| New to HughesNet I've been following the news about Hughes for years now. Up until recently, their bad publicity has kept me far away. Recently everything with Hughes seems to be improving quite dramatically Maybe the new Wild Blue satellite has them running scared but they sure seem to be trying hard to improve their service and their reputation.
After a horrible year of suffering with Millenicom/Verizon mobile thinband service I decided to go with the Hughes. Since the new info on Hughes is largely very good, making this decision didn't feel like making a deal with the devil. I ordered the basic service through my local dealer on Wednesday. I didn't want to have it installed until next week after I installed a pole to suit my needs but she said the next day would be the best day to do it. She said that would ensure I'd get all the rebates, incentives, the $99 instant rebate and the discounted monthly price. Bottom line is I bought the 9000 Ka system for $120 (installed) and will pay $50 a month for the service. She said the installer would dig the hole, install a company supplied pole and trench in the cable for the price of the free installation. I agreed and it was set up for the next day.
Installation was a total train wreck. There was bad communication between the lady at the store and the installer. She didn't tell him he needed to bring a pole. I had already spoken with the installer two weeks earlier but at that point wasn't sure how or where I would have the antenna installed. I guess he assumed I had a pole ready. The weather was horrible with tornado warnings, high winds and lots of rain on the way. The installer arrived without a pole and concrete. Even with the weather coming in and more installs to do that day, he decided we should go for it and get it done. He drove 20 miles to town for supplies while I dug the 32" hole. He arrived back with a proper schedule 40 2" pipe but it was 10' long. He used the 120 pounds of Quickcrete allowed for the free install. The longer pole is nice since it puts the antenna way higher than the usual 5' AGL but it made for a floppity installation. The clouds were so thick all he could get was an eventual SQF of 130 and it took several tries to get it to register The install program said the view was obstructed. Regardless, the system works so we left it at that until I reinforce the antenna installation. I'm using another 180 pounds of high strength concrete as a plug and collar with a couple 4' lengths of heavy 2" angle iron to add strength to the pole. We will revisit the antenna pointing after the holidays.
As is, the initial Hughes speed tests showed me getting advertised the plan speed and I started out with 500 mb in the bank. During one 20 minute period of exceptionally bad weather, my SQF dropped to 1 and I lost service completely. After the weather improved that night the SQF went to around 170 with the power word pretty well stuck on 39. but the download speed went to hell. For several hours it ranged between 432 and 696 kbps. All in all, since installed, speeds have averaged 907 down and 229 up. Without those tests included when the service was so slow, the average has been 969 and 228. Peak speeds have been 1024 down and 255 up. It's generally running right at 1 Mb/sec
The installer ended up being at my job for 6 hours and didn't get home that night until 10 PM. Yes, I gave him a tip. He's watching my system remotely and fully expects my speeds to improve once the antenna is stabilized. He will be back out to re-peak it on a day when the wind isn't blowing 40.
Funny thing I notice today. My plan allowance is 500 mb. Allowance refill happened more than 5 hours ago, right on schedule. It refreshed me from somewhere around 400 mg back up to 500 mb. Since then I've been using my computer and internet quite a bit including running some speed tests. My allowance remaining per the modem and hnFAPAlert is still 500 mb and 100%. It looks like they're not counting usage for Christmas or they're overfilling my bucket. I have another program that monitors internet usage and it says there's has been close to 40 mb in and out since the refill occurred.
Anyway, so far this is looking very good. I'm glad I finally decided to make the switch to Hughes. Will update periodically and after the re-point. |
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 dbirdmanPremium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
Eureka, CA
kudos:5 | There have been many ancedotal reports of users getting some free "extra" mb under the old system, typically around 50mb.
With the new system, some people have reported getting from near zero to 60% (300MB on a 250MB plan) at reset.
Since you have a monitor going, see what happens when you pass 50MB of usage.
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Motosat self-pointing dishes: 1.2-meter XF-3 on 127W, .74 meter G74 on 127W, SL-5 HD DirecTV|idirect 3100|Hughes HN7000S|Verizon UMW190 Air Card|1990 Blue Bird Wanderlodge Bus "Blue Thunder"|Author of hnFAP-Alert, PC-OPI and DSSatTool |
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| With my 250 mb basic plan, I had a 500 mb allowance immediately upon startup.
Over the first 24 hours of operation, I ran it down to 300 mg "Allowance Remaining". It refilled to 500 mb, on schedule.
Over the next 24 hours, I ran it down to 406 mb as of the last time I looked at it before going to town. It refilled to 500 mb again but the allowance did not show a drain until it was at 15:31 "Time Until Allowance Refill" when the "Allowance Remaining" finally dropped to 499 mb.
