Forum Discussion
Data limits
As touched on by maratsade, data limits for HughesNet are required because of the limited throughput. They keep the service usable for everyone. Without data limits it would be like trying to drive 50,000 cars per hour down a road designed for 5,000. Not only would the beams and gateways be stressed, but system would, as a whole. Think a digital traffic jam. The data limits force people to make a choice as to when they use their high speed data, keeping the system usable for everyone.
As for purchasing more data: Purchasing tokens doesn't affect the system very much because it's a drop in the bucket, so to speak. The number of people who buy tokens is comparatively small, as is the token data purchased. Upgrading to a higher data package, OTOH, can affect the system quite a bit, which is why the data packages available are now being regulated in areas where the beams and/or gateways have a higher load. I used to have the 50GB package available to me. I can only upgrade to the 30GB package, today. It's the same for new customers in my area. The 30GB package is the highest they can get.
As for ground based services, it is very likely due to all of the streaming, which is the most data intensive activity being done on the net. The components of the infrastructure may be coming down in price, but that doesn't mean the infrastructure is in place to support the much higher loads as of late. If everything were unchecked the load a year from now might be twice what it currently is. Without something like data limits in place, again, the system slows to a crawl. The infrastructure isn't growing at the same rate as data demand. And, again, the vast majority of that is due to streaming. Plus, there is a lot of 4k streaming now, which stresses the system even more. What a few homes used two years ago, data wise, one home uses now. That's not exact, of course, but I think you understand what I mean. 4k streaming requires more than six times the bandwidth of HD streaming.
Obviously, video streaming takes up the most bandwidth, followed by music, followed by text, which takes up so little that I can do research all day every day and barely put a dent in my data allowance. Even playing iTunes really doesn't use up all that much. But watch a couple of movies...oh boy!
Gabe, I could only dream of 30 gb per month! My limit is 20 out here. OTOH, maybe that's why I never have any problems...they're keeping only 3,000 cars on that road, lol! 😀
I get by pretty well with the 20GB plan I currently have. With the exception of one time, about three months ago, I have never come close to going over my data limit. A lot of times I use less of my Bonus Zone data than my Anytime Data, if you can believe that. As of today I have four days left before my cycle starts again, and this is what I have left....
When I had Gen4 I had the 10GB plan, and, most likely due to Gen4's data compression being so good, I rarely ever used more than 6GB of Anytime Data, and even less Bonus Bytes.
And, the following is not a joke...
That's my folks, who have Gen4. Mostly Facebook and baseball related sites, and they use it nearly every day, or I'd say six out of seven days of the week. And people used to joke that I was a data miser! LOL. They don't try to do this (using so little data), it's just the way it works out. That fantastic Gen4 data compression, again. They use a Windows 7 laptop, and that's it, so it probably uses very little data in the first place (they do have automatic Windows updates set up).
