kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
 ·WildBlue
| [DW7000] Hit Hughes FAP limit and this is what happened
In the FWIW department....
I ran into the FAP this weekend by accident, after downloading updates to Itunes NPR Podcasts and not thinking about how much data it was going to be.
After conversations with help desk and supervisors, I found the email address of the sales VP for North America and emailed him the following:
I seem to be having trouble with my 30-day old experience with Hughes. I am going to be sending a nice letter to several people in your company, but thought I'd bring you up to date first.
On Sunday, August 26, I accidentally went over my 500mb/day limit (I say accidentally because I downloaded a file without knowing how big it was and had already passed the FAP limit before realizing what was going on and shutting down the download. But it was my mistake.). I noticed the problem when my Internet access began to slow down, and
then become non-existent. A quick check of the wonderful usage screen showed me the problem (but, since it is updated only once an hour instead of real time, it was over an hour before I knew I had caused the problem).
I called your wonderful technical support team only to find that no one had the authorization or ability to do anything. I thought someone might take a look at my account, see that I had it only 30 days, and that my daily download essentially was between 200mb and 300mb. I thought someone putting all those things together might have said to themselves, "We want to keep this customer and he is new to the whole thing, so, what the heck, let's cut him some slack this one time. He's learned his lesson."
Unfortunately, after a nice long conversation with Gervon, and then with Ryan Summers, no such help was forthcoming. Mr. Summers told me I could still use the Internet if I kept below 1mb per hour, but told me he could not guarantee this would not restart the 24-hour FAP period.
Not getting a guarantee, and having to use the Internet for a living, I unplugged my modem and used dial up for all day Monday, August 27.
On Monday, August 27, around the same time in the evening I spoke with Mr Summers, I called your wonderful technical support team to find out what time my FAP restriction would end. After Kelly took my information, she put me on hold for quite some time and, after coming back on line, asked if I had shut off my modem. When I said, "Yes", she informed me that was a big mistake (of course, on Sunday evening,
no one told me not to turn it off).
After she passed me to Mike Sidious, I found, once again, he had neither the authority, nor the ability to fix the problem immediately so I could once again use my Hughes Internet service. Not only that, he told me he could not talk with anyone who had the authority to fix the problem that, frankly, I believe was caused by incomplete
information being given to me on Sunday evening by Mr. Summers.
I actually find the whole thing ludicrous - first, that there is no consideration given to new users and their lack of experience, and, secondarily, that it is impossible for any human being to intervene, when necessary, in the whole FAP situation.
I have had quite a few good results when speaking with technical support, and with them very patiently explaining things to me when I don't understand them. The installation went very well, although there was a minor glitch with alignment which the installer came out and repaired in a timely manner. And that is "quite a few" because I have
had quite a bit of trouble with the signal and web-page downloads.
Hughes is light-years ahead of Wildblue (my former satellite Internet provider) in providing me, the lowly user, with tools to see what is going on with my Internet access. With Wildblue, I never knew what was going on, but it always seemed to turn out to be the weather in Syracuse.
If I would wish one thing for Hughes, it would be to give someone the authority and ability to deal with situations like mine as if I was talking with a human being who cared about his or her customer.
I have a two-year contract with Hughes and I certainly hope things get a whole lot better than they have been the past two days.
I am going to make sure my friends and relatives know the good experiences I have with Hughes, but I am definitely going to strongly emphasize the fiasco of the past two days.
Mr. Cook, I hope that you get to see this email and that it is not just read and discarded by an administrative assistant.
Thanks for your consideration.
---------------------------------
The next day, I got a reply from Mr. Cook
Ken,
Thanks for your email - I really appreciate the balance and the constructiveness of your comments.
You are making some very interesting points and I'll certainly be looking into them with my colleagues here. In the meantime, I'd like to give you a couple of immediate responses:
I'm sure you understand why we have FAP - unfortunately a 90/10 rule applies to Internet usage in the sense that 10% of Internet users consume 90% of the bandwidth and this impacts all ISPs to a greater or lesser extent. We have implemented the Fair Access Policy to ensure that all users get their fair share of the service at all times. You are right in the sense that we have made a lot of effort to communicate with our users and let them know what is going on - firstly we now have a 'FAP Free Zone' from 3am to 6am eastern during which FAP is essentially turned off. You can already take advantage of this and it is possible to set up downloaders which will schedule activity for this period. We have some of these in test right now and will be choosing one to recommend in the near future. Secondly, our latest software will include a FAP indicator on our 'system control center' web page which is embedded in the modem (type in www.systemcontrolc! enter.com or check the user manual for the IP address). This will enable real time information on FAP status - which will eliminate the 1 hour delay there currently is when you use the billing system. I believe the software is ready for roll out over the next few weeks (you don't need to do anything about it - we automatically update the software in the modem for you).
