More FAP comments from another sad customer

[quackman]

If these are the truly the new plans then about 30 days after implementation you can expect many dissatisfied customers as the hype is that we'll be able to video stream, apparently we will and people will be excited to get 12mbs, the problem is that you'll eat up the bandwidth very easily and will get FAP'd or end up paying a much larger bill than expected. Premium price for a "Walmart" product

[Michaeljkoster]

Very frustrating to talk with the call center rep. He was very polite but simply could not do anything for me. All I could do was confirm and convey the information that a throttled connection is essentially broken i.e. won't reliably load web pages, that there is no access to the daily usage information which is necessary to predict when the bandwidth will be restored, and that there is no way for me to pay or upgrade or any method whatsoever for me to restore my connection. In summary, I'm paying $80 this month for practically no service, worse than dialup, and there's no relief or even a good prediction...

So basically I'm done with Wildblue. I can't operate my business with a connection policy such as this. The Hughesnet installer comes on Monday.

[blueeyeleo]

I have a feeling the next thing is for those of us on the pro plan to suddenly have a big increase in getting FAPed even those like me that have never been while on pro plan. This will be there next deceptive way to get those of us on the old plans to try to herd us to the new more expensive plan. Anyone on the old pro plan would be plain stupid to switch especially like me I bought my wildblue equipment years ago and dont pay a lease fee so not only would me monthly bill go up it would go up on lease fees also.
But then again I wonder how uncle sam is going to like the amounts that small home biz users are going to be able to use a tax deductions. Funny how Uncle Sam helps by giving ViaSat money to get this new sat in the air and then now Uncle Sam gets to pay again when small at home biz will have bigger tax write offs.

[Doug Huffman]

Two stimulated communications business, in particular, are failing. See the news coverage of International Broadband Electric Communications and - sorry, it's on The Washington Times front page today, related to Globe Star or some such.

[Shardnax]

Very frustrating to talk with the call center rep. He was very polite but simply could not do anything for me. All I could do was confirm and convey the information that a throttled connection is essentially broken i.e. won't reliably load web pages, that there is no access to the daily usage information which is necessary to predict when the bandwidth will be restored, and that there is no way for me to pay or upgrade or any method whatsoever for me to restore my connection. In summary, I'm paying $80 this month for practically no service, worse than dialup, and there's no relief or even a good prediction...

So basically I'm done with Wildblue. I can't operate my business with a connection policy such as this. The Hughesnet installer comes on Monday.

I was actually happier with my dial-up; I may not have been able to download in a timely manner but, at least I could play games. I can't even do that because of the high latency of the sat. connection. The only thing I benefit from with WildBlue is, being able to download anything requiring a downloader (IE. the CNET download tool), and faster load times. Buying a laptop would enable me to get things using downloaders, the only real benefit is loading things faster at home.

I've had my service for less than a week and I've already used 2.4GB on browsing and some very light downloading. I've actually downloaded maybe 300 - 400MB, the rest is from browsing.

[CodeInVB]

I had to join the site just so I could post in this thread. I've been a customer for a LONG time with WB. The contract that I originally signed was for 22GB of downloads every 30 days. Then while putting up with all of the growing pains of a new company WB switched it to this 30 days rolling pile of junk and took away the ability to get a day by day snapshot of my account. Yes, we used to be able to see the individual usage for everyday. My family of techies is constantly at 80-85% usage over the 30 days and I have to look at my usage regularly and tell the kids that they can't use the internet at all.

Why have I put up with this abuse? I've got nothing else.

My telephone runs through a repeater two miles down the road so no 56k and no DSL. Time Warner cable ends 1 mile from my house, for $23000 I can have it installed. Cell signal is marginal and there is no WISP in my area. To add insult to injury I have a fiber optic line and junction box across the road from my driveway that is owned by Verizon. It's used for their switching office to switching office communications.

So, I for one am happy to see the changes that Exeed is bringing. If I can do VPN over it as they say then I will gladly fork out the $130 a month for the service. Heck, even though 25GB is a drop in the bucket compared to what some of my friends use it is better than what I have now. If something else comes along though, say Time Warner, I'll be gone in a heartbeat.

[Michaeljkoster]

Well, I just crossed 70% last night after using zero bandwidth for 3 days. If the WB dish was still installed I'd finally be getting my speed back after 19 days of interruption. (edit... actually not because I would have been using some bandwidth on WB the last 3 days. maybe would have been a few days yet) But I had no way of knowing the duration of the outage by the information provided by WB. very very sad...

PS one upside is that skype actually works now. lots of delay but stays connected.

[kamala]

PS one upside is that skype actually works now. lots of delay but stays connected.

Run Michael, uninstall Skype. It is constantly streaming even when you're logged out it's eating bandwidth, your usage is going to skyrocket.

[Michaeljkoster]

I just got off the phone trying to cancel my Wildblue service but their system was down and they could not process my request


In the meantime, here's the email I got letting me know that my "violation" has been forgiven but repeated "offenses" will cause me more trouble. I'm so done with this attitude of treating me like some kind of sociopath for simply using the internet.


****************************************
Dear WildBlue Customer,



Your WildBlue account has been returned to normal speeds after having been slowed down due to a Fair Access Policy (FAP) violation. WildBlue’s FAP can be viewed at this site.



Please monitor your usage in order to enjoy your expected speeds going forward. As you know, we measure your usage looking at the cumulative previous 30 days – you can monitor this usage by following the steps outlined at this site.



Please note that repeated FAP offenses will result in the slowing of services and restriction of access (to email and web services).



If you have any questions, please visit the help section of our website or call WildBlue Customer Care at 1-888-278-6858.

[Michaeljkoster]

PS one upside is that skype actually works now. lots of delay but stays connected.

Run Michael, uninstall Skype. It is constantly streaming even when you're logged out it's eating bandwidth, your usage is going to skyrocket.

Actually it doesn't use any bandwidth when not in use. Overnight my use was zero, and my new usage meter shows how much I use every day.

I also turned off all automatic updates, etc. and my offline use is now zero except for some uploading from a weather station I have.