Satellite internet provider Hughesnet treats its rural customers like rubes, advertising its service as being equal to DSL, while actually delivering paltry bandwidth and over-throttling subscribers, a new lawsuit claims.
The suit was brought by two California HughesNet customers, Tina Walker and Christoper Bayless,. They say the company promises speeds it doesn't deliver, unfairly charges heavy fees to get out of lopsided contracts and over-punishes users by throttling their connections.
Those kinds of complaints are common in online reviews of the company's service. HughesNet offers tiers of service that promise download speeds ranging from 1 to 5 Mbps.
The potential class-action suit was filed in Oakland, California federal court last Friday. It seeks damages for an estimated 80,000 California HughesNet customers, who couldn't get out of their contracts without penalty even if HughesNet didn't provide them with passable service, according to the complaint. HughesNet markets itself to customers who live in areas where no other broadband service is yet available.
Moreover, the suit says HughesNet's daily download caps are unfair and affect far more than just a small number of subscribers. HughesNet monitors downloads and if a user exceeds a quota in any rolling 24-hour period, HughesNet puts them on slow-internet probation until they stop using as much bandwidth.
"The truth is the threshold is low, that service interruption ... happens to a large number of people, and affects service for longer periods that HughesNet represents," the complaint said.
The suit asks the court to force HughesNet to return all early cancellation fees, to remove those fees from their contracts and to ban it from falsely advertising its service.
A HughesNet spokeswoman said she wasn't aware of the suit, but as a matter of policy, that the company did not usually comment on ongoing legal matters. She did not call back.
Photo: Flickr/Justin Shearer
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