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Posted 11 months ago
Spinninghorse, Champion
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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My options given in the mail are "Suck It" and "Change Plans," but why on earth would I trust them for a new plan when they've just crippled my current plan simply because (I assume) they've decided it's more profitable for them to do so.
I've always tried to keep my expectations reasonable and have championed Excede whenever I thought I could, but this is, by far, the most blatantly underhanded thing they've done in the 4+ years I've been a subscriber.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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"In addition, if needed to address congestion in a spot beam, Viasat may further reduce the speeds of the Network traffic of heavier users of Liberty Pass Users, Excess Freedom Users and other subscribers with a high-data threshold service plan (for example, Freedom subscribers and unlimited data plan subscribers who purchased their plan prior to February 13, 2018) through the end of their then-current billing period if de-prioritization is not sufficient to adequately manage congestion."
The key here: see underline above, they've already done this. They AUTOMATICALLY throttle me, as my plan falls into the above.
So they sell us a high data plan, then throttle us because they oversold users that they can't possibly handle the traffic in peak use, so they throttle the larger data users. If I knew this, I would have taken a different path in the beginning. They can side step all they want, their plan changes can throttle us at will. When I entered this plan, there was no threat of reduced speed forced on you simply because congestion was slowing bandwidth. This reminds me of the fight to keep the internet free of internet providers that change plans to fit their own desires. I'm at a disadvantage with chasing the right words for all this tech stuff!
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You are subject to de-prioritization (i.e. prioritized behind subscribers who have not exceeded data allowance or usage threshold on your beam) at any time from the get go.
Upon reaching your data allowance and in addition to de-prioritization, you are subject to further slow down through throttling if you exceed some unspecified data usage limit above your plan's amount.
Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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The mention of median in the email that some received, was an attempt to clarify what "up to" really meant. Specifically when measured over the course of a 24 hour period (e.g. once every hour or more), half of your speed test results would be above the median and half below (not an average).
For example, consider the following speed test results where the subscriber was performing automated speed tests ever 15 minutes until recently (apparently he discovered where all his data was going - to speed tests apparently) and he's stopped - but I went back several months where this was occurring on a regular basis every day:
https://testmy.net/quickstats/mawhelchel99
Take all of his/her results, place them in a row ranked by result top to bottom and the one dead center would be his/her median. Obviously to achieve a median of up to 25 Mbps, 12 Mbps or whatever you've got to have some above that. Medians can be deceiving but they're in keeping with how the FCC is measure speed now also and FWIW median and average can be the same but only with a normalized distribution but I'm long distanced from my statistics days.
I simply don't think as many folks moved from Viasat-1 to Viasat-2 as anticipated due to the perceived value (or lack as the case may be). This may change that value equation.
All I know is I'm glad I'm not the one responsible for maintaining the coding algorithms for all this, it will undoubtedly take a long time to work the kinks out - I'd love to see the design specs for this puppy ;)
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Any questions?
Spinninghorse, Champion
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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I can say this past week speeds during primetime have been terrible. So terrible if it continues I would be forced to switch to Hughesnet. I would not give one more cent to a company if I find it is purposely slowing me down to force me off a plan. Just like I will never but a GM or Chrysler vehicle again.
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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Steve Frederick-VS1/Beam314, Champion
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I know they did for new customers, but I didn't see plans for existing.
I believe there were some existing customers 329 were able to upgrade to Viasat-2, the Viasat-2 beam just didn't cover my neck of the woods - different footprint(s) than 329 south of Richmond I believe.
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At 5:20 I did a speed test.

VeteranSatUser, Champion
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And if I was one of those impacted customers I would NOT be happy.
I remember Hughesnet eliminated their free zone about the time of Exede. THAT went over like a lead balloon and they lost customers. I know. I was one that withdrew my order.
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I now have options I'll be considering, so Viasat really doesn't want to mess with me!
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Matt B, Viasat Employee
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We understand this policy change has caused some frustration. Viasat has updated our Network Management Policy to ensure the best experience for all of our customers on the network.Not all plans are affected and we are notifying customers via email or direct mail. If you have questions, email us at ViasatListens@viasat.com or call 844-715-4412 and our team of specialists will be happy to help.
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"Viasat has updated our Network Management Policy to ensure the best experience for all of our customers on the network"
No you haven't , there are a lot of us that are not having the "best experience", myself included. You have manipulated existing customers so our experience is MUCH WORSE. I no longer have questions for you, the other customers on this forum have given me more honest information than anyone I have talked to from Viasat tech and customer service since this fiasco began for me 01-22-19. I've talked to viasatlistens already, and you give us the same line of precomposed answers that are not even related to our complaints. The double talk is rampant.
