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caption_nemo
join:2008-01-23
Paso Robles, CA
| [Installer] Professional Advise to the End User Back ground first, before I get into too much detail.
I have been installing, servicing, using, and supporting, at a professional level, DBS, VSAT, etc systems for over 13 years.
With my experience I have developed a horrifying fear of the DirecWay/Hughesnet system.
You, the regular end user, may have problems with their tech support. I have problems with their network operations center and their 'engineers'. I would much rather talk with a gentlemen with an Indian accent than someone who has poor verbal skills and doesn't know a computer for the mouse and end up closing cases without verifying that the problems have been resolved.
A warning to those thinking about getting HughesNet at their home and/or on a vehicle. **Please read the Terms and Conditions** Before you sign a contract. You should with everything that offers a Terms and Conditions so you **Know** what you are getting your self into.
With hughes: 1- Speeds are not guarantied. 2- You have a limit as to what you can download in a 24 hour period. 3- Connectivity is not guarantied but they will do whatever it takes to get you back up.
These mean that you can randomly see slow speeds. Which happen more often that not on some satellites. You can suffer from rain fade or other environmental issues that can cause your signal strength to drop, loosing your internet connection.
The FAP or Fair Access use Policy is the number one, miss understood, issue with Hughes. Most users don't fully understand how and why this happens. Hughes/DirecWay do not stop new users from signing on. They will fill up their satellites to the point where everyone suffers. They use the FAP to limit the amount of bandwidth consumed by a single site so that it that one site doesn't bring the entire satellite down. There are thousands of users using each of the satellites up there. It is like having 10 people try to drink out of one garden hose at one time. Some people are going to get water. While other get a couple drops and then some don't get any at all. Without the FAP one or two people would get all the water and the other 8 or 9 would get none. All satellite internet companies have some form of the Fair Access Use policy in place.
Keep in mind that one crumb of information travels 4 times through space a couple times before hitting the internet. It also happens to travel thousands and thousands of miles in this trip. If anything gets in the way of this dish. If this dish moves. If you have snow or heavy moisture in the atmosphere. If birds decide to do business on your dish. All these can all of a sudden cause your dish to go off signal. It is very sensitive.
To expect a company to guaranty anything with that fickleness is borderline foolish. Unfortunately, I have done it before.
Hughes has their bases covered. Read the terms and conditions. There are more reliable services out there for the large majority of those out there. If you have cell reception, get an air card. You can even use these while you are drive but I would recommend not doing that. Your life is more important than day trading on etrade.com.
Even with the Air Card. It is buyer beware. They have their own "FAPs" some choose to enforce it with an iron hand and other let it slide. Use Hughes only as a last resort for residential internet.
Now I know some of you have mobile satellite systems. These have the most trouble. If your vehicle is off level by more that 4 degrees you can octuple your search times and probably increase it more.
You can be lucky if you get a quick connect time. It depends on what satellite you are assigned too and the time of day. It can take eight minutes or it can take one hour. Even the mss connect times are not guaranteed by their manufacturers.
If you move a lot you will have the occasional problem with running cross pol tests or ranging. At the least 2 times a year. Some people more. Once again it depends on the time of day and what satellite you are on.
You also need to make sure you get a spot in the RV park that does not have giant trees or power lines or doesn't reside next to an airport or anything that transmits radar. Because your dish will not find a signal and occasionally the GPS unit inside your dish my not be able to communicate with the positioner satellite up in space due to interference. It doesn't happen that often. Just be careful.
The largest manufactures of the MSS hardware both have a similar problem. The dishes on occasion stop communicating with the modem and the dish requires the modem to know where to point. In this case you have to make sure the modem starts up first when power cycling. I would recommend powering the modem up. Then wait 5 minutes. Power your router up. Wait 2 minutes. Then power the dish up. This will solve your problems. You may have to do this several times. This problem is exponentially increasing among the users I have received calls from.
If you are considering these systems make sure you read the Terms and Conditions before you sign the contract. Make sure you understand it. Most sales people will not explain that sort of thing to you. You need to read the Terms and Conditions which also includes the acceptable use policy and the fair access use policy.
