WildBlue Sucks

I would like to thank you for taking a few minutes out of your day to view this blog posting. If you are actually utilizing WildBlue Satellite Internet, I know it is even more time out of your day so I will try to make this first post as short as possible while still getting my main points across as to why I built this site.

After moving a little further out of town, I realized that cable and DSL internet were not available. At first I considered getting a T1 line put in as I could get Internet and phone for about $300/month this way but after talking to DirecTV about my television service, they recommended WildBlue as an alternative that could give me the speeds of Cable or DSL without the the heavy pricetag of a T1 because I simply did not want to get on dial-up since I have not had a dial-up account in about 7 years.

I finally got hooked up on WildBlue on August 15th 2007. The installer was very nice, hooked up the lines I needed, ran speed tests, etc. and was on his way. After a few hours I went to get on the Internet and it was extremely slow. The ping times were extremely high (pinging google.com was giving me latency of as much as 2600 ms). I chalked this up to a small storm brewing and just figured I would try again the next day.

The next day came and it continued to be slow. Since I had no real major things to do, I simply checked my email and left the PC. After several days of slow times, I was really starting to get pissed off. I just paid over $400 for a huge satellite dish that is bolted into the side of my brand new house (I had it custom built) and am under contract for a year’s worth of crappy Internet.

At this point I did not have the time to deal with it because I was leaving out of town for a week. Immediately upon my return on Tuesday the 28th of August, I sent an email to my local WildBlue representative and legal@wildbluecorp.com asking to be let out of my contract and give me a refund on my dish. I received no response from WildBlue Legal and the local guy simply emailed me back telling me I needed to get in touch with Tech support before he could really do anything. I called tech support and was shocked by a 20+ minute wait time when the Auto Attendant (AA) said there were no issues with service. SHOCKER. I started doing more and more research and realized that there are hundreds, if not thousands, of unhappy WildBlue customers out there and decided if WildBlue is not going to let me out of my contract, the least I can do is use my expertise to create a site to inform others and have a medium in which others can communicate.

At this point I am seriously considering a class action lawsuit against WildBlue for misrepresentation of services and deceptive business practices. I will gauge interest in a potential class-action through this blog over the coming weeks.

It is late and I am not sure if I correctly set up the user rights on this blog but please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences.