Does anyone have Wild Blue internet service? I live in rural Missouri and am curious to find out about the service, the reliability and their customer service. Thanks!
Lori
We have Wild Blue satellite internet service. I'd say it is OK. I need faster than dial up internet service as I work from home, in a rural area. There is no DSL. I'd say it surely is better than dial up. Occasionally, we have rain fade, but it generally hasn't lasted too long.
I have had problems with using bandwidth. I had to go to a plan with more bandwidth, because the kids are using it for school, as well. The plan costs me $70 per month which is really expensive, but I have no choice.
But all in all, we are fairly pleased with it. (07/08/2008)
By Lois Ann from New York
I live in Chicago, but too far from the Telephone Central Office, so I cannot get DSL. Anyway, I have Wild Blue and I have not had any problems whatsoever. Sure, service may go down during a heavy storm but it comes back up without any problem. The technician was very competent and the installation went without a hitch. I have the ProPack through DishNetwork.
It is a bit costly, but I had no choice and my wife was driving me crazy complaining about dial-up. My son is not too happy about the latency when he plays games online, but he has enough other games to play with so that is not an big issue. All in all, I am pleased with the service (and the peace and quite it earned me). (07/08/2008)
By FATillery
We had to sign a 2-year contract with Wild Blue. We live in rural Mississippi. It is faster than dial-up, but nothing to brag about. It's $59.00 month. Everytime a rain cloud comes up to the South, it goes out and we can't get the radar for the weather. When there is bad weather in Wisconsin (their home office) it goes out. But still better than dial-up. Can't wait to get DSL one day when it is available. (07/08/2008)
By LYNPOW
We have Wildblue and have found it to be great, as opposed to slower dial-up for sure. We had the more expensive fast plan from them the first couple of years, because I worked online from home. Now we have the slower, less expensive plan, and haven't noticed a huge difference in pages loading, still is a lot faster than dial-up.
The only problems I found were early on, when they first installed it, and we got some poorly trained newbie contract installers who weren't able to make it work. Took several other people to come out to make it work right. Before you sign a contract, make very sure about who your installers will be and that the company you sign up with will stick with you until they make it work right, without charging you for extra trips. Other than that, once it's up and running, it's pretty good. Sure beats dial-up, and frees up your phone line. (07/08/2008)
By Mary LaCaze
I had Wildblue installed on April 23rd, 2008 and even though it is a little faster than dial-up it is still terribly slow. Everyday I lose connection to the satellite due to even minor weather such as clouds. The installation crew (one trained and one trainee) seemed to know what they were doing, but I watched them do stupid stuff that one should never do to RF cables carrying high frequencies. And of course the usual, nothing was part of the installation package and I was charged extra for it. (07/27/2008)
By Dale C. B.
Wild Blue has severely slowed our service even though they know a hacker is using our signal and stealing our "band width". It looks like they are breaching our contract to get more money from us. (08/23/2008)
By Rob C
I've had WildBlue now for about 6 months. Better than dial-up, but overpriced for what you get. I've had lots of problems from day one. First installation didn't yield enough speed so dish had to be relocated. Worked fairly well during snow, but rain is another story. If calling customer service, have a pillow nearby because you'll be on hold for a really long time to get no help. They'll tell you they can't help you over the phone, but will schedule a tech to visit you in a week or so and charge you for the visit.
We have had a very rainy summer and have been without internet service every time it rains and for a length of time after the rain stops. There was a stretch of days where our time of outages was greater than our time of connection. I have relatives with Hughes.net who do not have this problem and that is what I will be looking in to now. At the cost of the service we deserve to have a service that works. (09/07/2008)
By Dave
Both are not compatible. You can not use Vonage with Wild Blue Satellite Internet. (09/24/2008)
By In El Paso Texas
I am having a terrible time with Wild Blue. While I was on vacation recently, some one hacked into my network and used my WB account for running some sort of file sharing software, exceeding my upload limit for the month. I have tried customer service, who sent me to billing, who sent me to vendor relations, who sent me back to tech support, all of them saying they have no authority to deal with my problem.
This is in addition to my service being out for a couple of days, because of weather issues in another state (?), and generally unimpressive speed for my $79 a month. If you have any other option, don't sign up.
