I had almost the same experience with Hughes Net a few years ago. They and virtually all of the cable-tv and internet providers are, imho, some of the most shameless and avaricious liars in the American business landscape. Here's a few facts that may help you in your claim.
In my case, I signed up with DirecTV for a package that included high speed internet service as well as their satellite TV product. I soon learned that DirecTV had an agreement with HughesNet, which provided the internet access part of the package I bought from DirecTV. The internet access that HughesNet provided was anything but high speed, in fact it was the slowest internet service I’ve ever experienced, worse at some times than the original telephone dial-up service that the internet started with. After much research I figured out what the problem actually was.
At the current state of our information age technology, it is NOT possible to get high-speed internet service (commonly known as Broadband), through a satellite connection. Nor is it possible to get it through a traditional telephone line. The amount of data that goes back and forth in a high speed internet connection must travel through a piece of co-axial cable, the cable most of us associate with Cable-TV service. In order to truly understand this, I need to get a bit technical here, so please bear with me on this. I will use “live streaming video” as an example.
The data that we receive in “live streaming” video feeds, does not flow into our digital device in a constant stream, but rather it is broken down into tiny blocks of data called “packets”, This is done by the servers employed by the content providers. On our end, our computers (and yes, even a smartphone is a computer) reassemble these packets into the continuous streaming video that we see and hear. The mechanics of the connection itself works as follows: When the connection is established, the receiving entity sends a short signal to the provider’s server that says in essence, “send me the 1st packet” which the server typically does virtually immediately if there’s a good “high speed (broadband) internet connection between the servers and recipient. As soon as the 1st packet is received, the recipient’s device replies in essence, “packet received, please send another.” That back and forth computer banter goes on throughout all computer internet connections, live video streaming being one of the most data intensive of all such connections.
While the packets are indeed received at high speeds from the satellites used by HughesNet and others, the recipient’s device reply: “packet received, please send another” must travel through ground lines back to (in my case) the nearest DirecTV hub, which sends it through their transmitters back to the HughesNet server. For people who subscribe to HughesNet for internet access only, this return message must travel through normal telephone lines which in all too many cases are still pretty slow, thus making one side of the connection very slow indeed. A chain being always limited by it’s weakest link, in this case, the internet service connection between subscribers and the HughesNet satellites cannot possibly be called a true high speed or “broadband” connection.
This of course leads to the ultimate truth about HughesNet and many other internet service providers. They’re all liars. The ONLY way a subscriber can get true high speed (broadband) internet service is through a provider, in most cases, a local cable company, who can run a coaxial (co-ax) cable into your premises.
The proof of the fact that they’re all liars can easily be seen in the fact that in virtually all of their advertising, they ONLY quote their download speeds. Call them and try to get them to tell you their upload speed. You’ll see what I mean. Unless you know their upload speeds as well, you cannot tell whether or not you’re receiving true high speed service. It’s easy to learn what kind of service you’re actually getting. Simply go to a connection testing website such as “testmy.net” there are several others available. I just paused from writing this reply, and tested mine. I do have a cable based broadband account, and my test showed a Download result of 67.1 Mbps (8.4 MB/s) and a 5.5 Mbps (687 kB/s) upload speed. (67.1 megabits per second = 8.4 mega bytes per second, likewise 5.5 megabits per second = 687 kilo bytes per second). I have a pretty good internet connection, but even in mine, live streaming videos often have numerous hiccups.
To add insult to injury, even the cable companies lie about virtually every aspect of their service to their customers, especially about price. In my original cable sign up agreement, which was made just 26 months ago, the $85 monthly package I bought is currently costing me over $150 per month. Companies like Comcast for example, offer their customers high speed internet access these days for a base price (that’s entirely too high imho) and then offers them speed upgrades at additional costs. In fact, the equipment used including the cables themselves, can carry the maximum speed for both downloads and uploads into each customers premises. They use filters that restrict the throughput of these cables to lower speeds, so they can have the ability to highjack their customers for even more money than they’re already paying. It doesn’t cost these companies one penny more to give each customer the maximum speed connection that their system carries. But there’s even more. In my case, the cable company I originally signed up with was absorbed by a bigger company, which is allegedly supposed to honor all of the terms of the agreements made between the customers and the original company they signed up with. That of course was quickly forgotten however. In my case, part of the original agreement that I signed specified that I would always get the maximum internet connection speed that the company offered, and that as their speed capabilities grew, I would always be upgraded to their highest speed, free of any further charges.
The cable companies in this country are one of the most hated industries around, but few people understand how they get away with their dishonest and unethical business practices. The answer to that is that all of the cable companies are government created monopolies. I’ve yet to hear of any major metropolitan area in this country, where Comcast for example competes with AT&T, or Charter. They each have their own territories, and that stems from political patronage and government interference into our allegedly “free” enterprise system. It’s directly related to the first major example of our government improperly interfering with our economy, specifically the creation of our original trans-continental railway system. In order to entice railroad companies into building the original cross country railroad lines in areas which at the time, had insufficient traffic to warrant the construction of railroads, the government gave the railroads enormous land grants adjacent to the lines that they built. Those railroads were not well built in most cases, they were built to obtain the land grants, not to carry traffic. When those areas inevitably grew to the point where they had more than sufficient traffic to make the railroad profitable, the railroads in most cases proved incapable of meeting the demand for their services. Eventually, a great many of them collapsed, and just as is the case today, the free enterprise system was blamed for their failure, when in fact, it was government intervention into the railroad industry that was truly to blame. Without competition, industry cannot flourish, and well serve the needs of it’s customers. We see this today in our major cable companies, all of whom use fiber optic cables that run along those same railroad right of ways. The people who profit from the massive royalties paid to the owners of those railroad right of ways today, in most case purchased them from the descendants of the original carpetbaggers who built those railroads in the first place in 19th century America.
The bottom line, in your case, is that it’s not economically practical to hire an attorney for a case involving damages under $500, so my suggestion to you is to sue them on your own. This type of lawsuit is frequently referred to as "pro-se" (pronounced "pro say") In most courthouses, in the clerks office where suits are filed, there's a "pro-se desk" with a clerk capable of giving you the necessary forms to fill out and advise you on procedures. Do not bother asking them for legal advice, i.e. what your chances are of prevailing in your suit, as they all studiously avoid answering such questions. Just get them to instruct you on how to fill out and file the forms, do so, pay the filing fee, and then get your complaint served on the defendant. In most jurisdictions, claims under a certain dollar amount can usually be served by registered mail, if so, make sure your save the card that you get back from the post office with the recipient's signature on it as proof of service. The clock starts ticking on the defendant's allotted time to file a legal reply to your suit, once the service of your suit is made. You may have to wait them out for many months, but from what you tell us, if your complaint is well written, you will probably prevail.
Good luck…
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