I've not heard about problems if the modem is on or off - basically when the modem is in the FAP status, you can continue to use for browsing, but obviously you don't want to start any large downloads because this may stack up and cause you more problems when you get out of FAP.
Look out for the downloader - remember that all your systems (operating system, virus checkers etc) download stuff all the time and the Microsoft ones are very big (we know - we see the impact across the whole network!). You'll be much more efficient if you time these for download during the FAP free times.
I'll look into the issue of the manual override for FAP - I've never asked the question, but its a good one! In the meantime, I'm copying Ellen Martz who is a key manager in our customer support team and she'll be in touch with your shortly.
Thanks for joining the HughesNet Customer family and I hope that you the service provides you with good support for your business.
Regards
Mike Cook
Senior Vice President
North America
Hughes Network Systems
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Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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dbirdman
Premium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
Eureka, CA
| It's a nice reply, but I personally feel that, if they were to actually give someone the authority to override FAP it would do damage to a necessary part of the satellite operation. If there were any chance that spending hours on the phone to get escalated to the guy with the "FAP turn-off switch" would work, there are some who would insist on going through that. Whether their fault or an accident, FAP exists to do exactly what yours did: Give you a very painful wakeup jolt when you hit it. Anything to lessen the pain damages the utility of the mechanism.
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W2K Server|Toshiba Satellite XP Pro|HughesNet IA8/1410/7000 2-watt Business Internet on .98 meter fixed | Datastorm .98 XF2 2-watt on 1990 Blue Bird Wanderlodge "Blue Thunder" 22 tons of rolling steel! |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
·WildBlue
| Yeah. But a human who was empowered to make decisions, not just follow policy, could have looked at my experience level and made a decision. If Hughes cannot trust their employees to make rational human decisions, then the employees should be fired.
Plus the fact that no one explained to me "By the way, DO NOT turn off your modem. The 24 hour period will be reset when you turn it back on." No way for me to know that. At my level of experience, it was a logical choice. I was told "Stay off the internet". Well, if the modem was not on, I COULD NOT BE on the internet, even by mistake.
So, I was without internet for 48 hours because of their mistake and because no one there had the authority to do something about their mistake.
The company has policies, not human beings who are empowered to make decisions. The sure sign of a bad company.
Maybe, if I was not being shined on, my email to the VP of Sales may engender some necessary changes. The email, in the form of a letter, was also sent to 5 other corporate executives and Customer Service.
--
Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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Arion
join:2006-07-09
Marquette, MI
·HughesNet Satellit..
| reply to kewaynco
quote:
Secondly, our latest software will include a FAP indicator on our 'system control center' web page which is embedded in the modem
That's a tremendous piece of news!! That and having a real time indicator instead of a 1 hour or several hour delay. One of the biggest problems is not knowing exactly where your at in the system as regards to your limit on any given day and time.
That being said it's up to the end user to educate themselves about the fap and about the system before having it installed. Yes, I realize it's advertised as a panacea for everything and they hawk it like it's comparable to dsl or cable. Yet your entering into a 2 year contract with them. Does one get a car loan or a lease without doing their homework and reading the fine print??
I already know the answer. Many do not and they end up getting a nasty surprise quite often. Ask the sub prime mortgage people who got a low rate and didn't realize that their rates would get jacked when the mortgages reset. Many of those people didn't do their homework and read the fine print either. And that's on a house!! Let the buyer beware!! Regardless if Hughes comes through with the promised software revision and continues their fap free zone then they have gone a long way towards solving the problems they started with dumping the new policy on the subscribers with hardly any notice or warning.
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HN7000S IA-8 1270 / 8-PSK 3/4 (14) / Router:67.142.140.95 /.74 1 watt / Pro / Pentium 3.2ghz, 1gb ram /Dual Boot WinXP Pro/LinxuS / Firefox 2.0.0.6 |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
·WildBlue
| I actually did my homework and went with Wildblue first. One of only two affordable choices out in the boondocks.
The good thing about Wildblue FAP is it is on a rolling 30-day period with the limit being SEVENTEEN GIGABYTES for the period. That is about the same as what I got with the small business package with Hughes.
However, one unusual day of 500MB on Wildblue caused no problem. My average is between 200mb and 300mb. That is actually a FAIR access policy. Hughes needs to move to the 21st century.
