If you have Hughesnet.....Have you been put on notice?

KPark · Mar 21, 2013

Satellite internet is sufficient for many things, but it introduces latency. Latency can cause some issues. The sales guy says it is fast enough. What he doesn't tell you is that it is not "responsive" enough. Here is an excerpt from an explanation on the subject:

Can you imagine talking in real time to somebody on the moon? Your voice would take about eight seconds to get there. For VoIP networks, it is generally accepted that anything over about 150 milliseconds of latency can be a problem. When latency gets higher than 150 milliseconds, issues will emerge — especially for fast talkers and rapid conversations.

The satellite is 22,000 miles away from earth. Speed of light is approx. 186,000 miles per second. Time to satellite AND back to earth introduces 0.236 seconds (236 milliseconds) latency into your internet connection. This is true for both directions of the communication, so anything that requires synchronous communication will have 0.472 seconds of latency.

The things that have the most trouble because of latency on the internet? . . .
Voice Over IP
Xbox
Online Gaming

Netflix and other video providers and radio stations wouldn't be troubled by latency and so should have nice performance.

kco · Mar 21, 2013

Two of my neighbours have the Canadian Xplorenet service and switched over from the older, slower service last summer. They were not aware the upgrade was available until I told them( I found out while researching internet options). The upgrade cost $200 I believe. But it was worth it because the monthly rate went down(around $20/month I think), speeds significantly increased as did monthly data limits. It did not make sense not to upgrade, even with the $200 cost. What puzzled me was the company's not promoting the upgrade. Perhaps they are trying to extend the useful life of their older service by keeping customers on it.

I previously had a very flakey radio-based local service and chose to go cellular(which became available last year), and that has worked well for me.

grsthegreat · Mar 21, 2013

I used to have Hughesnet....and was always being bothered with offers to upgrade. I usually took the deal, cause i needed the increased bandwidth. The final straw that broke my satellite internet back was when i paid $200 for an upgrade package, and my speed was reduced. I called to complain, they refused me a refund. After months of bickering and threatened lawsuits, they refunded me my $$, and then i cancelled the service.

I went with a microwave internet service instead. I got 4x the download speed (now 3.0 -4.0 mbps) and way better upload speeds (over 3 mbps) and a low latency of 27ms.....and it costs $30 per month LESS than Hughes net. Also, ZERO bandwidth max limits. i can download or upload whatever i want..whenever i want. My old hughesnet speeds were 1 mbps down, 0.4 mbps up and pings of over 300-400 ms. and costs ov over $100/month

Not affected by snow or rain either.

crazyal · Mar 22, 2013

I had HugesNet for years. About 3 years (had the service for a little over 2 years) ago it just stopped working. Signal strength was fine, mid 60s. They wanted $130 to send someone out to service it. They said once they charged for the first service call then next one would be free if I agrees to a new 2 year contract. The night before the guy shows up it just starts working fine. That morning I cancelled the service call. Even though I didn't pay for it I was stuck with a new 2 year contract. I told them I was going to switch to Wild Blue and would sue if they did anything to my credit. The lady came back and said they would give me a months credit and drop the service contract down to one year. Since WB didn't seam any better I agreed. About a year later they sent a letter saying that we needed to upgrade the modem, that the old one was going to stop working once they converted over to the new what ever. So I did, the new one showed up a few days later at the door (looked identical), it was free but I was stuck with another 2 year contract.

Since that time a 4G cell tower has gone up close to me. My contract was up last month and just like before the service just stopped while the signal was fine. I stumbled across a company called Milenicom. They sell cell internet service through all the major companies (Verizon, AT@T, Sprint). Since it was a Verizon tower that's the service I went with. For $70 a month I get twice the data per month (20g) that I got with Huges (pre Gen4). There's no delay while waiting for the signal to go up to the sat and back down to Earth and then back up and down to my house. The speed is much faster. Plus no contract. I can't see any reason why I would ever go back.

A friend upgraded to Gen4 and we did some side by side tests. The MifI unit is about the size of a cell phone and has a battery that lasts more than 8 hours. So I was able to bring it to his house for the test. What we did for tests were going to various web pages and Gen4 can't compete. I don't do on line gaming but the cell service can do it with no problems. Plus I can take the MifI unit with me on a trip. As long as there's 3g or 4g service I can surf the web on the move with my laptop.

If anyone needs any parts you can have my Hugesnet Dish and modem. Once the weather warms more I'll be pulling it off the house. The odd thing is that Hugesnet interfered with my garage door openers. Now it's off they work fine again.

TripleR · Mar 22, 2013

Most of us who use Excede or HughesNet have no other alternatives. We have only occasional cell signals and then only in certain places in our house which seems to move every day. The hills keep us away from using the service my brothers have out in the flatlands.

dmccarty · Mar 22, 2013

KPark said:
Satellite internet is sufficient for many things, but it introduces latency. Latency can cause some issues. The sales guy says it is fast enough. What he doesn't tell you is that it is not "responsive" enough. Here is an excerpt from an explanation on the subject:

The satellite is 22,000 miles away from earth. Speed of light is approx. 186,000 miles per second. Time to satellite AND back to earth introduces 0.236 seconds (236 milliseconds) latency into your internet connection. This is true for both directions of the communication, so anything that requires synchronous communication will have 0.472 seconds of latency.
...

To put the 236 MS latency in perspective...

