Ed Stoffel

Our church is located in a semi-rural area where getting internet service is a challenge. Comcast cable is wired to nearby homes, but nothing close enough to allow them to extend a run to our building. DSL is also unavailable because we are over a mile from the nearest Telco central office. Microwave internet services are also unavailable because our neighbor has a grove of 100+ pine trees, completely blocking any signal from the northeast.

So we had Hughesnet (formerly Direcway) installed about a year ago. I recall the installer saying something at the time about being unable to point the dish at the preferred satellite, so he chose another. Service has been OK but not great, due to the slow speeds and delays of satellite internet service.

Beginning August 31st, our service degraded down to an unusable level. It takes about 10 tries to reach one webpage, and progressing from there is usually impossible. My multiple calls to Hughesnet customer service have been unproductive. They tell me that as a small office customer (we only pay $99/mo.), we are assigned to Satmex 6 K12, which is experiencing technical problems without a resolution in sight. I asked them to repoint us to another satellite but they are unwilling to do so at this time, and unwilling to allow me to repoint the dish myself. They were also unwilling to provide a more detailed technical explanation of the problem.

Satmex 6 was launched on May 27, 2006, to an orbit at 113° West longitude, with an estimated life to July 2021. Is the satellite already degrading, or are there actually technical issues at Hughesnet uplink facility in Maryland? Nearly half of the satellite’s KU transponders are listed as belonging to Hughesnet. Are they having problems on other transponders? The person I spoke with said no.

Late today I called back to request a transponder reassignment, since they have 10 transponders on Satmex 6. Customer service first told me the dish would have to be repointed, until I explained that transponders were on the same satellite and it was a matter of reprogramming on their end. They transferred me to technical support, who after several minutes, told me that the problem had suddenly been resolved. I will learn over the weekend whether this is true.

UPDATE: Day 8, Checking the system on Sunday, I found that service had indeed seems to have been restored to normal.  We’ll see.

UPDATE: Day 11, still having major connectivity problems. Spent 90 minutes on phone with tech support verifying that it really isn’t our computer causing the problem. They promise to escalate the problem to “tier 4” tech support.

UPDATE: Day 16, still don’t have good connectivity. Someone from Hughesnet called yesterday saying he could connect to our modem, so everything must be fine. It’s not fine. We continue to get what Hughesnet messages call 504 and 506 errors. At this point, we’re having to work out of another office, and will probably cancel service. But Hughesnet charges an early termination fee if you cancel before 24 months - something we shouldn’t have to pay when the service doesn’t work.

UPDATE: Day 19, they did something, then called to ask if the problem had cleared up. It has. I was getting 504 & 506 errors on a regular basis, but today, webpages, email, and streaming audio were no problem. I only wish they had solved the problem 19 days ago.