SKYWAYUSA is a joke

[HCI]

Since you have 8 mo to go, wait and see what happens with the new HughesNet KA system which is suppossed to be up and running this spring. It looks promissing.

Not 100% sure but I think Spaceway may only be available to business and enterprise customers.

[dirkleearm]

I think you are more than likely correct, unfortunately. But I do think the technology will become the new standard in the future ( hopefully soon) for all services.

[Stargazer]

But nothing is going to get past the ping issues.

[margit]

November 2007 I came unfortunately across the Skyway USA website on my search for a wireless internet connection in my -rural- area.

I spoke to a SkyWay USA salesperson and decided to subscribe to your dial-up internet services as well as purchase a satellite dish to use for the wireless internet connection. SkyWay USA assured me of the availability of a satellite connection at my house in Iowa. I could also choose to either install it myself - which I was told was real easy to do -or- have someone in my area install it for me, which would come at an additional fee of $149. I opted to try it first myself - meaning my son who frequently successfully installs internet and various technical devices.

SkyWay USA told me to expect the satellite dish within 2 weeks. This was not so. It came after 4 weeks.

On December 24th, my son installed the SkyWay USA dish with unobstructed access to the sky. He installed and set up the software. The dial-up worked perfectly. The setup worked fine - we received a lot of perfect signals from various satellites - just not from the SkyWay USA one. The one that was supposed to give us wireless internet.
When my son could not locate the SkyWay USA satellite with the receiver, he contacted SkyWay USA technical support. The gentleman there explained to him that the data he received regarding the location of the SkyWay USA satellite was not exactly accurate, but just an approximate direction.

I opted then for a professional installer. My son called SkyWay USA in that regard, but was told by the SkyWay USA customer representative, that there aren't any trained installers in our state(!). My son informed SkyWay USA that we are located close to the border of Missouri and Illinois and if someone from there would be able to help us. No - he was told, because different states require different training.

Well, at that point the SkyWay USA representatives must have lied when they said it was easy to install - if it requires trained installers who are trained especially and according to a specific state. When I contacted other satellite companies from this area I found out that iinstallation really isn't that easy and often trained professionals are not able to locate the satellite.

The SkyWay USA representatives also lied about the availability of a professional installer.

At that point it occurred to me that SkyWay USA also might have lied about the availability in my area - this scenario would actually make sense. Why have trained installers in an area where there is no availability? My lawyer will look into this.

At that point that the SkyWay USA satellite dish was as useful to me as if I had nailed a salad bowl on my roof - just way more expensive. $249 to be exact.

I told the SkyWay USA I would send back the dish & to please refund my money. I was told I wouldn't get a ??something?? number from then and that Skyway USA would refuse to take the dish back.

I would not want any other people fall victim to the SkyWay USA scam.

Margit Trautmann

Ive had skywayusa for over 7 mths now and its worthless, fighting with it every night, customer support is terrible . to much invested in this garbage to have these problems, such as went threw 3 LNB's so far, 2 modems and have green signal. Report to better businnes bureau is not far off, if anyone else has problems with this business please let me no.

raulgod@yahoo.com

[lumpkin666]

Skyway appears to be offering a dialup service to upload information and a typical ku-band satellite downlink. While non-dbs satellite reception may be a tad more difficult to attain than a dbs satellite would, it should not require any professional assistance. MANY MANY people do this sort of thing to get FTA television all the time. True, it does require some patience and precision during the install, but you should be able to get it done.

Do you know which satellite they have you aiming at? if so, some simple tools for aiming and such can be found (or links to them) in the FTA forums. I live in South East Iowa and would normally be happy to help if I am near enough.. however, it's really too darn cold outside for me to be offering to stand outside and aim your satellite dish right now!

(btw - you aren't the same person from the Iowa City area that was asking for info on satellite internet services via Craigslist awhile back are you?)

[Stargazer]

An installer with a satellite meter that has an identifier on it should be able to tune in that particular satellite needed for your internet service.

[mrt2o]

Hello,
I've got Skyway and unlike many, I got mine up and running in one day doing the install myself. I have been on here before under a different user name but wanted to change the e-mail address and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, even if I knew you could get your Skyway working perfectly like mine, I still would not consider Skyway. I purchased the 250 kbps package and right now on Thursday night "Toast" tested me out at 52kbps. My AOL dial-up is faster than that when you figure in the satellite delay. This is a typical
Internet Performance and Speed Test

result. So... even if you get it working you will not get what they advertize and unless you consider 52k on Thursday night broadband than you will be like me, waiting for the contract to runout. If time is money Skyway is a _____ __ _____. It took about 5 minutes just to load this page so I could gripe and my signal is always strong. I have only had one day during a terrible thunderstorm that my signal went down but it doesn't matter They have more traffic than they can support, so every new customer only makes it worse from what I understand.
I have no plans on upgrading, because they require a contract extension to upgrade, LMAO, and I don't know about thier faster service but if mine is any indication thier best should net you about what I am supposed to be getting.

[Stargazer]

It's a shame that there is not a one-way satellite service out there that is reliable. I think there is a market out there for this as it would be cheaper each month and cheaper to install along with easier to install.

[HCI]

Not 100% sure but I think Spaceway may only be available to business and enterprise customers.

Just wanted to reiterate on this. I have recently found out that Spaceway will at first be released to residential customers. Unfortunately I cannot get into to much detail because they basically have not made their minds up about service cost and speed availability at the moment. Once I find something out firm I will let you know. I can say their will be 3 levels of service for basic residential plans and 1 business service or Elite plan. Any rumors about VPN or VOiP being better is not true. The residential side will be using bent pipe architecture while enterprise customers can use the full mesh the satellite is capable of. The new modems will be HN9000 for consumers and HN9500 for Enterprise. Don't expect to see plans that are much above the service now, basically because Hughes feels if they did this they would compete against themselves. The do not want to hype the ka service to be something so much more spectacular than the current ku service on account of customers who would not be able to receive ka services for reasons due to line of site, etc. The spot beam's do cover all of the United States "there is one very small portion of Texas and the Mexico border that is lapse", the US/Canada border is very well covered, Hawaii and the populated portion of Alaska is covered, Puerto Rico is covered.

There is a great deal of information I have but I am scared to say anything at the moment because again Hughes are still not 100% sure about yet.

[NCSouthernBelle]

I ordered this service and the package never arrived until about a month or more later! I was about to call and simply tell them to forget it!

My Dad set up the satellite. I was helping. We couldn't get a signal. The skybeeper would beep, but the light would never come on as the directions stated it should. I called tech support. My Dad spoke to the man. The tech support guy told my Dad that he didn't have time to wait for him to set up the satellite...etc etc, because he had other things to do. First of all, the SkywayUSA website clearly states that if a customer has trouble with the INSTALLATION, tech support will help. BUT, this wasn't even an INSTALLATION problem. We simply couldnt get a signal! My Dad has much experience setting up satellites for DirecTv and DishNet. He tried everything...even got a friend who worked for DirecTv to help. The light on the "skybeeper" never came on, no matter where we positioned the dish. The "skybeeper" is poorly made. In fact, the thin metal piece that held it together broke when my Dad moved it slightly to the right so we'd have a better sight of the light bulb (IF it ever lit up.) He had to get it welded back on. We spent atleast 6hrs installing and trying to get the system to work...NO LUCK!

I sent an email to customer service tonight. I wonder if I ever get a response. I have a feeling that this is going to be nothing but a headache to deal with.