Buffering!

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TomCarey wrote:

So is ground station the same as a gateway?  Or does a ground station house one or more gateway IP addresses?   

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Though I know you asked Mark these questions...

Yes, ground station and gateway are synonymous.  In context, the gateway is the actual connection/entrance to the internet, and that's what the ground station provides.  The satellite is, if you will, a sophisticated 'mirror' for your signal, redirecting it from your dish to the gateway and onto the internet, then back to you again.  The ground station does support multiple gateway IP addresses, and the multiple channels within them, as each gateway supports multiple beams, but the overall throughput capacity of the gateway itself remains the same regardless of the number of spot beams and channels it's supporting.  Sort of like if you added Y splitters to a garden hose.  No matter how many you add to create more outlets, the throughput of the spigot remains the same.

They can upgrade the capacity at the ground stations, but the satellite is the sticking point, as once it's up there its capacity can't be added to, or at least not traditionally.  They can sometimes update software to eke out a little more, but the physical components of it limit how much of that can be done. 

Mark's a smart cookie with technology.  Likely the most knowledgeable person currently active in this community.

Well, the first thing you should know is that I've been a retired defense contractor for almost 10 years. Prior to that was involved with Army projects that included mobile satellite comms, so I'm not an expert but am 100% dangerous.

The second thing you should know is that technical companies will invest the most in R&D, maintenance, and overhead - not a whole lot on support. They certainly wouldn't pay premium engineering or management rates for contracted phone support, which is less than pennies on the dollar. Bottom line is that whether you're talking about HughesNet or someone else, you get what you pay for, and you're not getting anyone's best and brightest when you make that phone call. The reason why it is contracted overseas is you can't even find domestic labor to support it for those low wages.

Conversely, that kind of user help should not be confused with the support provided by the admins on this site, who are a part of HN corporate management and attend to this site as time allows. They are exceptionally knowledgeable, courteous, helpful, and quite a bit more interested and involved in customer satisfaction (and hopefully tons more expensive) than contracted phone help.

Thanks for the quick response,  so if I understand correctly, the problem is that HughesNet has too many customers per ground station.  Since they'll never limit the amount of customers, they should add more ground stations.
Is there anyway to tell what ground station I'm using and the number of users hitting it?

I'm assuming snice you know these facts that HughesNet does also.  If there are any HughesNet reps out there
what are you doing to remedy this situation?   

"too many customers per ground station" - not necessarily the case. Too many customers doing server-intensive things simultaneously on a particular ground station's IP gateway is more accurate. A better analogy is everyone on the eastern seaboard turning on their air conditioning at full bore at the same time on the hottest day of the year until the grid collapses. Or more commonly, if you've ever seen your non-filament bulbs dim, it's your power company drawing down to accommodate the load. The grid was designed for that many people using electricity, just not that much of a spike at one given time. There is no remedy, per se, you just wait until the surge subsides. You also can't add more ground stations, because you would also have to add and aim more downlinks from the satellite to those additional ground stations (there are currently 17 of them), not to mention having to construct/procure the facilities to house them. You would also have to add beams to the current suite of 97 beams currently covering the country, then re-map all of them so it covers each area equitably. But this point is moot: The current capacity is the capacity. You can't just roll a repair truck into space to add new spot beams and ground station downlinks from what currently exists.

"Is there anyway to tell what ground station I'm using" - The ground station you're on is encoded in the IP gateway you're associated with. It's normally in the format J2xxxyyyHNSIGWzzzz, where xxx is the ground station location ID, yyy is the spot beam ID (for your general location), and zzzz is the particular IP gateway ID that you're currently associated with. You can find it on this page under Association Status. There's no way for you to know how many are loading your IP gateway, but if you feel it's being too sluggish you can try to re-associate to another less congested one by rebooting your modem (as I previously mentioned). The system will then attempt to pick the least congested IPGW available and put you on it.

Thanks for the great information!  I see you are not a HughesNet employee, but you should be, you know way more than anyone I've ever talked to in support.  So is ground station the same as a gateway?  Or does a ground station house one or more gateway IP addresses?  As for rebooting,  it's the first thing I try when things are going south.  And generally, the support person either has me do another reboot, or does it from their end.  So looks like I'm stuck with poor service until I can find another ISP.
Once again thanks for patience with me.