Alex (09/29/2008)
By Alex
The worst service and excuses of any company I have had contact with. Techs they send out are ill informed and act/tell you it's your fault. Techs you may speak to at Wild Blue tell you it's your fault. And finally someone told me it is Wild Blue's fault, my beam was tweaked to my area and now I need an updated version to get good coverage. I have been paying for service calls, over 50 per month for 3 months and still no service.
Don't get Wild Blue, you'll be Blue. (10/25/2008)
By M.J.
It is awful. My PC freezes up every time I try to log in to one of my online accounts. It does not work with my wireless router, and to top it all off, after a week of this, when I called them to tell them I wanted out, they said that breaking my contract would cost $345! Since I live in MN I informed them that I did not have to pay that amount, since we have a law allowing 30 days to cancel. Their response was that since they are based in Colorado that law did not apply. Rotten service and miserable customer service. What a deal. (12/09/2008)
By Lynn
Ok, I read over all of these messages. I want to say a couple of things. First off, if you want WildBlue you need to understand that VPN's, remote desk tops, gaming, and video do not work well with satellite internet, any of the satellite Internets.
If you want to use the service for something particular you need to speak up. A lot of the time the technicians are not as versed on what does or does not work with the product so you need to ask them to call in and make sure this is something you can do or not do. I get calls all the time from people that want to use it for Vonage, gaming, teleconference, webinars, etc. I make sure they understand that these things do not work. If you don't speak up and ask the CSR how are they going to know what you are expecting. The CSR's have a set script that they have to follow and are not mind readers.
This next thing goes for everyone who are thinking of buying anything. Research it. Especially if you are going to be spending $300 for install and $50 a month. Know what you are buying. I get calls all the time from people that do not know that there is a fair access policy (FAP) until they go over it. It is stated plainly on the page of the service, but no one ever reads anything and just assumes that they know everything.
WildBlue is a good product for people that are "standard" users. This means someone that goes on and read's their mail, looks up some funny jokes, etc. It is not for hardcore users who stream video, work from home on a VPN, gamers or anything like that. Don't blame the product for your inability to research. (12/09/2008)
Terrible. They have download limits that if you get near (not over), they'll cut you off for a few weeks until you're back to an amount they like. The latency is awful, at times almost as bad as dial-up. Their prices are outrageous for what you get. If I remember right, in 2005 it cost me over $300 to do the install and pay for the first month. Then after that, it was about $70 per month.
I'm not sure what everyone else dealt with, but the local installer was very good. He was able to answer our questions and he even switched modems for us when one of them failed, with no cost to us. When ever we had problems, we'd call him instead of wasting time with Wild Blue.
Thankfully, I found a local WISP that provides faster, cheaper service. I put down an upfront cost of $605 and that includes the $130 installation and the entire first year in advance. And even better, no download limits. (12/20/2008)
By Jerry
Worst ISP ever. Pings range from 1000-4000ms and that's when you can even connect to the internet. Worst ISP ever. Dial up is better than Wild Blue. (02/12/2009)
By Pat
I am so glad I found this page before making the huge mistake of switching from one terrible internet provider to another. Here is a warning to all who are upset with Wild Blue. Stay away from Hughes Net. It is the same and the tech support and customer service is unbelievable. It is the worst. (02/18/2009)
The worst service I have ever had. I only have it because it is the only option I have. I recently moved and setup for them to come and move the service, instead they disconnected my old service and re-installed me as a new customer. Because of this I lost all of my email accounts and they could not retrieve them.
So, I have 3 internet businesses and lost all of the email information on all three of them. I also spent hours correcting my business accounts, but before that was complete I lost a lot of business and the only reply from Wild Blue was "there is nothing we can do about it". I also lost a lot of pictures I had stored in my email account. I went through, I cannot tell you how many people and every one of them acted like complete idiots. I hate the service and as soon as I have other options I will be gone. (02/23/2009)
By Mindi from Denison, TX
To the Wild Blue rep that commented. Quit trying to sell and advertise a product that "does not work". If the service doesn't support anything other than reading email, state "that fact" in your false advertising. To all you whom have become a victim of this false advertising and inability to deliver the service, file your complaints formally with the FCC at:
http://www.fcc.gov/cgb/dro/complaint_tips.html (02/24/2009)
By Russ
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