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From time to time, Viasat makes updates to policies that impact our customers’ service. We recently updated our Network Management Policy to ensure the best experience for the majority of customers on our network. We have also notified any customers who are impacted by this change by letter and email.https://community.viasat.com/viasat/topics/automatic-throttling?topic-reply-list%5Bsettings%5D%5Bfil...
Pitch forks and torches are still on sale in the lobby...
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My speed right now: ~ 14 mbps on a 12 Mbps plan
I'm guessing Spinninghorse's are worse on Freedom despite being on the same beam as I.
The bad news is I must now manage and monitor my limited data much more closely, but those of us on limited plans are well versed at that by necessity. I could easily use 10x the data I do now except for some extreme data conservation measures to eliminate web site bloat and leveraging the free zone.
The policy is aimed at improving things for those on more severely data limited plans (not chewing through bandwidth like its's water).
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Diana, Viasat Employee
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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I do know that from what I've been reading for a while, I will not be changing plans or satellites!
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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For my specific needs (and everyone's needs differ), Liberty is the better option now.
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Why fix what isn't broken?
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Freedom and Unlimited, not so much.
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It's a good thing I go to bed early, this goes down even further in the evening. This did not happen last week. This all started the day of my email notice on the 22nd of this month.
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Verizon has 3 plans with "unlimited" in the title. Why would you need more than one? All the asterisks associated with each plan.
The devil is in the details.
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If Viasat had treated me right, I would not have been desperate to find something else. I have held on way too long expecting better service. It seems ever since the satellite was launched my service has gone down the tubes. And no viasat_2 is not available here.
85% of all people in my town have no broadband solution other than satellite. As much as I think VZ & ATT are a rip off, I really feel like they are a better choice for me than dealing with the outages and bad service we have had lately with Viasat.
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I did just call today and cancel completely, even though they tried to convince me to look at other plans. I told them I already had the best plan with the Freedom 150. Because we are so internet challenged here in this area, I really struggled with giving up that Freedom 150 plan. But when I was able to get the new prepaid unlimited jetpack plan from Verizon for $65 a month, that made up my mind. My Viasat bill has been right at $135-$140 per month. But it has not been about money for me - I need to be able to work 8-10 hr per day on remote servers and be able to attend meetings without being disconnected.
I did not get the notification of the plan change. Probably because I had just switch to the Liberty 12 from the Freedom 150 about two weeks ago - in anticipation of cancelling completely.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Good job Viasat of driving customers away by making unilateral changes that hurt them. Your subscriber base is already stagnant or shrinking. This isn't going to help matters.
Keep delivering sub par speeds to me and you will lose another one, but most likely to Hughesnet. Out of spite of course!
GabeU, Champion
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And with speeds that have already been pretty low for some, is making them even lower really the answer? SMH. I really do feel for you guys.
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http://www.theboondork.com/mainphp/what-the-verizon-ordeal-has-taught-me
I'm considering this but will probably wait to see how it plays out on here before I jump in.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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When you already start with a primetime speed below 500kbps and degrade that speed even more...
I never stream live. Makes we wonder if others that use to stream live cant now because of the changes?
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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You will need to use a different contact email for your postpaid and prepaid plans, VZ doesn't seem to be able to understand that a customer can have both.
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What I really love about a prepaid hotspot is how much cheaper it is for me in the long run, since I don't have a bill on the landside based hotspot when I spend months at my house in Puerto Rico. Vacation mode here was never an option because your plan would be long gone when you return.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Not finding anything like that myself. The 8800L would be a must to have with an unlimited plan. Some of the other mifi devices are buggy and limited.
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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That being said, there is a common theme that is being said here. Upgrade or terminate service.
A way to push people to higher priced plans?
Also a good way to alienate customers.
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What you do is go to the prepaid site and sign up for a new account online. And then there it will ask you for the number. It was a little time consuming since I had messed myself up, but the prepaid people were really nice.
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Which Freedom you got? 25Mbps or 12Mbps?
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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The Jetpack firewall determines which Internet traffic is allowed. The Firewall menu contains the following sections:
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VPN Passthrough — Turns ON/OFF the VPN feature and allows or disallows connected devices to establish a VPN tunnel.
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If ON, this feature allows VPN clients to connect through the Jetpack to remote VPN Servers. Normally, this option should be turned on.
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If OFF, VPN clients are not allowed to connect.
