Thanks! There was a notice in the paper that At&T is bringing wireless Internet to my area by the end of the year that will cover 400,000 homes and businesses in two rural counties that currently have to use Hughes because of the remote locations. I don't know if it will be better or not or how much it will cost. That's the reason we haven't upgraded before now. We don't want to be under contract to Hughes if something good comes along. I need to investigate AT&T more.

I'm leaning toward upgrading at Hughes and a poster below replied that I can call a local installer instead of talking to Hughes directly about upgrading. I might do that since I know the local person will speak English. Nobody at Hughes seems to speak understandable English. They might if you are buying something instead of needing tech support but I'm not sure.

Glad to hear you're enjoying your HughesNet service, Carmen!

2Ghz does have a greater wifi range than 5Ghz, but is slower. This Netgear article explains the differences between the two pretty well:

The primary differences between the two frequencies are the range (coverage) and bandwidth (speed) that the bands provide. The 2.4 GHz band provides coverage at a longer range but transmits data at slower speeds. The 5 GHz band provides less coverage but transmits data at faster speeds.

The range is lower in the 5 GHz band because higher frequencies cannot penetrate solid objects, such as walls and floors. However, higher frequencies allow data to be transmitted faster than lower frequencies, so the 5 GHz band allows you to upload and download files faster.

Your WiFi connection on a particular frequency band can also be faster or slower because of interference from other devices. Many WiFi-enabled technologies and other household devices use the 2.4 GHz band, including microwaves and garage door openers. When multiple devices attempt to use the same radio space, overcrowding occurs. The 5 GHz band tends to have less overcrowding than the 2.4GHz band because fewer devices use it and because it has 23 channels for devices to use, while the 2.4GHz band has only 11 channels. The number of channels that are available to you depends on the regulatory domain. If you’re experiencing a lot of interference from other devices, consider using the 5 GHz band.

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GabeU wrote:

jprodr19

 

I have no doubt that there will eventually be enough people on the Echostar 19 satellite that it will cause a certain level of congestion and speed dips during peak usage periods, but I'm sure it will be a considerable time before that happens, and when it does, I also have a feeling that it won't be quite as impactful as it was getting on the Echostar 17 with Gen4.  The ES19 has over double the capacity of the ES17, too, so that will surely help.  

 

Gen5 is most definitely a step up, that's for sure.  

 

And that Verizon network extender you mentioned...pretty nifty.  

 

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One full month connected to Gen 5! I am overall very pleased although I am using my higher speed data allowance at about 10 times the rate I was before, even though we are NOT downloading videos etc.   In spite of that, the performance even after all daytime and nightime high speed data was used up by about day 18 of my month, remained satisfactory with 3mbs download speeds and close to that in upload speeds.  I am also pleased with the coverage of the built in Wifi in the HN Gen 5 modem, as signal reaches to the other end of our home,  unlike the Netgear wifi that I was using with the Gen 4 modem.

I did call customer service on my data usage and the very helpful support person was able to tell me all the specific devices that were connected to my HN wifi modem and was able to list them by each of the 3 iPhones, the dell PC, the android device,  the Verizon extender, etc.  He further was able to tell me that one of the iPhones had used over 1GB of data in the last few hours--nothing like having kids home for the Independence Day holiday!.   He also told me that the Verizon (made by Samsung) Range Extender had used about 10GB of data since the modem was last powered on.  (which I think was one month ago when the Gen 5 modem was installed--but maybe we had a blip of a power outage about 3 weeks ago during a storm--at least enough for a couple of my clocks to be flashing 12:00-but don't know if that was enough to repower the HN modem or not.  In spite of this high data usage by the Verizon Range Extender, it is remaining connected, as it allows us to use our cell phones near and within our home, rather than having to drive 7 miles to get cell signal.  Even the throttled back Gen 5  data speeds at the end of the month were still good enough to permit the Verizon Range Extender to work reasonably well--a little bit more garbling compared to earlier in the month--but it so much better than the Gen 4 era, when even when we had our full data allowance the Range Extender was basically useless.

It appears that Hughes is still adding features to their wifi modem--I told the customer service person that the ability for me to check on which device was using a disproportionate amount of data would be very useful (so I know which kid to blame-I am not serious--we don't see them enough as they both live a long ways from here and we wish they could come home more often).  If they can then further make  information on apps or web sites, by connected device,  that are the largest data burners I think it would keep a lot of customers from ''blaming'' Hughes rather than understanding that certain social media web sites really use up a lot of data.

So I hope HN adds such data monitoring and analysis capabilities for subscribers that log in to to their accounts sooner rather than later.  I think it would really cut back on customer service calls relating to data usage. 

 I did end up disconnecting my Directv from the HN wifi, as that seems to use a lot of data even when no 'on demand' movies were watched during the month.  It appears that all of the Guides and Program Search features of Directv which normally download (slowly) from the directv sattelite, switch over to using the Wifi network  for all the updates, when a  wifi connection is present.  I keep my PC network setting set to the Metered position, I have my android set to 'do not auto play video content' such as from news websites, but the Directv box cannot be controlled that way. So I simply reset the Directv Menu Settings to disconnect from the wifi. 

Thanks CORROSIVE. I wish the customer service rep had explained it that way to me.

I assume installs wont happen till a bit later... It's probable they will start accepting orders for the new system around that time though.