Check out the following link for this information: »www.hughesnet.com/HUGHES/Rooms/D···37C084]]
VoIP has become another question as of late.
I would recommend not using it on Hughes. If have gotten it to work. I will install it on customers computers only after they understand latency. Sometimes you have to wait a second or two before you hear the response from someone else. Sure it is handy. Unfortunately most people don't configure it correctly for Satellite.
I found the following information useful for those using Vonage:
»www.vonage.com/help.php?keyword=···dthSaver
You have to trade a bit of quality for reliability.
These systems are great for those few who live outside of cell , DSL or Cable limits. When it works it usually works well. Like every internet service. It goes down. And during that down time is when Hughes becomes a nightmare. Outages can last days or weeks. Hughes will also careless about your or your VAR's (if you have your service through a reseller) problems.
I believe the term caveat emptor applies heavily with hughes let alone all satellite internet companies. Read the fine print. Make sure you don't have any other options before purchasing system. It will save you an ulcer or two. | |
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yolarry
join:2007-12-29
Creston, WV
 ·HughesNet Satellit..
| Re: [Installer] Professional Advise to the End User Thanks caption_nemo for posting this.
I just glad that I have better internet then dial up.
I glad I can download 15MB in couple mins instead of a hour or download a song within a mins.
and also porn pictures loading fast. 
Just don't get FAP people! | |
| Total Obliv
join:2006-06-28
Hattiesburg, MS
| FAPPing is okay as long as it isn't your dish that's doing it  . I hope this topic gets sticked. Useful info. I tried out alltell but I didn't stick with them cause:
1) Sprint said they were going to introduce Rev A in Q2 of 08 where I live (alltel used Rev O).
2) Even on Evdo Rev O, the speeds were an undesirable half of what I got on satellite (about 300 - 500 kbps regularly, rarely 700kbps), and I heard many users got much better speeds with EVDO Rev O and Rev A. | |
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grohgreg
Dunno. Ask The Chief
join:2001-07-05
Dawson Springs, KY
3 edits | Re: [Installer] Professional Advise to the End User said by Total Obliv  : I hope this topic gets sticked. I don't. The "advice" contains enough inaccuracies and mis-statements as to be misleading to those who may be even less than totally oblivious. Left on merit alone, it will soon sink under it's own weight.
//greg//
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HN7000S/74cm/1w - G16/1230V - NAT 67.44.231.131/Gateway 66.82.156.180/DNS 66.82.4.12 plus rollovers - Firefox - SSL proxy switch - AVG+Firewall v7.5 | |
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dbirdman
Premium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
Eureka, CA
| I'm going to single this out as the most problematical advice:
quote:
The dishes on occasion stop communicating with the modem and the dish requires the modem to know where to point. In this case you have to make sure the modem starts up first when power cycling. I would recommend powering the modem up. Then wait 5 minutes. Power your router up. Wait 2 minutes. Then power the dish up. This will solve your problems. You may have to do this several times. This problem is exponentially increasing among the users I have received calls from.
The current controller from the industry leading MSS company, standard for more than two years has not needed the modem in order to point. The problem is that the modem needs a location update in order to range, and that normally only occurs when there is controller/modem connectivity. Powering up the modem first is one choice, although it is not necessary to wait one second after the modem's LAN light comes on, and that never takes 5 minutes, or even 2. The router is a non-issue. The current controllers also have a startup delay mechanism that you can set. Beyond that, my (free) D3Admin tool has a Generic/Hughes mode that allows the dish to power up immediately, and will take care of the necessary location update.
I use the latter consistently, and simply never have controller/modem problems. The program will also check for modem/controller configuration conflicts, such as happen when Hughes changes a transponder without warning.
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W2K Server|Toshiba Satellite XP Pro|iDirect 3100 on Datastorm 1.2 meter XF3 with 4-watt BUC|HughesNet IA8/1390/7000s Pro on 2-watt Datastorm G74|1990 Blue Bird Wanderlodge Bus "Blue Thunder" | |
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