Perhaps it's because many of their customers have few broadband alternatives, but Hughes Network's DirecWay satellite service produces some of the most emotionally charged complaints I get. Ever since I wrote earlier this year about one reader's support nightmare, I continue to hear from DirecWay customers who are unhappy about the poor service they receive both from the DirecWay's satellites and its staff.
"Last month we paid $600 to have DirecWay come out and install a dish so we could get better, faster service than we were getting with our dial-up ISP," wrote one reader. " Guess what! It has been intermittent ever since. Most of the time we can't get on the net because our signal is so poor. And, yes, we have about the clearest view of the southern sky you can get, but it seems like their 'soup of the day' satellite wasn't a good one. I have called EVERY day to try to get it taken care of, but they are obviously trying to stall long enough for us to get past the 30-day trial period. Now, if we 'uninstall' everything they installed, pack it all up, and drive 300 miles to give it back to them - as I've been threatening to do -- they might give us $400 of our $600 back. Excuse me? We have been without service for nearly 3 weeks, and they don't seem to be able to get anyone here to fix it! They talk such a good story about their wonderful service and 24/7 help, but it is bogus! And sadly, they hook you for a year of service at $60 a month. That is what is so infuriating. What a racket DirecWay has going."
Another reader was surprised DirecWay would dare try to hold him to the one-year commitment. "After a $700 equipment purchase and five months of intermittent service, I finally had to cancel my Internet subscription with DirecWay," he wrote. "I made 53 telephone calls to their technical support department regarding the instability of their service, but despite the promises made after each of my calls that the issue would be resolved, the interruptions in Internet service continued as a steady norm. Moreover, I am dependent upon the Internet for my income, so the lack of a stable service was costing me money. Then, to my astonishment, upon cancellation I was told that I will be billed a $250 early termination fee. And only then was I told that there were many other remedies available that their technical support department could have offered me but did not, in spite of the plethora of calls I had made begging for help."
Intermittent service isn't just a problem for DirecWay home users. "I work for a large U.S. corporation with over 10,000 locations across the company," wrote another reader. "About twenty percent of them use Hughes for broadband connectivity, and, especially during any sort of weather -- like a breeze -- it seems like it's down more than up."
Some readers said they decided that dial-up was a better alternative. "The minute my one-year commitment ended, I cancelled," wrote one reader. "I could have tolerated the occasional interruption in service, but what drove me nuts was dealing with what DirecWay jokingly calls support. I don't how many times I had to listen to them read through the same script just so I could get them to pass me on to someone who actually spoke English, much less someone technically competent. When I think about all those painful sessions, dial-up seems a whole lot faster."
Another reader wrote that he found DirecWay customer service to be an oxymoron. "There was a Laugh-In skit of Lily Tomlin being Ernestine the Operator, showing off the fancy computers that screw your billing up better and faster," the reader recalled. "The skit ended with her saying 'We Don't Care, We Don't Have To -- We're the Phone Company.' DirecWay has trumped that attitude and my dealings with their lack of everything for four months only cost me $400. Zero refunds for outages; zero adjustments for 17-kbps downloads, and customer service reps who hung up on me. I have worked in IT management for about 20 years now and usually just do not give opinion other than purely personal ones. But if it is a good thing, you tell your friends; if it is a bad thing, you tell everyone. So my opinion: stay away from DirecWay."
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