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Spinninghorse, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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VeteranSatUser, Champion
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So you get to buy and not lease:)
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"Network Management Policy (“Policy”).....In addition, if needed to address congestion in a spot beam, Viasat may further reduce the speeds of the Network traffic of heavier users of Liberty Pass and of Excess Freedom Users through the end of their then-current billing period if de-prioritization is not sufficient to adequately manage congestion."
VeteranSatUser, Champion
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Like any company, hindsight is 20/20, and foresight tends to be myopic (lacking intellectual insight).
By May 25, 2018, there were "about 43,000 subs were on those test plans (and only on ViaSat-1) at the end of Viasat’s fiscal Q3."
All that can be said, is unlimited plans were "test plans," ViaSat-2’s antenna issue may be related to throttling issue, previous Network Management Policy hinted about potential severe throttling...and "the best-laid plans of mice and men often go awry."
So, is ViaSat-2’s antenna issue the causative reason for this change...I don't know.
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This conversation is no longer open for comments or replies.
This conversation is no longer open for comments or replies.
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
FWIW, Liberty Plan on 329 is actually rocking due to the change (at least while staying within priority data) - as I interpret the changes, that was one of the desired outcomes.
Summarizing the key change that those categories are now seeing:
During periods of network congestion, you may be prioritized behind other customers who have not exceeded their data allowance or usage threshold regardless of the amount of data you have actually used.
Plenty of discussion in other conversations here.
Susan Jenulis
"During periods of network congestion, you may be prioritized behind other customers who have not exceeded their data allowance or usage threshold regardless of the amount of data you have actually used."
That statement seems contradictory. One's data allowance(as declared in your agreement based on monthly use) is the threshold whereby you are throttled once you surpass that. How can it be that it is "regardless of the amount of data actually used" when they use your total monthly allotment to decide when the throttling is initiated?
I'm stlll being throttled nightly to 1 to 3 mbps for the last 5 nights. I currently have used 12GB out of my 150 GB and they are still throttling me. Before this "plan change" I would have normal speeds in the evening, close to 25 mbps. That was for 3 years, consistent speeds. I've never, in 10 years, gone over my monthly allotment. Viasat is coming up with changes for us viasat 1 clients that will be very negative for us if we remain on that satellite. This is the first plan change, probably more to come for viasat 1. They are going to make us as uncomfortable as possible. They have a good start.
Spinninghorse, Champion
Susan Jenulis
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Prioritization should impact only during periods of congestion.
As noted it does appear to be beneficial to some plans, specifically limted plans as opposed to Unlimited and what was once touted as "virtually unlimited" Freedom.
There was an official nuanced response buried somewhere here that said something to the effect that...
From time to time we make changes to benefit the majority of our customers - my interpretation of that was there are more limited plan subscribers than unlimited or "virtually unlimited" subscribers on Viasat-1.
Not defending it, just trying to explain it ;)
Bev, Champion
I'm praying it's a stop gap measure to keep things going until Viasat 3 is operational. I can deal with that but, it would be nice to know that's the case and, in a couple of years, or less, we'll be back to normal.
VeteranSatUser, Champion
2.5GB of use for the month and my speed was 197kbps.
Hughesnet did something similar several years ago. If you like you plan, you could keep your plan, BUT they made speeds so slow on the grandfathered plan you had no choice other than upgrade or change providers. I changed providers.
Maybe Vetsatuser will need to take his posting talents to Hughesnet.
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Not much I can;t do with those ... in fact thinking about throttling my own speeds with the router to prevent web sites from wasting even more data when they detect my higher speeds. I manage my data very closely and leverage the free zone for heavy lifting.
Dog person, although I've been know to play the ponies.
You're not on Liberty VeteranSatUser nor are you on 329.
Spinninghorse, Champion
Susan Jenulis
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
https://www.exede.com/legal/
The applicable documents all have a date of last update as 1/15/2019 - there are 3.
Susan Jenulis
Spinninghorse, Champion
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Essentially, others not subject to de-prioritization go first, while you go to the end of the line. You maintain you position relative to other being deprioritized. However If the others arrive while you're still in line they get top go first.
During busy periods, you're spending all of your time at the back of the line spinning your wheels and waiting. If the lines empty when you arrive - go right on through.
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Now that 329 has been re-opened to Liberty for new customers, I'll enjoy it while it lasts - things will likely get worse for both of us as they load 'er up.
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Old Labs (VS1-329-L12FZ)
Jeff Story
SonyaA
SonyaA
satuser03