Our DSL connection, which is not really great but certainly better than dial up and satellite, can ping google.com with an average of 102MS. A system at work on a MUCH better network is 37 MS.

VPNs are problematic on satellite.

Later,
Dan

Oaktree · Mar 22, 2013

TripleR said:
Most of us who use Excede or HughesNet have no other alternatives. We have only occasional cell signals and then only in certain places in our house which seems to move every day. The hills keep us away from using the service my brothers have out in the flatlands.

Ain't that the truth! Dunno about other states, but here in N.H. (as well as neighboring Vt.) there seems to be a push to get some form of broadband into rural areas. Last summer both TWC and Fairpoint ran fiber down my road...never thought I'd ever see that. While I'm sure there are some locations where broadband will never be practical, I wonder if in another 5-10 years if there will be enough people without access to support 2 (or maybe even 1) satellite provider.

KPark said:
The things that have the most trouble because of latency on the internet? . . .
Voice Over IP
Xbox
Online Gaming

There are times I need to be able to remote-administer some computer gear...we got cable last fall, so it isn't an issue anymore, but I found that the latency was just too much for Teamviewer. It would just time out trying to connect. A VPN connection over satellite did work (albeit slowly), but not every site I needed to access had that ability.

General Lee said:
Trying to figure out if this is BS or not. They emailed me stating by the end of the month one of their satellites my service communicates with will be unavailable. If I don't take action, my service will be terminated. BUT, after a 2 year contract commitment I can have their new Gen4 if I act now Wondering if this is just a ploy to get me to upgrade??

Keep in mind that the old satellites (as well as the uplinks) are going to be decommissioned at some point. You can't blame them for trying to get users off the old network and onto the new one as quickly as they can.

deerseeker001 · Mar 22, 2013

we got the gen4 upgrade best thing we ever did,works twice as fast,no daily download allowance-goes by monthly allowance.win-win situation.

kco · Mar 22, 2013

TripleR said:
Most of us who use Excede or HughesNet have no other alternatives. We have only occasional cell signals and then only in certain places in our house which seems to move every day. The hills keep us away from using the service my brothers have out in the flatlands.

That was my situation until a year ago. My choices were dialup, satellite or the local supplier using 2.4Mhz radio. I was with the local supplier for a few years but the service kept getting worse. The main problem was the phone company killed the local supplier's business by supplying DSL over their old copper lines to the customers close to the exchange in the valley, while refusing to supply the rest of us a few km further out. The supplier left two access points on just to serve me and another neighbour. And two other neighbours who had converted to DSL let him keep the radios at their places to serve us.

My service came through a total of 8 radios, 5 of which I maintained(6 including the other neighbour with service).

It was a struggle to keep things going. Trees, storms, and others' 2.4 Mhz equipment caused interference, and it went down every week or so. Most outages could be fixed remotely, but about once per month I would be at the sites, one of which meant climbing 40' up a tree with my non tree gaff spurs.

I'm getting too old for that, and it was hard on the tree too. I was sure happy when cellular became available. Had it not, I would have gone with satellite.

Dr Dave · Mar 22, 2013

crazyal said:
I had HugesNet for years. About 3 years (had the service for a little over 2 years) ago it just stopped working. Signal strength was fine, mid 60s. They wanted $130 to send someone out to service it. They said once they charged for the first service call then next one would be free if I agrees to a new 2 year contract. The night before the guy shows up it just starts working fine. That morning I cancelled the service call. Even though I didn't pay for it I was stuck with a new 2 year contract. I told them I was going to switch to Wild Blue and would sue if they did anything to my credit. The lady came back and said they would give me a months credit and drop the service contract down to one year. Since WB didn't seam any better I agreed. About a year later they sent a letter saying that we needed to upgrade the modem, that the old one was going to stop working once they converted over to the new what ever. So I did, the new one showed up a few days later at the door (looked identical), it was free but I was stuck with another 2 year contract.

Since that time a 4G cell tower has gone up close to me. My contract was up last month and just like before the service just stopped while the signal was fine. I stumbled across a company called Milenicom. They sell cell internet service through all the major companies (Verizon, AT@T, Sprint). Since it was a Verizon tower that's the service I went with. For $70 a month I get twice the data per month (20g) that I got with Huges (pre Gen4). There's no delay while waiting for the signal to go up to the sat and back down to Earth and then back up and down to my house. The speed is much faster. Plus no contract. I can't see any reason why I would ever go back.

A friend upgraded to Gen4 and we did some side by side tests. The MifI unit is about the size of a cell phone and has a battery that lasts more than 8 hours. So I was able to bring it to his house for the test. What we did for tests were going to various web pages and Gen4 can't compete. I don't do on line gaming but the cell service can do it with no problems. Plus I can take the MifI unit with me on a trip. As long as there's 3g or 4g service I can surf the web on the move with my laptop.

If anyone needs any parts you can have my Hugesnet Dish and modem. Once the weather warms more I'll be pulling it off the house. The odd thing is that Hugesnet interfered with my garage door openers. Now it's off they work fine again.

We have had the Verizon VZ mifi for about 5 years, Its $49 a month with 10gb, This is the max they offer.It works great, even in no cell service areas? You can use it when traveling also. I will be looking into the millenicon system, $70 a month, unlimited, and they can use my existing mifi. Or purchase theirs for $100, $15 shipping and 1 time $50 setup fee.

Dave