with one user in my household it lasted 2-3 weeks. There are now three users in my household, so I increased my data allowance to 20Gb.last year when I upgraded to Gen5. Well, the 20Gb lasts less than 2 weeks. That is not acceptable, especially when the speed is only marginally faster with data as opposed to without data.

On an average, we have a ping rate of 845-125ms, a download rate of 20-10mbps, and an upload rate of 4-5mbps. It works really well about three days a month. There are two people in our home, no gamers, and only evening/ weekend occasional streaming as we have DirecTV. We use our cell phone data plans as suggested by HughesNet support to avoid data usage. We are also locked into a 2 year contract, so that is cool. To get out of the contract we must pay $587 dollars. When we inquired about cancelling we found out we have a home phone line we are paying them for too. Not sure what the number is and why we have it but we are paying for it.

The only upside I've found with HughesNet is that I almost never lose service except during the worst thunderstorms. They are slow. They have ridiculous data caps 20 GB a month for $150. If I didn't live in a valley surrounded by trees I would use absolutely anything else. Their customer service is poor to put it lightly. I have had to hang up and call back several times because I couldn't understand the person I was talking to. If you have any option other than satellite internet go with that. Once my contract is up I'm going back to dial up.

Great coverage, but my internet is gone within a couple days to two weeks tops. Lost my 20 GB of internet in 2 days and they said I used like. 35 GB on my bonus time. We never use the bonus time cause that's at 2am till 7am. Not happy!!

The good news, if you use HughesNet between 2am and 8am you could be pleased with their service. The bad news, during peak usage hours of 6pm and 11pm, you will be very frustrated as either they throttle speed to 1.6 Mbps (nowhere near 25 Mbps advertised) or the Gen 5 satellite cannot handle the traffic congestion. I switched from another provider to HughesNet because my previous provider was so expensive. However the service was super fast. There are more choices for rural wireless internet coming every few months and I will be watching for a better internet service provider.

If you just need internet browsing, check Facebook or email, speed is great! But don't think you can download a season of TV series without it going over your data cap. Also if you plan to use it with any type of VPN connection of VoIP.. Don't do it! Horrible lag times and it is pretty much useless. Oh yeah, $75 a month for basic lowest package... again if you have to use a VPN tunnel to work from home it does not work. You will curse out your computer and you will hate every minute of your internet...

Polite words cannot describe satellite internet. Very weather dependent, does not support voice over IP, extreme data limitations. In some cases you will be happier with dial-up internet.

You are set a certain limit and once you meet that limit, it will slow down to the speed of the old days of broadband.

Over priced and unreliable. When I signed up they didn't tell me there's a data cap of 50 GB and that's for the "gaming" package.

If I knew I would have to use & pay for HughesNet's modem/wi-fi Router and pay an additional fee to receive support, I would have never signed on! Other than that, HughesNet is a decent ISP.

Needing to work from home as well as spending 2 days per week on home school assignments, it is near impossible to get work done without the internet service constantly buffering causing delays to uploading or downloading or frequent loss of work. Worst possible method to work from home. If trying to stream online games, music, or videos forget about it, unless you can download the content and play or watch later. Can't wait to switch to broadband/fiber as soon as it is available in my area.

Expensive, terrible service. The only reason we use HughesNet is because we have no other option. It is not fast and they cap your download which makes it impossible to watch videos, movies or even update software. If you go over your limit you have to purchase tokens to be able to even load a simple webpage. The worst part is that we easily spend well over $100 a month!

Decent Internet with surprisingly fast download speeds albeit with high latencies. Pages and streaming very slow to get started but once they start, good speed is held. Upload speeds good enough, though slow. Due to high latency, VPN usage is almost useless.

HughesNet is okay for a satellite service but has the usual problems: data limits (just watching a few videos on Youtube will use up your monthly allowance) and of course it goes out during any rain or heavy clouds. Sure wish we could get DSL here in the Silver Lake Area!

I was worried about HughesNet reading the poor reviews. I've had it a little over two weeks, through some of the worst weather in memory, and it has been steady. No breaks in service. Speeds consistently around 20-25 Mbps and most importantly, everything has been constant. Recommended if it's your best option. One million times better than AT&T DSL.

Hughesnet has a business model that is dependent on a captive audience that has no other option for Internet connections. Speed: Due to this, the company is allowed to provide speeds that are unusable for most services. The only thing a user could do is browse basic websites without media. Data Caps: Lower speeds would be passable if not for the issue of a data cap. The standard plan only offers 10GB a month for $60 which is comparable to a phone Internet provider. This cap makes it impossible to do anything online that a large majority of the population is able to do, video streaming, music streaming, voice/video calls, essentially anything that isn't black text on a white screen. They offer additional data from 2 am - 8 am but it is unreasonable to assume that anyone will be awake during that time. (Un) Reliability: An additional issue to account for is that the service will not be available during storms. Also the speed is never anywhere to what is quoted. (Currently measured at .11Mbps / quoted 1.5Mbps) Overall, avoid this company if at all possible. The same applies to all other satellite Internet companies due to identical business models.