At that time, my regular monitoring program showed 65 mg total TCP/UDP Internet traffic since the refill. This 65 mb includes the traffic between my browser"System Control Center"/hnFAPAlert program and the Hughes modem itself. I configured your FAPAlert for a 60 second interval.
So it appears I was given at least an extra 50 mb today. I wonder if this is a bonus for using only 100 mb during the previous allowance period?
Interesting stuff. I don't know what happens but it's sure looking like Hughes is really trying to make friends with the recent enhancements and the improvements they say will be rolling out in the near future. |
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| said by Crazyhorse:So it appears I was given at least an extra 50 mb today. I wonder if this is a bonus for using only 100 mb during the previous allowance period?
I believe that this is what dbirdman was referring to earlier. A couple of years ago, a number of us discovered this "bonus" bandwidth (my term, not Hughes') that seems to get applied daily. There should be a couple of threads about it somewhere in the forum archives.
At that time, it seemed to be the case that this extra bandwidth amounted to around 12-13% of the daily allowance. What seemed to be happening is that, immediately following the daily refill, the remaining allowance did not start to diminish until that extra 12 or 13% was used. But it also appeared that, if you were using your bandwidth on certain bandwidth intensive activities immediately following the refill, you did not get the bonus bandwidth. I'm not sure that it was ever determined what types of activities caused you to lose the extra bandwidth, but things like file sharing come to mind as possibilities. Also, this extra daily bandwidth seemed to apply only to those with 9000 systems. |
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| reply to Crazyhorse
said by Crazyhorse:Installation was a total train wreck. There was bad communication between the lady at the store and the installer. She didn't tell him he needed to bring a pole. I had already spoken with the installer two weeks earlier but at that point wasn't sure how or where I would have the antenna installed. I guess he assumed I had a pole ready. The weather was horrible with tornado warnings, high winds and lots of rain on the way. The installer arrived without a pole and concrete. Even with the weather coming in and more installs to do that day, he decided we should go for it and get it done
The installer ended up being at my job for 6 hours and didn't get home that night until 10 PM. Yes, I gave him a tip. He's watching my system remotely and fully expects my speeds to improve once the antenna is stabilized. He will be back out to re-peak it on a day when the wind isn't blowing 40.
nice to see that you got an installer who actually cares. a good installation will go a long way towards whether or not you have a good experience with hughesnet
Really the only complaint i had towards the end of my time with hughesnet was the increased latency, even for satellite. I was getting pings of 950-1000ms, which slowed my web browsing down somewhat though download speeds were still good. I would assume the increased latency was due to more customers being added to their satellite |
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| reply to Crazyhorse
Another day, another overfill.
I ran my mb allowance down to around 470 mb today.When we returrned home this evening, it had refilled to 500 mb. Again, I didn't lose a mb off my allowance until I was showing 65 mg of total TCP/UDP internet traffic.
It doesn't look like violating the FAP is gonna be a major concern for us. |
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| reply to chances14
said by chances14:nice to see that you got an installer who actually cares. a good installation will go a long way towards whether or not you have a good experience with hughesnet
I'm sure I will end up with an excellent installation.
I read your review and see you were getting high speeds on the Basic plan. What kind of RSS and NPW were you seeing when your speed was that high? |
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| my signal would range anywhere from 155 in the summer to 175 in the winter. NPW would be 36-38. |
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| reply to Crazyhorse
My refill doesn't seem to follow the parameters I've read. Last night I downloaded a bunch of video. My refill time changed when they updated my modem to give me a higher speed. Now it resets at 3 AM.
I put the computers to sleep at midnight with 229 MB left on my "allowance". Dontcha just love Hughes? They give you an allowance and make you feel like a kid again 
When I looked at it this morning, they had refilled me from 229 back up to 500. Then I had to spend 40 MB to make it drop below 500. |
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| said by Crazyhorse:My refill doesn't seem to follow the parameters I've read.
All of what you have described is, in fact, exactly consistent with what others have described should be happening. |
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| Everything I've read indicates I should have been refilled to 229 plus 250 or 479. Not 540. Can you refer me to threads that offer a different description? |
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| said by Crazyhorse:Everything I've read indicates I should have been refilled to 229 plus 250 or 479. Not 540. Can you refer me to threads that offer a different description?
No, but I'm guessing that the re-set to the 500 megabyte maximum was related to the change in your re-set time. Also, the extra 40 megabytes has been explained in at least 2 posts earlier in this thread. |
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| It had nothing to do with the change in reset time. That happened the day before.
I started out with a 500 MB bank and every refill has refilled me to well over the 500 MB maximum. I think it's great. |
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