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Judging by the variance graphs from your tests, in that they aren't showing erratic changes, my guess would be system congestion. Unfortunately, as time goes on and streaming becomes more prevalent, it's likely that the incidence of people downloading media during the Bonus Zone period has picked up considerably.
That's just a guess though, as there are a lot of variables.
Look, capacity is never not going to be a problem on satellite by the very nature of the beast - you have severely limited bandwidth to start with.
Demand for external servers will always be a problem, complicating the issue too. Give you an example: Over the past day or so, Apple, Microsoft (Windows and Office), and Fedora all had major os/kernel updates. Ever try to update something from Apple or Microsoft on the first day of the release? You can't ever get it done, because you're competing with the entire globe on top of trying to compete with those also on your satellite beam, groundstation, the groundstation's provider, and so on. This is how internet works... everywhere.
"Look, capacity is never not going to be a problem on satellite by the very nature of the beast - you have severely limited bandwidth to start with." - Mark
i.e. it's always going to be a problem.
Another bird is going up next year. How much of its capacity will be designated for the US, however, I don't know. However, that new bird may only help lessen the impact for a time, not solve it. And there's no other way to increase capacity. Once a bird it is up, that's it. Its throughput is pretty much set in stone.
The main problem is streaming. HughesNet was never designed to handle so many people doing something so bandwidth intensive so often. And the more people that do so, the more congested the system becomes. But nearly everything else we do online is becoming more bandwidth intensive, so it's not just the streaming, though that is, by far, the most impactful.