This provider is not recommended at all for anyone who actually wants to use their Internet for anything, it is literally faster to use an EDGE connection on your mobile device than to buy this service. At peak hours (2am-8am), this service gets as fast as 6Mbps download and .15mbs upload. My children would like to play on their consoles but even connecting directly to the modem won't allow them to connect to any online servers much less play the actual game. I have the best non-business plan and I still get only 50MB a month in data with another 50 during peak hours. They do not offer an unlimited package on data, so we run out halfway through the month, and since it's satellite, we can't get more, so our speed drops to about .15mbs download and .05 upload. They have a really nice customer service but they can't help. I really feel as though you'd be better off using unlimited mobile phone data with a mobile hotspot and they are about the same price, depending on your provider.

Signal strength is ok, but even on the highest data rate plan, we used our entire monthly data allowance in 2 days. No Netflix or on-demand movies were used. Find another option. Once you use your data for the month they throttle down your speed to a crawl.

HughesNet has been a good service since I have been with them for the past 7 months. I only had to talk with Customer Service once and they talked to me like I knew what she was talking about and ended the conversation. In reality, I have no idea what happened. Speed is good at times, but the past month of May I have noticed that my computer has been very slow and internet was sluggish opening sites. And during these issues noticed that my lights on my modem have been going on and off instead of staying on. Overall they are ok.

HughesNet is a decent service when you don't have ground-based internet available. The data caps can be an issue for people, but the data is enough for me. I don't stream, and I have all of my devices set to not use data unknowingly, so the data lasts the entire month for me. I also don't leave my modem on when I'm not using the service. I unplug it. My speeds are great, exceeding their advertised speeds by a good amount, though I know they aren't great for everyone. The built in WiFi is no frills, but it works well and has decent range. I choose to use my own router with the service, though. Their phone customer service ranges from adequate to terrible, with it leaning toward the latter for most. The support through their support community, however, is very good. Much better than phone, chat or email. Overall, it's a decent service. If you have ground-based service available, like cable or fiber, definitely go with that, but if you don't, and you can get by without a lot of streaming, HughesNet may work for you. It does for me. I've been a HughesNet customer for 13.5 years.

We have HughesNet service. It is as slower than dial-up. We have been downloading a game of 58 MBs for 2 days now and are up to 29 MBs I would not recommend this internet service to anyone. I can't wait till we are out of contract with this company. Customer service is good but they have poor internet service.

Always works unless there is bad weather. If you use lots of social media or watch a lot of videos you will most always run out of data. When you do, web pages and email still works well normally. Token packages are available for additional data in a variety of price ranges.

Speed is useable and not too big of a problem until you run out of your allotted data for the month. We pay an awful lot of money to get a 75 GB/Mo. allowance. It's not enough for today's Internet usage norms. We run out within a week and a half after our allowance resets and spend the rest of the month limping along with the crippled speeds. I need the internet for work and this is really not acceptable. Unfortunately, it's the only option here.

I need a good internet. This one is limited, extremely slow and the signal is not good. I need to turn the power off several times a day to get the good speed...and have it work.

The net speed could be a little faster. The data should be unlimited. Not turned down, and not turned back up for days after I pay for the highest for what i get. Always losing reception. Fades in and out. Even on a clear sunny day. Could use a check up from a tech.

Supposed to be 25Mbps but it can't handle 2 cell phones. Can't always get internet radio stations. Keeps going out. Checked speed several times and one time the speed was less than 10Mbps.

Unfortunately, they are the only provider in our area... they do not have an unlimited plan... and when it rains... the internet does not work. They recommended for us to wake up at 2 am and record movies to watch later. Would be great if they had other options.

HughesNet is usually slow during the day and even slower after 5 pm. Fairly often my screen will freeze up and I'll have to reboot. With them, I feel like I'm back in the '90's when everyone was using land lines and if you had a big download you had to do it after midnight or it would stall and abort.

1) The installer was helpful and skilled. Gave his phone number. I called him after experiencing repeated dropouts during minor rain conditions - "Unplug your modem for 15 minutes and try again, everything appears to e functioning normally". 2) Recently called Customer Service, went through the usual rigamarole to get to Tech Support and they did not have much. Essentially said the same thing as the installer with the advice to keep the laptop within 10 feet of the modem. 3) Now summer conditions in the desert; clear, hot and dry. Experiencing long latencies while surfing; speedtest.net (and reCAPTCHA robot utility) frequently timeout when trying to connect - long latency! - but eventually shows 6.23 Mbps download which is acceptable to me if not close to their advertised speed. 3) Expensive with a 2-year contract. One other new choice out there may be better.

Everyone is saying it sucks. But I’ve had it for like two weeks and it loads Netflix, youtube etc. Idk how it works when it’s rainy but mines been working good. We only pay $65 for unlimited.

