Forum Discussion

Unabletouse's avatar
Unabletouse
New Poster
10 months ago

What ping is normal for Hughesnet?

My ping is absolutely terrible. 500-900 on everything. The hughesnet speed test puts me at 724 ping and 184 jitter. Streaming is slow / stuttering (trying to stream shows like Smallville on Hulu). Web browsing is horribly slow to load, even loading the hughesnet website can take a few tries. Email is slow. ALL games, turn based/strategy and beyond are unplayable. Even phone games are laggy/difficult. We end up having to turn the internet to 5g on our phones and sit in the one area of the house with signal because it's better than the internet we're paying for monthly. When I contacted support, they basically told me tough luck, that's satellite. Is this true? I almost miss dial up compared to this. 

Performance
  • maratsade's avatar
    maratsade
    Distinguished Professor IV
    10 months ago

    Due to the distance between the geosynchronous satellite and the Earth, the signal takes 500 ms to travel. The rest of the latency has to do with network and Internet lag. Lag is worse during prime time, but there may be numerous factors affecting this. Streaming can be slow and stuttery, especially during prime time, but also at other times, as it is also affected by congestion, that is, how many people are active on the beam. This is why they can't guarantee speeds and performance (check the subscriber agreement for disclaimers). 

    • Unabletouse's avatar
      Unabletouse
      New Poster
      10 months ago

      So, in other words, stuttering low-def streaming (keeps going pixely as it auto adjusts down to the lower pixels to try to not freeze), no gaming (not even mobile or strategy/turn based) and very slow browsing / email is the best Hughesnet can offer @ $85/mo? 

      • maratsade's avatar
        maratsade
        Distinguished Professor IV
        10 months ago

        There are strategies to improve the performance. Perhaps one of the Hughesnet reps on this site will jump in and tell you about them. 

        But at the end of the day, it is satellite internet and it behaves as such; having unrealistic expectations about it won't change a thing. If you have any other options where you live, you may want to research them. 

  • MarkJFine's avatar
    MarkJFine
    Professor
    10 months ago

    Unabletouse 

    If you're looking to use HughesNet for real time gaming, recommend upgrading to Fusion. Fusion augments the satellite signal with LTE wireless for those things that require quick-ping/lower lag times to work properly. Certainly makes gaming and some downloading/streaming a lot smoother.