HughesNet Satellite → letter today from hughesnet

I recieved a letter in the mail today from hughesnet informing me that as of Oct. 31 2013 my service with them would be terminated if I did not sign up for Gen 4 I was also told that the install would be free and so would the upgrade but I am now being told I would have to pay 20.01 plus 9.99 per monthly for leasing fees I have had hughesnet since 2005 and I do not pay for leasing fees I do not want to get this gen 4 because I heard its just as crappy as what I have now with them

Don't fear the Gen3 reaper. I have no statistics, but Gen4 often works close to what is advertised for me, but unoddly never when I want it to. My "up to" speed is 10Mbps, while my average speed is ~5 Mbps. Don't expect to be able to stream Netflix, and I'd guess that you won't be disappointed. (Maybe you can, maybe you can't. The randomness can "add adventure to your life".) HN advertising says that you can buy your equipment and avoid the lease fee: »www.hughesnet.com/index. ··· omotions

The most common complaint about the Exede-12 service is that it too easy to burn through your data allowance.

Just go to the Gen4 website here and click on the orange "Existing Customers" button and select a plan--I recommend the Power Plan myself which is the same-price-but-better as what I had before. The install will be free and should take only a couple hours and will work unless you have a problem with pointing at the new satellite. In my case going from Horizons 1 to the new satellite straightened-up the dish and cleared a tree just fine and I get great signal strength and speeds, in fact it's raining right now and I still have 118 for a SS number.

If you own your equipment the installer will re-use your cable and leave the old modem, power supply, and dish with you. If you have a good support pole now, it will work with the new dish.

The only "catch" to this free upgrade is that you will be committing to another 2 years of paying the monthly fee i.e. if you cancel there will be a $400 charge iirc.

I guess I am again the exception around here as I upgraded recently and am very (VERY) happy with the new service.

p.s. I was not "forced" to upgrade by HN, but instead my dish's feed horn filled with water so I was faced with repairing it. Instead I decided to upgrade voluntarily and am very glad I did.

My speed test:

Well it will all depend on where nette is located on the plan, Gen4 or spaceway Gen4 big difference.

I thought the Jupiter sat was the only option--had to look-up Spaceway. How would one tell when clicking on "existing customer upgrade" which satellite you'd be put onto?

By the speed. The spaceway3 gen4 wannabe is a "up to" 5 mbps named Connect Pro, and is only a plan upgrade if on hn9000 modem, where the true Gen4 plans are "up to" 10 or 15 mbps and require all new modem and transmitter aimed at Echostar17 @ 107.3' W.

No wonder there is confusion among "legacy" HN subscribers then. Presumably if you're an existing customer and not eligible for Jupiter then you get presented with Spaceway options. But it's still confusing to me, because if you go into the HN website "cold" there are no Spaceway options anywhere to be found. I might've guessed all options would be hidden from view until you exposed your location to Hughes (either by a zip code or an existing subscriber SAN).

I have had Gen4 for 12 months and find that it runs near advertised download speeds most of the time.

Here are my results:
»testmy.net/avg/pschrad.png

As a retired public educator I would give Gen4 a B or B+.

Good luck.

w/Exede... you are able to stream Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and be able to fight battles on WOW... at the same time.

Will believe it when I see it but first. Do you realize that your end gets busier and busier the more you push and pull and put stress on it? I know i do, seen it hundreds of times(doesn't need to be satellite even)

Anyway, with satellite you get like 500ms or about 700ms, right? Games like WoW or DOTA are meant to be played with 200ms latency or lower(recommended) because your lag gets more noticeable in such games, the higher the ping is from 200ms and I know for a fact that on any satellite provider, lag spikes can be a real b!t$h..

My advice, don't play games where your fighting lag, fighting people who keep trying to ban you after you just got banned or where you can kill team mates and really piss them off.

Yes, you have to compensate for latency, both my wife and son have... wife has been on WOW now 18 months with Exede, playing. and son has played various types of games on Exede. I am not into gaming... so Exede is great for my viewing purposes.

Exede is the only sat that we have used. It seems a lot better on speeds than Gen 4,
after reviewing all comment about both systems and previous wireless services.
Remember... Exede is NOt your 90 era sat service...only thing it can be compared to is Gen 4... same current type of Sat system.