Forum Discussion

yoajon's avatar
yoajon
Freshman
7 years ago

GEN 5 Upgrade Problems

I am in Zip 93522 and upgraded to Gen 5 on June 10th. Immediatly after the installation the signal strength showed 50 and today it has been in the low 70s. The installer used my old small dish. My do...
Performance
  • yoajon's avatar
    yoajon
    7 years ago

    Thanks for your help Amanda. I have been monitoring my receiver signal strengh and it has been ranging from 68 to 73. My speed tests show a large variation and exceed 25Mbps in some situations. This is definitly a beneficial upgrade. I look forward to your help in the future.

C0RR0SIVE's avatar
C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor
7 years ago

Signal strength depends a lot on location... I seem to remember a few regions where 50 to 70 is acceptable.  The larger dish doesn't do much for a better signal...  I have a .98m Prodelin dish here (one of the largest they provide...) and I only get about 10SQF higher than a typical .74m, which has been the standard dish for a long time and is acceptible for Gen5 service.

The .98m dish is usually reserved for the enterprise and business customers...  There is a .90m dish around, but if a .98m dish doesn't give much of a bump compared to a .74, then a .90 would be even less useful.

Just an FYI, when the installer goes to sign-off on the modem, unless he meets the target SQF for your area, the installer can not pass OVT (which means the terminal can't be used), nor get paid.

  • yoajon's avatar
    yoajon
    Freshman
    7 years ago

    Thanks for your comments and technical analysis. I understand that download speeds of > 25 Mbps are of course possible wth the small dish and a signal strength of 70. However, I have not been able to perfom some tasks with my upgraded system that I regularly performed on my previous system. I measured some higher speeds and had good performance in the bonus period last night.

    • Amanda's avatar
      Amanda
      Moderator
      7 years ago

      Hello yaojon,

       

      Currently you are receiving at target or better-than-target signal strength. The average for your area sits at SQF 68 as of yesterday and currently I show you are at SQF 71. I do see you are within Beam 55, which is currently in the process of having performance improvements implemented. As of 6/08/18, the plan is to see improvements in your area in about a month, so we're looking at early July. Please check your private messages as I am going to send you some more information.

       

      Thank you,

      Amanda

      • yoajon's avatar
        yoajon
        Freshman
        7 years ago

        I thank everyone for their comments.

        I can definitly get > 25 Mbps during the bonus period when I shut down the WiFi and run my Windows 10 PC using the Ethernet cable. I have been away from home much of the time since my Gen 5 upgrade and have had limited time to fully check performance especially during the day.

        Here are a couple issues: To avoid Windows Update I need to run my PC as a metered connection and this option is only available with a WiFi connection. Windows can easliy burn up half my allottment with one cumlative update. I ran some tests this morning and it looks like my down speed drops to 5-10 Mbps when using a WiFi connection. It will take me about a week to fully check the day time performance and I might as well wait for the upcomming improvements.

        In my previose set up I disabled Turbopage on the advise of a HugesNet tech in order to make streaming possible.

        Overall it looks like I will be very happy with my upgrade.