However, the drawback with Wildblue was the inability to know what was going on with my system. Hughes provides the tools to monitor what is going on. And Wildblue was down for me almost as much as it was up. Had to do with my beam being out of Syracuse where the weather was always raining or snowing or someone would sneeze and I'd be down.
After one year with Wildblue, I went with Hughes based on the experience my daughter, 3/10th mile from me, had.
The other problem with Hughes is their "transmission failure policy". They say 25% is acceptable. I agree if it is 25% over a long period of time.
However, I experience transmission failures of 80% or 90% within a two or three minute period (I've kept track - I know, I should get a life). A 90% failure rate is totally unacceptable.
With Hughes, I've now run out of affordable options. And I thought Al Gore was going to make sure all us rural folk got internet comparable with what you city folk got. Instead, he is too worried about the great warm weather we now have 
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Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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snowman41
join:2006-10-20
Almonte, ON
| Let's hope when they put in the FAP indicator, it's like a traffic light ... Green OK, Yellow WARNING, Red FAPPED or something similar, preferably in a tray Icon or tiny stand-alone application.
If you don't have it yet, you need to download and install the FREE hnFAPmon software, which will do much the same, except it's real time. The Hughes indicator will probably be based on their delayed usage page, but we'll see.
»hnfapmon.sourceforge.net/
Snowman
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Hughes HN7000s 1.0 Mbps/200 Kbps 375 MB Cdn Plan G16/99W 1230mhz .98m 2w RSL93 ACP75 DLink624 XP & VISTA |
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Arion
join:2006-07-09
Marquette, MI
·HughesNet Satellit..
| reply to kewaynco
There is a big problem with the system with a transmission failure like that!! It's a power supply problem or a transmitter problem. I hardly ever see over a 1/10th of 1% transmission failure rate.
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HN7000S IA-8 1270 / 8-PSK 3/4 (14) / Router:67.142.140.95 /.74 1 watt / Pro / Pentium 3.2ghz, 1gb ram /Dual Boot WinXP Pro/LinxuS / Firefox 2.0.0.6 |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
·WildBlue
| I, also, over an extended period of time, see only 1/10% failure rate (except at first, when the installer had to come out and redo the alignment of something he called "polarity"). I was worried that it was possible that the wind was causing my dish to shift, but I guess that is not the case since after the times I see the large failure rate, everything goes back to normal for several hours to a day. I suppose it could be a problem with the modem, but being intermittent, I suppose it would be hard to diagnose.
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Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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bumwolf
join:2007-04-21
Florence, AL
·HughesNet Satellit..
| I've often thought if a person doesn't fap that much should have a softer fap. Knock them out for four hours and if they come back and fap again they are an abuser. Then give them the 24 hour pit of death. I can say I haven't fapped in two months since the 3 hour free window. Schedule your updates for overnights an enjoy light surfing and podcast downloads during the day. I download nearly 200mb a day draining my bucket in podcasts then again I'm on pro. FAP indicator would be nice if it was a real time solution. Maybe add something that halts your modem when it reaches 20 percent. (Pipe dream) Additional Hughes gives you more now than wildblue with the fap free window I average 30gb a month sure beats out 17 with wildblue.
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Hughesnet | DW7000 | Pro Package | Windows XP SP2 | AMD Athlon 64 3000+ | 1GB RAM | ATI Radeon 9550 256MB | 250GB HDD |
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v8rail
join:2003-10-13
Ash Fork, AZ
·HughesNet Satellit..
edit:
August 30th, @01:39AM
| said by bumwolf  : Additional Hughes gives you more now than wildblue with the fap free window I average 30gb a month sure beats out 17 with wildblue. the fap free window is nice and dandy when you are close to the civilization and connected to power. I'm off grid (and actually like it), but off grid you have to save power and running computers 24/7 will drain the batteries fast
also I use the internet for much more then downloads, most of my payed for bandwidth I will (and have to) use during the time I'm sitting in front of the computer.
yeah since HN faped me four times by mistake back in april, I never got faped again. The first couple months because I watched my traffic, the last couple months because HN messed up Satmex 5 (and the sad part, they have no clue what is going on  . I'm sure the tech support that could have fixed this mess got outsourced to script readers in India)
and BTW kewaynco, with 200 to 300 MB a day you are an abuser in the eyes of HN (and some guys in this forum). You are surely part of the 10% that uses 90% of the usage ... don't shoot the messanger, it is just the simple sad truth 
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Sprint Wireless , currently just 1xRTT, but still faster then HN on Satmex5, DW7000 with .74 dish (soon to be a birdbath) |
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anectine17
Premium,MVM
join:2003-01-05
Mountain Home, ID
| reply to kewaynco
I agree with virtually everything written. I'm impressed with the quality of the OP's e-mail as well as the reply from Mr. Cook. It's also nice to hear that a FAP monitor of some sort is forthcoming...I'll be anxious to hear how it works.
