Wildblue FAP and how it is monitored

I received an email from a woman (Rhonda in TN) who told me that they have been repeatedly hit with the WildBlue FAP and had their speeds dropped down. When she contacted WildBlue about it, they refused to give her any proof, which she wanted because she said they hardly do anything but check their email and such. So you are not hearing a third party story, I have copied her email, word-for-word below:

Hi!

I can’t say that I am happy to write to you under these circumstances, but I, too, have had my barn load of Wildblue problems!  When we first hooked up with wildblue, our speed was great and we were downloading/uploading with no problems whatsoever.  After a few months, though, wildblue started saying that we were running over our “limit” of download bandwidth and started cutting our speed back drastically.  Then, even though we pay our bills, they cut us off completely!  Well…we called them and asked point blank to please PROVE to us this so called overused bandwidth so we could find out what the problem was.  Of course, you can very well imagine, they said, “we don’t have that information”.  Bull!!!  Even when I had sad speed dialup, I could look up on an hourly basis and see what bandwidth I was using.  They think we are all so stupid that we will just TAKE THEIR WORD FOR IT that we are all using up loads of bandwidth without a shred of proof from wildblue to back their claims up for charging us, then slowing down our speeds or cutting us off.  We have called several times and can’t get any more information from them except that we need to watch our download gauge.

Well…now, here is a little something interesting for you.  I also have DishNet Television satellite service, which is also affiliated with wildblue.  My wildblue bill is on my dishnet bill, as a matter of fact.  I was having a bit of trouble with one of our receivers, so I called tech support for DishNet to ask what to to.  They were more than helpful and within a few days, we had a replacement receiver.  Here’s the interesting part.  I talked and asked questions with the tech lady for over an hour about several things, including upgrading my service for DishNet.  But, I told her I was very upset with wildblue service and wasn’t sure if I should invest any further money into their company.  Well…well….when women talk, sometimes things “come out” in the open, you see.  The tech lady I spoke to was very nice and when I told her of my problems with wildblue, she told me, and I quote, “you couldn’t PAY ME ENOUGH to work on the tech side of wildblue right now!!”.  She told me that several months back, wildblue hooked up with Google thinking that this would make things better for the customers and be a good way to out do Hughsnet, another complete waste of satellite internet service (we were with them before we got wildblue..they suck too!).  Well, when they got whatever service they got from Google, it had a lot of “back door applications” going on, which eats up bandwidth like crazy!  She said that DishNet and Wildblue customer service is in the same building in Virginia, I think she said.  She said that wildblue can’t keep tech reps in because so many people are so angry about the same problems.  What is happening is that wildblue hooking up with google has caused so many problems, their tech workers are working around the clock trying to fix it, but refuse to tell the public due to the huge amount of money they would not only loose having to compensate those customers already pissed, but would loose any incoming possible customers that might sign up with them.  I don’t know about you, but wildblue is NOT advertised around these parts, but Hughsnet is on the TV all the time!!   This representative of DishNet told  me that wildblue is trying to make the problems look like it is the fault of the customers and trying to prove it to the customers without any proof, when they KNOW all along it is their glitch and we are paying for it.  Where I live, I don’t have much choice….it is either horrible speed dialup (and I do mean horrible…we are at the butt end of everything here and the lines are so bad, even my phone service sucks!), I can opt to pay $900 a month for T-1 (NOT!! can’t afford that by any means!), no DSL even offered due to the age and horrible condition of the phone lines out here and cable isn’t an option either.  So, satellite is my only choice and I can hardly afford that!  And, I can’t afford it with bad service!!  We run a small business out of our home and if the internet goes out, we are out of business, if we aren’t making money, we can’t pay the bill, if we can’t pay wildblue’s bill, they cut us off….it’s a wildblue circle, I guess you could say!! :-P

Anyway, I wanted to pass this tidbit on to you.  I have already contacted a local “That’s Messed Up” news piece on a local channel who handle this sort of thing.  He said he has had many complaints about them and is considering doing a piece on the problem.  If you guys do get a class action lawsuit going, please put me on the list. We have lost money due to their incompetence and I want my money back!  If we could just get this out to the media, I think it would break wide open.  I am going to keep trying to get this through in any way I can from my end, please keep me informed as to what you guys do…..I believe if enough of us gather together against them and get a good lawyer to represent us little folks, we could win this thing and make them pay!  Thanks for the great work you are doing, by the way.