The problems continued when the installers arrived. I asked them to put the dish on the cement fence as the owner of the complex did not want it on the home. When I checked outside they had pushed all the rocks in the rock garden out of the way and erected an 8 foot pole and this huge dish was smack in the middle of my tiny yard. The workers ( I can not call them technicians) threaded the power cord through the back window to the plug in the home and left the modem on the back porch. They left all of their trash, wire trimmings. boxes and all of the rocks they threw out of the way.

I live in a area with plenty of dirt and 110 degree temperatures in the summer and sub zero temps in the winter. Is that how they are trained? I managed to get the modem inside the window after the first sandstorm. The installers did not work with me what I wanted to me use as a sign on, user name and password. They put in my entire name and address and the local street as a password. What kind of security is that?

I made several calls to wild blue to ask about the speed and the manner in which the way the gentlemen installed the equipment. while waiting of course I was instructed to reset the modem. That has nothing to do with an outdoor Modem. The lady taking the call did not even blink when I told her that they installed the modem on the patio filled with desert sand. She did not offer to have it checked or to apologize. Half of the South Eastern Desert could blow into the modem. So what, right.

Several times I tried to use my dial up instead and for some reason the it kept going back to the other program. I wanted to discontinue the service for their poor service and to this they also did not make any concessions or try to provide any customer service. They just told me that i needed to discontinue the service, remove some tria and send them modem back. ( They said they would send the boxes several weeks after I disconnect the sevice) I said I was only 4′ 10″ and could not reach what ever they were talking about. They told me to use a ladder and I explained my yard was river stones and there is no way that a ladder could balance on river stones. She told me to ask my neighbor or someone from church to remove the equipment. Why don’t they tell you that they do not provide any help or at least show you what should be removed when the time comes.

They said it was 125.00 for a service call. Lets see if they hold to that. It is less expensive to set up a service call to remove the tria then it is to try to climb a ladder handicapped, fall and end up in the Emergency room and break their precious equipment and whatever part of me hits the ground. Still she insisted I should try. They do not want to help. Then comes the early disconnect fee. If it worked like they said it should then it would not be a problem. They have false advertisement, lie and are not helpful, some of the persons on the phone are pleasant, but just the kind of pleasant to get you off of the phone quickly. If there is a speck of sand in the modem it is from being installed ON the ground on the patio. Talk to the installers. Make sure you know what you are getting into before you sign on with these folks. I pray that the disconnect goes OK and that they will send someone out to take off their parts. I pray that they stop charging me when I stop the service. Wild blue admin please help.

I tell everyone it’s better not to even have internet than to have Wild Blue.

Yet, I agree that they are remarkably inflexible and opaque about applying it.

I have the highest priced residential package for my home with only three users, and generally use 25% of my bandwidth allowance. However, this spikes with large downloads or guests with laptops. Wild Blue is in agreement with this assessment, and agrees that the bandwidth usage utility only shows last 30 days usage and not on a daily basis, and lags about 1-2 full days behind real-time. Yet, they are absolutely inflexible about waiving their penalties even though admitting that slowing is to about dial-up speed.

Penalizing long-time paying customers who typically use 25% of what they’re paying for with month-long severe cuts in service for 1-2 day long sporadic (twice in 4 months) spikes in use is certainly a poor business model and seems to reflect the practices of a company fully aware that its customer base is a captive audience with no ready access to real alternatives.

In other words, Wild Blue Sucks For Specific Reasons!

I was required to purchase the dish and sign a two-year contract. Since I need this service only five months of the year, I found this quite pricey, but I had no other choice; dial-up or satellite, that is all that is available here. So, upon the assurance that when the contract had run, I would be able to suspend service for those months I am in another state, I braced myself for paying nearly $2000 (two thousand) for ten or eleven months of service.

The next real problem had to do with the business office. For reasons that escape me, they were completely unable to update my password for some months. Every call, (and I averaged one every ten days or so), service or billing, resulted in a long litany of questions and answers. I terminated every call with a request that the password be updated then and there, and was assured it was so; subsequent calls made it clear that I was being misinformed. It got to the point that I would not call even when I needed service because I was so frustrated with their inability to update my password. Finally, due to work on my roof, i HAD to call; the dish had shifted and needed realigning. This time–over a year later–they finally got the password updated and it still is on file about 18 months later.

When I have service–weather permitting, as noted above–it varies between slow and very slow. For example, from about 5:00 PM to 8:00 PM M-F I don\’t even bother; download speeds run about 18 kb/s, far slower than dial-up! The same is true of Saturday late mornings and Sunday evenings. I am still debating whether I want to have as phone line installed just for dial-up internet purposes. It si pertinent here to note that the people who speak with you when your service is down are without exception helpful. pleasant, and willing to do whatever they can for you. Since what I most often need when my service is down is a weather report, they unfailingly provide me with same while on the phone with them.

My two-year contract was up some months ago, and I am now preparing for my semi-annual move to another state with my job. I have tried THREE times to put the WildBlue service on suspension; all three times I have been told something different.

The first time, I was told that I must call back within the billing period in which I wanted the suspension. I waited a full four weeks and did so.

This time, I was told that the suspension would go into effect on the selected date.

Tonight, I contacted WildBlue through their website via chat to confirm. This time, I was told that I must call back on the day I want the service suspended.

At this point, I am documenting every call concerning the suspension of service. I have a suspicion that they will be trying to bill me despite my very clear wishes to suspend service; and if so, I will indeed dispute the charges through my credit card company.
So, in summary: dial-up speeds at T1 prices; poor, and in the case of the pyramid scheming installer, downright illegal practices.

I am in violation at 16.8 when the threshold is 17! They stole .2 from me.

I sent them a message stating that they remove my so-called FAP violation or I’ll remove myself as their customer.