I do have to side with Don (dbirdman) on the rigidity of the FAP, however. Ignorance (not meant to be derogatory) of the rules is no excuse for violating them. The fact that you're a new user who only uses so much per day should count for exactly what it counts for...zilch. If people thought there were even the remotest chance that they could convince someone on the other end to give them a break.....just this one time, you can bet the phones and reps would be so tied up with FAP pity calls, that nothing else would get done. The FAP needs to be hard-coded, black and white with no do-overs.....not even once. That may sound harsh, but anything less would lead to absolute anarchy, IMO. Good luck with all of it!! I'll be watching!!
Alden
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HN7000S Small Office | G16/1210 | Static IP | .98m Dish | 2 Watt X-mit | FF 2.0 | Wired/Wireless Network w/ Modded Linksys WRT54GS v.2 w/ DD-WRT | Asus P4S800D-X/P-4 2.8ghz (OC'd to 3.2) Home-Built Desktop | Inspiron 1150 Laptop | Multi-Layered Security |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR | reply to v8rail
If I pay for 500mb per day, how does using 50% of it make me an abuser? My wife and I work from home for companies out of state. 200-300mb is very small usage given the circumstances. |
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v8rail
join:2003-10-13
Ash Fork, AZ
·HughesNet Satellit..
| like I said don't shoot the messenger
But it is simple. HN oversells massive. When all users would pull 50% of what they paid for the system would be death.
This is also why HN makes the FAP that hard and why they still don't give any details about FAP. It is just to scare the customer. 
BTW I think most of Mr. Cooks answer is just BS. |
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dbirdman
Premium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
Eureka, CA
| reply to kewaynco
said by kewaynco :If I pay for 500mb per day That is the issue: Start with a false assumption/assertion and everything you do/say related to it will be skewed.
You do not pay for 500MB per day.
You pay for a connection, plain and simple. That connection does not come with speed or throughput guarantees. It does have a maximum cap, after which they come down hard on you. That cap is moveable at their discretion, and they've moved it a few times.
Hughes doesn't really care what an individual uses; they care what the aggregate uses, and it is necessary to throttle the individual to control the aggregate. Whatever it takes to keep the aggregate below an average of 50MB per day per customer is the order of the day. We (and I'm a heavy user) are very lucky that the overall customer base is made up mostly of very light users, so they can cap you at 500MB, and me at 1250MB, and still keep the average under 50MB.
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W2K Server|Toshiba Satellite XP Pro|HughesNet IA8/1410/7000 2-watt Business Internet on .98 meter fixed | Datastorm .98 XF2 2-watt on 1990 Blue Bird Wanderlodge "Blue Thunder" 22 tons of rolling steel! |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
·WildBlue
| I would have to respectfully disagree about not paying for 500MB.
My plan states:
Download Threshold 2 500 MB with '2' pointing to explanation "2 Download Threshold is the volume of data that can be downloaded continuously before the Fair Access Policy may restrict the download speed."
and
"The Fair Access Policy is straightforward. Based on an analysis of customer usage data, Hughes has established a download threshold for each of the HughesNet service plans that is well above the typical usage rates. Subscribers who exceed that threshold will experience reduced download speeds for approximately 24 hours."
So, by their definition, it is only when I exceed the threshold that I drop into uFAP. What they do not define is "continuously". Maybe that is where you are getting your definition. You may be thinking this does not mean in a contiguous 24-hour day, but in any 24-hour period. So, if, say, beginning at noon, I download 300mb by midnight and then another 300mb the next day before noon, I would be in that uFAP sea.
This should not happen to me as I use my internet for work and the 200-300 per day all happen predictably at certain times of the day.
