Forum Discussion
Data Usage With Jupiter 3
An update to my Jupiter 3 experience.
My last post was 2 weeks ago. I was frustrated and had resigned myself to either spending money on tokens or not streaming TV for the 2 weeks after I used my priority data. I ran out (250GB - I had purchased tokens) 2 days later with 11 days to go until the data rollover. To my surprise, nothing changed. Standard data speed was more than adequate for my home and daily use. In fact, I returned to my habit of having the TV on all day and turned the data optimizer off. No more blurry TV! It was nothing less than liberating. I routinely checked speeds with Ookla and am consistently within 10 Mbps - 20 Mbps range, speeds slowing in the evenings. All internet providers boast speeds and I was convinced that I needed hundreds of Mbps to do anything. This is simply not true. I changed my service plan to the 100 GB to recoup some money. I realize that the standard data speeds may decrease in the future with the inevitable increase of accounts signing on to the Jupiter 3, but I am hoping that will take some time and that the big guy up there can keep up the pace.
Also, here's an interesting nugget. When I switched service plans yesterday, the100 GB priority data was immediately applied. I just checked my speed...15.4 Mbps at 8:20am LOL. We burned through 37 GB watching the game yesterday in HD but I can comfortably say I don't care, it was worth it. Even if my strategy falls apart this cycle, which given HughesNet's inconsistent service is a very plausible possibility, I am no longer going to stress out over speed and data. All of the back and forth, both here and exhaustive calls with tech support, has done nothing but cause more stress and frustration. At no time (official HughesNet tech support has yet to respond here) did anyone suggest that standard data speeds might be adequate for my purposes but then why would they? Its the same reason why there is no plan less than 100 GB (unlike the old satellite that offered 25 GB) or just a standard data plan. I'm sure the hardware up there is a bit pricey.
I'm sure the "Professors" are firing up their keyboards and will "educate" me further but meh...I'm good.
N/C
Faster speeds don't require more data, but faster speeds means your devices can use more data, depending on what they're doing. As maratsade intimated, this is especially the case with streaming. If the streaming was limited to a lower resolution because of speed, it may not be now, which means more data use. Even simple things like ads on webpages can cause more data usage when you have higher speeds.
If there is an alignment issue, causing degraded service, this can cause higher data usage because of dropped data packets, needing to resend those packets multiple times for them to get through completely. Keep your fingers crossed that this is the reason for the majority of it. However, if you do stream, I'd check the resolution settings, perhaps locking them down to something that uses less data.
One last thing is satellite TV receivers, especially from DirecTV. If you have one and it's connected to HughesNet, this could also be a source of higher data usage. These receivers can use your data to download things to the receiver that would normally be done via their satellite. IOW, they'd rather use your bandwidth than their own to update the receiver. System updates, guide updates, etc.
