COVID-19 and HughesNet...

[GabeU]

Though I understand there are situations out there where changes could help, I really hope that HughesNet doesn't do anything too drastic, or at least not data wise.  A lot of people are asking on various social media sites about abandoning the high speed data caps.  I simply can't imaging how bad the system would get were that to happen.  It could, and likely would, slow to an absolute crawl.  😞

[maratsade]

Exactly. There just isn't enough data for uncapped service, and those who are asking for it likely have no idea how limited satellite is, not to mention they'd be furious when things slowed down so much that no one could do any kind of internet work.  

[maratsade]

I hope HN will release a statement about this. 

[MarkJFine]

Dunno. It's a hot potato. If it were me, I wouldn't even touch it.

If you address it even with the technical reality that it's not actually possible, you run the risk of creating even more anger from the 'aww c'mon' people who think there's unlimited bandwidth everywhere.

Just imagine it being Sunday during football season, only everyday, and worse.

[maratsade]

IMO, it's going to create anger either way; might as well be open about it. Lack of transparency carries its own problems.

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

Just imagine it being Sunday during football season, only everyday, and worse.

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Exactly.  If that happened, some of those who knew about it and who would normally prioritize their activites might refrain from doing so and start streaming.   It wouldn't take a whole lot of streaming to create....  

[MarkJFine]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

Just imagine it being Sunday during football season, only everyday, and worse.

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All day, every day...

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

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@MarkJFine wrote:

Just imagine it being Sunday during football season, only everyday, and worse.

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All day, every day...

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Yep.  And it's only getting worse.  

[MrBuster]

You well know exactly what happens as you know a competing satellite service tried this with very painful results that were predictable, and predicted.

Without data caps to keep people conserving the limited resources, the service becomes unusable.  It is interesting how even charging only $3 per token GB is enough to keep people mindful of their consumption of a limited resource.  Having seen this happen before, I hope it will not be tried again here.

Thank you for bringing this important point forward.

[maratsade]

Yes, the other sat company tried it and it was disastrous.  Verizon tried it too, and from what I read on their tech community, it was pretty bad too, and people were out for blood.  I'm with you, I hope uncapping won't happen, becuase it'd be chaos. It's going to be bad enough with more people using the net and the usual suspects trying to stream all day; we don't need any more trouble. 

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@MrBuster wrote:

You well know exactly what happens as you know a competing satellite service tried this with very painful results that were predictable, and predicted.

Without data caps to keep people conserving the limited resources, the service becomes unusable.  It is interesting how even charging only $3 per token GB is enough to keep people mindful of their consumption of a limited resource.  Having seen this happen before, I hope it will not be tried again here.

Thank you for bringing this important point forward.

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[GabeU]

This ought to make it even more fun...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/media/universal-movies-streaming-coroanvirus/index.html

[maratsade]

Oh, lord.  

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@GabeU wrote:

This ought to make it even more fun...

https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/16/media/universal-movies-streaming-coroanvirus/index.html

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[ChrisBaker]

So don't do full unlimited? The caps are extremely frustrating. My kids need to do school work, I need to work. We aren't out here trying to watch Netflix, we're trying to do work. I can't avoid the data, there's no rationing or minimizing use, we're doing what we *have* to do, and my throttled internet is blocking that. This is the only internet service option in our area, the --only option--, when we get throttled with 10 more days left in the billing period it's a disaster.

The data token screen works like garbage, it's not clear to me what's going on.

With the price we pay compared to other internet options in urban areas, I find it unacceptable that I can't work, that my kid's online class materials won't even load. They need to do something with the caps. I get that we can't just slam the gates open, but business as usual is absolutely not adequate.

[maratsade]

They CAN'T.  The bandwidth available through the satellite is very limited and must be shared among all the subscribers.  Satellite internet is NOT like cable internet or other options in urban areas, so no, they can't up the cap. 

Xfinity is offering free hotspots.  See this post, and check to see whether there are hotspots near you. 

ChrisBaker wrote:

So don't do full unlimited? The caps are extremely frustrating. My kids need to do school work, I need to work. We aren't out here trying to watch Netflix, we're trying to do work. I can't avoid the data, there's no rationing or minimizing use, we're doing what we *have* to do, and my throttled internet is blocking that. This is the only internet service option in our area, the --only option--, when we get throttled with 10 more days left in the billing period it's a disaster.

[MarkJFine]

It's already starting to show the load at times.

Yesterday afternoon was awful.

[maratsade]

This morning isn't much better.  

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

It's already starting to show the load at times.

Yesterday afternoon was awful.

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No doubt.  The impact is already evident.  

[ChrisBaker]

They CAN'T what? I did not call for a full lift to the cap. I didn't actually call for any particular action, just something other than clamping down on people who are trying to get through this like anyone else.

We are already sharing the resources. All I had to do is click a silly little data token button and poof, I'm able to work again, back to equally sharing the resources with all the other users.

I will suggest an action now, which I'm sure you'll have some reason to disagree with: during work/school hours, it is certainly feasible to not throttle users to a point of unusability. Stop keeping track of bandwidth use during work hours, throttle everyone equally, as needed, to balance the load. In the afternoon/evening, back to whatever you have available on your plan, back to normal operation. If you shred your cap binging season 1 of Breaking Bad on Monday night, then you're SOL for the rest of the billing period -- except during the week during business hours.

Regarding Xfinity, oh heck no I am not near it. Not by 100 miles. You guys saying it's slow today..... after jumping through data token hoops, it's as good as it's ever been for us. Which is to say, just barely adequate to do work.

[maratsade]

"So don't do full unlimited? The caps are extremely frustrating. "

They can't do full unlimited. They can't raise the data caps. 

Edit: this is what they're doing:  https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/About-the-Community/COVID-19-and-Your-HughesNet-Service/m-p/12066...

[GabeU]

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@ChrisBaker wrote:

I will suggest an action now, which I'm sure you'll have some reason to disagree with: during work/school hours, it is certainly feasible to not throttle users to a point of unusability. Stop keeping track of bandwidth use during work hours, throttle everyone equally, as needed, to balance the load.  

They aren't throttling users to a point of being nonfunctional.  System load does that.  And wide open availability during the day would have the same affect as the same during any other time... digital traffic jam making it unusable for everyone.  The system doesn't have a throttle to X percent switch.  

Options on a system like this are very limited.  They're doing what they can.

[ChrisBaker]

I understand exactly how the technology works.

I don't know what kind of experience you have, but when Hughes decides we are out of data, it is absolutely nonfunctional. I can't get a github page to load, pulls and pushes fail and timeout, jira pages won't load.... it's not functional. It goes from barely adequate to effectively nothing. I'm not talking about just during the last few weeks, that's the end of every single month for us. We already can't wait for our contract to run out, carrier pigeons would be more worth the money than this is but I'm not paying a termination fee.

One time, we were throttled because my kids were home for a school holiday and ate up all the cap. I had to drive to a nearby city to get on a McDonald's wifi to push my code for the day. When I'm working from home and the kids are doing school from home, with the current caps in place, we'll hit that point weeks earlier. We've got 10 days in our billing period, we're already completely out.

This company charged me money for six months for modem lease while I was not living in my house due to a fire. I view it as the least they could do is ensure I can do my job.