I’ve been trying Viasat for the past 6 months and pay extra for “Viasat Shield Premium.” Immediately at the beginning of our service I noticed that we were consuming our high speed data very rapidly, and I tried to use Shield Premium to pause devices, but that didn’t do anything. All devices still receive data and our high speed data still gets consumed.
(Separately, I found 2 causes of the rapid consumption [an app on wife’s work computer and mother-in-laws iPad video streaming] that I was able to curb which made our high speed consumption more reasonable.)
However, now and always, even if all devices are paused or offline there is no effect. Our high speed data still gets consumed and our devices still get internet service. So, why am I paying extra for the ability to “pause” devices to help control high speed data consumption when there is not actually anything that happens or “pauses.”
(Additional note just FYI: Recently I set up an ASUS mesh wifi network that greatly helps range and speed of devices. However, even before this, Shield Premium didn’t do anything even when I “paused” all devices.)
Thanks for your message! I’ll speak to the Sheild team about that and once I have some feedback I’ll let you know.
Regarding unexpected data usage, I can check your data usage during your current and last month’s billing cycle and send you all the details in a direct message. Do I have your permission to review your detailed usage information?
Anderson, my data usage isn’t a big question of mine. Although I do wish that there was some way to control my data usage because every now and then there is a day when 20-30 GB disappear even if we aren’t home using any data.
As far as Shield Premium goes: how can I get this removed? I can do at least all of the same control that Shield Premium claimed to offer through my mesh network now.
My big problem with Viasat is that I was charged $9/month for the last 6-7 months for “Shield Premium” even though “Shield Premium” didn’t do anything. Most of the last 6 months I set all devices to be paused, yet all devices still received data and my high speed data consumption still soared.
I did volunteer for some experiment by filling out a survey through this forum yesterday, so I look forward to learning about that. Hopefully that leads to some major improvements.
The Viasat Shield team is still investigating your issue, but they confirmed that it’s possible to see usage data from devices that were supposed to be blocked.
While they continue their investigation, I thought it was worth it to inform you about the router’s Parental Control settings, which can help you restrict the access of specific devices.
I don’t know if you’re able to do the same with your current MESH network, so this could be an option.
Just to double-check something with you: on which devices are you using Viasat Shield Premium?
I remembered that Viasat Shield is only available for iPhones with iOS 9.0 or higher and for Androids with v4.1 or higher (and not supported by any tablets), so I wondered if that could have something to do with this issue.
Nathalia,
I had tried using Viasat Shield Premium with an iPhone and a recent iOS version (currently iOS 17.1.2). It didn’t do anything. (This was before I set up a mesh network.)
I don’t think that there is any feature of Viasat Shield Premium that isn’t available for free with my mesh network app.
The Shield team informed us that this issue has been fixed. They’re not sure what caused the devices to keep using data, and they’re still investigating on that front, so I may update you later on about that, as well.
Were you able to cancel the Shield service with Customer Care?
I did not get a chance to cancel the Shield service yet, but now I am upset that I have just been charged every month for the Shield “service” which didn’t actually do anything.
I am also very confused about the issue that the Shield team fixed even though they are not sure what caused the issue and are still investigating. Logically, how is that possible?
I can’t go into detail because it’s their intellectual property, but basically, the team manually overrode something that was supposed to work on its own. They’re debugging why it didn’t work automatically, so it’s “back to normal” working manually for now.
I can’t promise you that the Customer Care agents will be able to give you a refund for those months… But, maybe if you explain to them that your Shield Premium service wasn’t working properly (and it’s been confirmed by two of our teams, and the agents can look up this Forum case on your account), they might open a case with a supervisor to see about refunding the service.
Customer care agents were able to cancel Shield Premium, but they were insistent that Shield Premium is antivirus software and that a salesperson told me the wrong information about Shield Premium being able to pause or block devices.
To me, it seems that Shield Premium is just a scam to add an additional monthly charge to customers’ bills.
Shield Premium is not antivirus software per se – it includes threat protection but isn’t limited to that at all. The agent was probably not sure of Shield’s functions.
I’ve reached out to the Billing team to see if we can credit your account for the period of Shield Premium having this documented bug.
I don’t know if they’ll be able to, but I’ve sent them the replies from the Shield Team explaining what happened, so hopefully we’ll have a positive answer next week.
I’ll let you know as soon as I hear back from them.