If you're looking to play online, it won't happen. The internet is fine, everything works on it but the latency (ping) its gonna be crazy bad which means you're gonna lag like crazy.

If satellite Internet is all you can get where you can live, then I highly recommend HughesNet than any other!

We have had nothing but excellent internet service with HughesNet

Better than dial up, but other than that, speed is not good, and high speed seems to elapse within a few weeks, even with limited use.

Only can buy 10GB data in this area. Download time so slow that one must wait until very late night to even to attempt to stream a video.

Describe my experience. One word sums it up... Horrible. I canceled after @ 40 days. I live out in the country & was getting poor service from my original ISP. I called Hughes Net & had a long conversation regarding their service. The system did not perform as advertised. I had issues with speed (they say 25Mbps). It never lived up to that. Even when it worked properly, there was a lag when playing online games (they said it was due to beaming the signal up & back to the satellite. I never really noticed the increased speeds when I was online. Plus they have data plans.... we had the mid-tier $79.99 package & blew through our data in 4 days. Forget about streaming movies, TV, etc... I gladly canceled & paid the $400 early cancellation fee. Unless you have no other option...save a headache & choose anyone besides HughesNet.

The download speed is inconsistent, I use my pc via Ethernet, and it constantly disconnects and reconnects. The upload is ok, but nothing to brag about, but being a serious gamer who couldn't get internet for months, I was desperate for what I could get. The previous provider gave me a constant 15-30 Mbps Down, and a not so good 1.3 Mbps Up, but my ping was almost constantly under 50. But with Hughesnet my ping is never under 900. It is unbearable, but since this is the only thing available in this area... I'm outta luck if you are given an option between Hughesnet and Literally anything else... Take the other option..

Slowest internet. You’re limited to how much data you use. Even if you have 10+ Gb of internet left, everything will lag.

I would give it zero stars, but the site doesn't allow it. We live in a rural area of Ohio. We've had the service for three months now and it's terrible. We recently tried to download an On Demand movie and it took two attempts before it worked. When it finally downloaded, our usage monitor on the Internet service remaining showed only 44% usage left for the entire month. This one download used up 54% of our monthly data! Unfortunately, we are lockedinto the service for 2 years!!!! Do not get this service if you can avoid it!!

Living in a rural area, unfortunately, HughesNet is our only viable option. Reality - it's unavoidably slow because the distance of sending data back and forth from the orbiting satellite and because you will use your allowed data long before your month is up. Once you reach your data cap, speeds slow significantly to dial-up levels. Buying more data adds to an already expensive plan. Plans are considerably more expensive than cable or DSL service and contracts are long (24 months) and expensive to terminate early! Customer service is terrible. Recently, I called in as a brand new customer because the internet speed was very slow right from the beginning. The agent was able to assess our problem within their system and I found out the satellite dish was misaligned and that I was only receiving 55% of the signal. I assumed it was installed improperly. When I asked, I was told I should have used their app to test the speed and it was my responsibility to call sooner. However, I was never told to watch for this at time of installation. In addition, with the agent on the line, I accessed the app only to be told it was not accurate nor reliable. It showed I had used all my data, but they showed I had used very little because of the poor signal. Considering I was a new customer, and reasonably thought the dish was installed improperly and poor service for over a month, I requested a discount. The agent asked if I experienced any bad weather, to which I responded honestly that we had a couple of rainstorms (none of which would have caused damage). They then used my response against me and insisted the dish became misaligned due to the storm and wasn't their fault. In the end, they offered a paltry $10 discount and additional 3 GB of data. The agent was very direct, argumentative, unwilling to consider other options and overall just a jerk!

Very happy with the customer service I received from Hughes Net!

Honestly, it's Satellite Internet. Let's be real, it's no fiber optics, or Cable, but in my area, it gets the job done. Was told online games wouldn't work when I ordered, I said okay and didn't think any of it. Was told that they maximize your bandwidth, and I use about .5 gig's for every hour I stream any Netflix. I get on average anywhere from 20-35Mbps download, and 2-5 upload. They have done me good so far.

I don't have much of a choice for internet where I am at. I'm very limited in data and speeds. I can deal with the slower speeds if they gave a reasonable amount of data. If I can find another isp that has better rates/plans I would switch in an instant

HughesNet has never been able to provide me the guaranteed speeds on uploads. I used to get better than average download speeds of 12-20 Mbps. Of late, my download speeds are 2-3.8 Mbps with uploads speeds of 0.75 - 0.27 Mbps. I've called the company numerous times about my upload speeds, with no rectification. I've been sent to multi-layers of tech service where they can't solve the problem and send me off to someone else who has to get back to me. Of course, no one ever does. I've had a couple of outstanding employees try to help me but no one has been able to solve my problem. Now that I am getting below average download speeds as well, I'm looking for another carrier.

I am very pleased with HughesNet except that we are limited to 15GB of daytime download per month. That's not nearly enough if you want to do more than email and browsing.