Forum Discussion
Oh Crappy HughsNet
I just recently became a HughsNet customer...because in the area I live it was basically the only choice I had...The only devises that I use are my IPad and I stream with FireStick on my TV... From ...
I've been told the info is in the welcome email you get. I've been a customer for so long I don't have that email anymore and it was probably totally different then. Do you happen to have the welcome email? If so, could you check to see what it says?
Streaming is a crapshoot with satellite internet, because of latency (both the signal latency from satellite to Earth and from internet latency) and congestion (which has to do with how many people in your area are accessing the system at the same time).
The system gets bogged down quickly when people are all trying to do something data intensive like streaming. And streaming does eat data. You can change the resolution to use less data, and go with standard definition, which eats the least data, though it still will chomp through the data, but at a slightly slower rate. I think it's about 300MB per hour.
EDIT: I used the word "data" a lot. I'm thinking a drinking game might be called for here. ;)
Your data is constantly refilled over the first 20 days of your account, as a courtesy. After the 20th day, that stops. The data usage you're seeing now is what you are actually using.
There is no hoax. The throttled experience is actually quite good for some people; you may be one of them. For others, the throttled experience is pretty awful.
I was not informed of the courtesy data...and was told that only using my 2 devises including the FireStick TV, would be perfect for the data package I have...it's still crappy internet but better than none...Thanks for your reply...
I've been told the info is in the welcome email you get. I've been a customer for so long I don't have that email anymore and it was probably totally different then. Do you happen to have the welcome email? If so, could you check to see what it says?
Streaming is a crapshoot with satellite internet, because of latency (both the signal latency from satellite to Earth and from internet latency) and congestion (which has to do with how many people in your area are accessing the system at the same time).
The system gets bogged down quickly when people are all trying to do something data intensive like streaming. And streaming does eat data. You can change the resolution to use less data, and go with standard definition, which eats the least data, though it still will chomp through the data, but at a slightly slower rate. I think it's about 300MB per hour.
EDIT: I used the word "data" a lot. I'm thinking a drinking game might be called for here. ;)
maratsade wrote:You can change the resolution to use less data, and go with standard definition, which eats the least data, though it still will chomp through the data, but at a slightly slower rate. I think it's about 300MB per hour.
Standard Def uses about 700MB per hour, whereas Low Def uses about 300MB per hour. High Def uses about 3GB per hour.
i.e. even with a 50GB plan, that's only about 16 hours of streaming in HD before the data threshold is reached.
HughesNet is definitely not designed with every day streaming in mind. Occasional streaming, but not on a regular basis. The plan data levels simply can't support it, nor can the system itself because of its limited system capacity, which is very likely one of the reasons you're seeing buffering, especially in the evenings. Your best bet for regular visual entertainment is satellite TV.
