30 days is going to be a really long time now that I have been FAPed. What is F.A.P. you ask? It stands for Fair Access Policy. It is a policy that the satellite company's put on your internet bandwidth usage. I went over mine. I have only had this service for a month. It will take a month of me doing no downloads to get my speed back. I couldn't do a download if I wanted to anyway. Speed now is slower than dial up. I can check my email and hopefully post this blog entry. That's about it. If it's peak hours I can do nothing.
I wasn't told about this when I signed up. Of course in their defense, when I called to INQUIRE about the service, the lady was talking fast and was difficult to understand. I had to ask her repeatedly to repeat things. I heard 2 year contract and when I said," So you mean I am now locked into a 2 year contract?" She said "Yes." So I was reeling from that bit of info and she may have went on to tell me about FAP and I didn't understand. Do they PURPOSELY hire people like this? I think so.
I asked another friend who also has this same company about what happened and she told me she had never even heard of it either! She will find out if she does one too many downloads or looks at 1 too many You Tube videos..
My son got an ipod for Christmas. He was excited to be able to put a movie on it. We had just gotten this high speed internet so he downloaded one. It took 24 hours to download. I believe it to be the main cause of my FAPing. Then of course I had some updating to do also. Things I couldn't do with dial up or I could but it wasn't worth the wait. We watched some YouTube Videos, I put on the Entrecard Bar, and did my drops. Then I downloaded Tweetdeck. It was a 3 minute download but I guess it put me at my 100%. So here I am paying 60.00 a month for nothing. I got rid of my home phone and dial up to pay for this satellite service so I can't even hook my dial up up. Satellite internet is a rip off and they lock you into a 2 year contract. Both Wild Blue and Hughes net have the F.A.P.. With Hughes net you only have to wait 24 hours to get your speeds back. Wild Blue has a 30 day rolling. I think that means I will be lucky to have it back in 30 days. (I went to the library computer to study all this after the fact) I have tried calling them to ask just exactly what a 30 day rolling period means and I can not get a straight answer. They just keep telling me I have to get my usage below 70% and don't do any downloads. They read from a script.
I told her, "Look..I couldn't do a download if I tried!"
She replies," Just do not download anything."
I said, " Lady is there another number I can call for complaint's?"
She said," I can give you an email address."
I said, " Lady, if I could GET to my email I could get the address for myself!"
When I checked my usage on the library computer it said 98%. I have had my router unplugged for 3 days!!!! So see? What the hell? Those of you who think Wild Blue is great, well it is when it is working. It's still not as fast as cable or DSL but it sure is better than dial up. Just don't download ( or upload) too many things. Believe me it isn't much and they will punish you like a 5 year old. Are you aware of the F.A.P.? Did they tell you when they signed you up?
I have my router unplugged now when I am not TRYING to use the internet or working off line. Why? Because what if my AVG (anti virus program) is updating? Is that a download? I don't know but not taking any chances. I'm scared now.
Truthfully, I am tired of this kind of crap. A 2 year contract with Satellite service? It's bad enough with cell phones. It has to be stopped. We should be able to be FREE to pick and choose the best deal/service without penalty. What if they run a cable out here next year?
I pay DOUBLE for Satellite service than everyone else pays for cable or DSL because it is my only choice next to dial up in a rural area. A service that is not even close to being comparable. You may have a FAP on cable or DSL but you will never notice it because it is more than enough to do what you need to on the internet.
I am worried about my drops and my internet business. What will happen to all the hard work I have put into them? I can only get to the library so much.
I am sorry for this long rant. This blog was not intended to be for this. I would make a new one if I had internet service. LOL. I have to vent this somewhere. I look forward to your comments.
Meanwhile, I am going to go bang my head against the wall.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
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3 comments:
You are the second blogger I have seen lately having this problem. I currently use DSL, and I would hate to have to encounter this problem with sat. service, because it certainly would put a damper on internet presence. Hope you get it solved, or at least that it doesn't get worse for you!
I have Wildblue too, because it's my only choice next to dial-up, due to being rural. But, yes, they did tell me about the download/upload limits when I signed up. I take that into consideration, and am slightly sneaky. I do my larger downloads or uploads from work (on my lunch hour or after work) to save my bandwidth.
They also did tell me it was a 2 year contract, and that was in the paperwork also, so I knew that. I expected it though - it's just like with cell phones. Since I knew I had no other options, I was OK with it.
Hope you can get the upload/download thing figured out though. The movie download probably was the culprit....
I've got the Wild Blue blues too, so I feel your pain. I love living in the country, but it does have a few (very few) disadvantages -- and having no choice for high-speed Internet except for WB is the biggest disadvantage of all. Due to our business, we HAVE to have high-speed, and there's no DSL in our neck of the woods yet.
For us it's not so much a matter of F.A.P. (though that has been an issue too) as it is U.D. (unauthorized debits). On more than one occasion we have been told that we'd be charged a certain amount for something, and have repeatedly verified with the phone rep that this is the exact amount we can expect to have debited from our account. And then several days later we check the account and see that they've withdrawn way more than they said they would. This has resulted in a s--t load of overdrafts that aren't our fault. We are still fighting with WB to get this problem fixed.
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