Oh, This Is Just Great...Direcway Bought Out

[Carol Nelson]

After I've spent over a thousand dollars on advertising for this horse business in flyers and business cards, to say nothing of the countless Internet sites I've advertised on, now Direcway informs me that they have been taken over by HughesNet and my email address is changing! I already spend $60 a month on high-speed Internet, and now this added expense or should I say LOSS!!! I am seething! I've already sent them a scathing email.
The weird thing is is when I looked at my order sheet for my equipment, dated 2003, they already HAD HughesNet on the order form...so it appears that they just, as a lark, decided to change their name!
I am seriously thinking of changing companies, but would mean in this area, I would have to go back to dial-up (Direcway is satellite)...and I just don't know if I could do that, since our phone lines aren't the greatest anyway.
Can you tell I am MAD??? :mad:
Any ideas out there???

[CarolU]

Yeah...switch your e-mail to YAHOO and buy a small business account there (you can have extra e-mail addresses, so you could have "RojoTes@Yahoo.com for example) then it doesn't matter who your ISP is, your e-mail address stays the same - always!

I haven't heard from Denise, but they will be just as angry. They have a special account for Contratista@direcway.com - and yes, it's on all their advertizing.

(I never liked Direcway when I had them...grrrrrr)

[Helene]

Hi,
I was looking into direcway, as well, but just found out that a new antenna was put up in our neighborhood for wireless services. We have been having a fellow work on it for the past few days. He is having problems hooking us up, since he needs "line of sight" to this antenna. Our house is a bit in a "dip". He had to install an antenna that goes 4 feet above our roof ridge (already a two story house..hope this isn't going to be a lightning rod)....Our desk top is working, but the wireless connection to the laptop isn't working, yet. It is a lot faster than our dial-up (which is analog and moves about 19kb per second)....This new connection is supposed to go to 512 kbs. I don't think it does, but it is markedly faster than the dial up. On cost...there is a $100 to $150 installation fee (depends on 1 year or 2 year contract)...and $36.00 per month for the low speed, going up to $42.00 for the fastest....
Our neighbor is extremely happy, he lives on a ridge....had to cut down one tree to be in line.
I'll be changing my address, too, the server's is too long and I will be checking into a yahoo account.

[appyday]

bummer...get out your pen and start changing...

[CarolU]

Helene, you'll love wireless, we have it and are SOO happy. We didn't have to pay any installation and ours is $29/month w/o a contract. They've increased our speed 3 times for free, staying competitive. Comcast is trying to get us to switch, but hey, the owner of Beehive is our neighbor and he thought of us long before anybody else cared. We're sticking with it.

We also lived with phone modems for a long time, no cable, no DSL, now we're screaming!

Let me know when you get that address!

[motorgypsy]

I'm having trouble right now setting up the new addy for Huges. :( :( :( :( :( But I have an aol addy that I've had for years that I reduced to the cheapest they have $6.95 per month for like 10 hours but I never use the hours - just kept the email addy and I'm glad I did with all the other changes.

[baileyholc]

We use our cable company. We have our phone cable and internet with the same company. Our pipeline has not given us any trouble just our computer. Found out that a computers life expectacy is aprox 3 years. I bought a new hard drive last week and got a faster computer for the price I paid for my PC when it was new 6 years ago. But, anyway, getting back on the subject. I used diel-up in the beginning and hated it. Kept getting kicked off. Joined CarterPipeline and love it. Won't have anything else. If you have cable ask your cable company if they have internet hook up. If they don't I garontee, they will before long. Most cable companys are. Of course the satelite is not bad eather.

[Carol Nelson]

I LIKE my satellite...I mean I REALLY like my satellite....We are unable to get cable out here...for TV or for Internet...and Broadband is out too. You have to understand that we are really out in the boonies...only 30 min. from Austin, but so many things are unavailable to us.
You know, I never did get a reply yet from HughesNet...I guess their motto is "So what???"
I guess it just gripes me that it's just one more change that someone is telling us we HAVE to make...with no discussion from us. I just don't know what I'm gonna do with all these flyers that will have the wrong email address on them. :roll:

[CarolU]

Carol, you'll just have to use a pen and cross it out and change it by hand until you get new ones printed.

I had Qwest do the same thing to me several years ago. I had it and liked it and they they sold to MSN. We did MSN for awhile, but it was the worst for x-rated spam I've ever seen, I'd have 60 messages a day (I forwarded them all to the Utah "Porn Czar"...LOL). That was when I switched to my Yahoo account permanently. Never regreted it. They Noton scan every attachment before you download it. I've never gotten a virus and with with the Yahoo Toolbar and spy blocker, I haven't gotten any spyware in over a year.

BTW - now Qwest wants me to do Internet through them again...I laugh. I know what you mean about boonies, we don't have cable here, and just got wireless - so we're happy.

[motorgypsy]

We too really like our satellite - Direcway, now Hughes. No cable and Bellsouth "didn't know if we could get DSL up here unless we got a phone." And I said - why would we get a phone if we can't get DSL????? DUHHHHH

The speed seems to have improved on Direcway recently also and it wasn't really that slow. Our Bellsouth DSL in town has been pretty slow though for some reason.

[Tami Pinell]

I'm finding it interesting that I have direcway and I was not notified and to make it more a pain, I have found no way or no one to contact to ask WHY I have not been contacted....
This sounds to me like this NEW company really has it's act together... :roll:

[Carol Nelson]

Tami, I'll bet if you look at your contract, you will find that HughesNet has owned it all the long. That is why it puzzles me so that now, all of a sudden, they feel the need to change the name. :mad:

[DebbieS]

Carol, it would be wise to get a domain name of your own. Then, it doesn't matter who your ISP is, your email address never changes and you can get something that goes with your farm name.

Hubby and I own an ISP/Web hosting/developing company (have for 10 years). Let me know if you need any help!!

Debbie