Date Time From Time To Min Used Download In MB
08/29/2007 6:00 07:00 60 2.93
08/29/2007 7:00 08:00 60 10.94
08/29/2007 8:00 09:00 60 20.59
08/29/2007 9:00 10:00 60 17.89
08/29/2007 10:00 11:00 60 10.04
08/29/2007 11:00 12:00 60 7.85
08/29/2007 12:00 13:00 60 3.99
08/29/2007 13:00 14:00 59 2.77
08/29/2007 14:00 15:00 60 4.18
08/29/2007 15:00 16:00 60 3.58
08/29/2007 16:00 17:00 60 3.41
08/29/2007 17:00 18:00 60 1.87
08/29/2007 18:00 19:00 60 1.12
08/29/2007 19:00 20:00 60 15.36
08/29/2007 20:00 21:00 58 0.52
08/29/2007 23:00 00:00 59 0.48
08/30/2007 0:00 01:00 60 0.53
08/30/2007 1:00 02:00 60 0.97
08/30/2007 2:00 03:00 60 0.53
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Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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v8rail
join:2003-10-13
Ash Fork, AZ
·HughesNet Satellit..
| said by kewaynco :I would have to respectfully disagree about not paying for 500MB. I agree .... actually when I signed up, I bought a refresh rate and payed for that data amount.
said by kewaynco :So, by their definition, it is only when I exceed the threshold that I drop into uFAP. What they do not define is "continuously". Maybe that is where you are getting your definition. You may be thinking this does not mean in a contiguous 24-hour day, but in any 24-hour period. So, if, say, beginning at noon, I download 300mb by midnight and then another 300mb the next day before noon, I would be in that uFAP sea. just as a side note, there is no 24 hour period. In the above scenario you would have been stayed very clear outside the FAP.
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Verizon Wireless Rev A, DW7000 with .74 dish (soon to be a birdbath) |
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dbirdman
Premium,MVM
join:2003-07-07
Eureka, CA
| reply to kewaynco
said by kewaynco :My plan states: No. Again, you are reading what you want, where you want, and applying it as though it mattered. Your plan does not state that; an advertisement for your plan says that. It appears nowhere in the contract you agreed to when you signed up. Read the actual contract.
In the contract there is no mention of throughput except that they may limit it as they see fit, and everything related to service levels says they expressly disclaim that there are any. They say (shouting is theirs): "THE SERVICE IS MADE AVAILABLE ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND"
That is what you are paying for. |
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Arion
join:2006-07-09
Marquette, MI
·HughesNet Satellit..
| reply to kewaynco
To boil it all down your plan may be 175mb/day 375mb/day whatever...
However the thruput and physics of the transponder your on and the gateways don't even come close to allowing each and every user to download there maximum plan allowance per day.
Birdman has it right. What happens is that "usually" you can get your plan limit because not everyone is maxing the system out. However during times of heavy useage and if you have downloaded a fair amount your going to get soft throttled even if your not close to the daily max. On days when big MS updates and other like stuff comes out and everyone's automatic updates are running you'll find the system crawling and you might be a close to dial up speed.
Yes the plan says you can have a certain amount each day but that amount is not guaranteed in the contract. The fap and all the assorted controls try to keep the behemoth running with the minimal disruptions and downtime. What they do is guarantee you a connection but no where in the contract are you "guaranteed" a certain download/upload speed or a certain amount of MB you can download.
If you want that guarantee then you have to go to a true commercial internet service and sign on to a plan and a contract that has a guaranteed contention ratio so you have the absolute guarantee of your speed and bandwidth allocation but your going to pay many times more than what your paying right now.
At least give them a little bit of credit for developing the fapless zone that you can access with a DL manager so you don't have to stay up to the wee hours of the morning and (if the email is valid) coming up with a software revision that will give you a "real time" picture of where you standing in the system.
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HN7000S IA-8 1270 / 8-PSK 3/4 (14) / Router:67.142.140.95 /.74 1 watt / Pro / Pentium 3.2ghz, 1gb ram /Dual Boot WinXP Pro/LinxuS / Firefox 2.0.0.6 |
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kewaynco
join:2007-07-21
Berryville, AR
·WildBlue
| So, essentially, you are verifying what I already know. It is not until I reach and pass my maximum that I fall under uFAP. Only, you are looking at it from a different perspective - that I might not be able to reach the maximum every day. And I am stating that my normal is 200mb-300mb per day, with less than 100mb on weekends. And someone else has said that, at less than 50% usage, I am one of the BAD people.
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Satellite
Transmit Path: Satellite
Outroute: Primary
Longitude: 113 West
Receive Frequency: 1150 MHz
Receive Symbol Rate: 30 Msps
Receive Polarization: Vertical
Transmit Polarization: Horizontal
22KHz Tone: Off |
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snowman41
join:2006-10-20
Almonte, ON
| Welcome to Catch-22, Hughes style.
Sometimes, you even think you're getting what you bought.
Snowman
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Hughes HN7000s 1.0 Mbps/200 Kbps 375 MB Cdn Plan G16/99W 1230mhz .98m 2w RSL93 ACP75 DLink624 XP & VISTA |
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