Forum Discussion
Buffering!
New to HN and was told we could stream "a few games a month" but then our data would decrease. What they failed to tell us is that the buffering would make anything and everything unwatchable. Called...
If the show is recorded, it wouldn't be using data or be connected to the internet, so there would not be any buffering. Where are these shows being recorded to, and what do you use to watch them?
Latency and congestion affect satellite internet and there's nothing to be done about it,as it's related to the technology itself, the laws of physics, and users trying to do data intensive activities on a limited data environment.
if you want to watch games, why not get satellite TV? That uses no data and there's no buffering unless the weather is really bad.
"Latency and congestion affect satellite internet and there's nothing to be done about it, as it's related to the technology itself, the laws of physics, and users trying to do data intensive activities on a limited data environment. "
From what I understand latency is affected by the distance from the gateway -> satellite -> home router. While the satellite -> router probably can't be changed, the gateway -> satellite distance can be changed by having more gateways. I recently was told my connection was bad because of a storm in Cheyenne, WY !!! I live in North Carolina, are you trying to say HughesNet can't afford to have a closer gateway?
As for congestion, as you mentioned too many user on a limited data environment. One tech explained it to me as think of it as a highway, once there gets to be too many cars on the highway, everyone slows down. So the solution is to add more lanes to the highway, or limit the number of cars on the highway. Since HughesNet will never limit the number of users, they should add more lanes. The tech also explained, that there are many 'channels' available, and if you happen to be on a busy channel, you get poor reception. This tech actually switched the channel I was using and it cleared up the problem. Unfortunately, all the other times I call, the support person says they can't do that.
I sure hope the guy I talked to didn't get in trouble for helping me.
The satellite is approximately 38,000 km from your dish. Even if your ground station were in the next county it would still be a 76,000 km trip to the gateway, and a 152,000 km round trip. The latency on that is still a half a second, given the speed of light. Latency has nothing to do with the location of the ground station and has everything to do with the fact that the satellite is about 36,000 km above the equator in a geosynchronous orbit.
As for many lanes, look at an open source satellite coverage map (pick one, there are many): Each spot beam is aimed at a specific region of the country. The beams are serviced by and distributed amongst the ground stations in order to try to balance the potential population per ground station. What mysterious undocumented lanes were you looking for in particular?
Bottom line: What are you talking about? Or, did you just make all that stuff up?
Edit: And as for "switching the channel", sometimes the IP gateway that you're associated to gets overused. Simply rebooting the modem will re-associate you to a lesser used IP gateway... it's not magic and you didn't need a tech to do that.Thanks for the quick response, and I apologize for my satellite technology ignorance. I am old guy, so you can understand my thinking that a gateway in Wyoming would have more latency then one closer. Your explanation was very good, thank you.
As for the lanes, I was referring to channels, but stand corrected, there are a set number of channels. Here is a link about the channels - https://us.hitrontech.com/blog/what-are-network-channels-and-how-does-it-affect-my-wifi/ . So, I'm assuming the tech switched my channel from whatever it was on to channel 1, 6 or 11.
If I made anything up, it was not intentional and I apologize for the confusion.Follow up question on latency, - if the distances are always the same, why do I get different latency values when running speed tests?
The WiFi itself is how the satellite internet is delivered to your devices and is completely independent upon satellite latency and speed. Depending upon the protocol used, your WiFi signal may use multiple channels to widen the available bandwidth from 20MHz, up to 80MHz. The only way this can be impeded is if you have one or more neighbors whose personal WiFi may be using one (or more) of those channels, therefore interfering with it and creating a problem with your local WiFi usage. Usually, WiFi systems will analyze the local environment and pick the first unused set of available channels, but there are WiFi channel scanners for computers that can detect them as well.
Regarding the latency values in speed tests: You shouldn't put any faith in them, primarily because of the way satellite internet works. The latency tests weren't designed for the inherent latency that occurs due to the sheer distances involved, nor the additional effects of beam and gateway loading from high intensity of pings that result from server-intense activities such as streaming. The results would be all over the place at any given time. The only credible latency test that should be used is the one provided in the System Control Center's Connectivity Test, which provides an accurate assessment of the latency between your computer and your particular ground station (Wyoming) that includes radio signal latency as well as any processing delays due to user congestion. Given that, any additional latency from the internet backbone, that the ground station is connected to, is negligible for all intents and purposes (basically milliseconds as compared to 600+ milliseconds).
