It has been nearly two weeks since our Hughes Net system was installed and I am still pleased with the service.   The speed has been close to the advertised speed and there has been almost no downtime due to weather–eventhough we have had two significant snow falls since it was installed. 

It is really a pleasure to actually be able to download a 30 to 50mB file or a video in only a few minutes.  With our prior ISDN system the downloads of this size would have taken an hour or more so we avoided videos becasue they just weren’t worth the wait. 

If your moving from dial-up to Hughes Net I believe you should be very pleased with the speed–assuming you get a good installer.  If you have recently moved to the country from an urban area where you had cable internet or DSL you will probably not be as pleased with the speed. Your choice may come down to waiting for DSL, Cable or maybe WiMax or going ahead and moving to satellite where you can get speeds 15-20X faster  than dial-up while your waiting for the infrastructure to improve in your area.  I wouldn’t trust the cable and DSL providers on promise dates because most have a long history of being overly optimistic by multiple years!

If my experience with the system changes I’ll be sure to post my negative experiences. But as of today–so far, so good.

Fred