How long have you had HughesNet?

[GabeU]

I was just curious how long everyone has had HughesNet. 

As of Dec 5th it's been 15 years for me.  The Pro Plus legacy plan (425MB per day) from Dec 5th 2004 through Feb 2016, Gen4 from Feb 2016 through Mar 2017, and Gen5 since March 2017.  

Please refrain from posting complaints about HughesNet in this thread.

[maratsade]

I think since 2004.  The first plan I had, I got 300MB per day. I believe there was a free zone at some point, maybe from 3 am to 7 am, or something like that. 

[GabeU]

I think mine started out at either 350MB or 375MB.  There was no notice or anything when it went up to 425MB.  It was a nice surprise.  

The "Download Zone" was from 2AM to 7AM.  That free time sure came in handy, especially with things like upgrading from Windows 8 to 8.1 and then to Windows 10 when it came out.

[Silviron]

I've been on about as long as you guys, maybe not quite...  No idea when I started, but probably  2006..  And I've made no progress...  STILL on the Pro Plus plan.

[GabeU]

@Silviron 

Out of curiosity, is there a particular reason that you're still on an old plan like that?  Are you not able to upgrade to Gen5 at your location or do you just choose not to?

[Silviron]

In a situation where it has to be  self-install.

[MarkJFine]

I want to say I started with a DW6000 around '04 or '05 and have been through several upgrades since: DW7000 (although it may have been a 7700), HT1000, HT1100, HT2000W.

[Ricky]

I started with the DW6000. I guess it was around 2002 or about that. i have had a good experience since then. Sure I have had a couple hiccups but they were all resolved.

[GabeU]

I started off with a DW6000 as well, then upgraded to the DW7000, HN7000S, HT1100 and my present HT2000W.

The HN7000S upgrade was a little irksome, as my speed immediately dropped to about a third of what it had been, as in 300-400Kbps compared to 900-1000Kbps.  It eventually got back up to normal, then surpassed it, but it took a few months. 

[maratsade]

" DW6000 as well, then upgraded to the DW7000, HN7000S, HT1100 and my present HT2000W."

I don't remember if I started with the DW6000 or the 7000. I had the others, though.

I remember how painfully slow it was getting to https sites. LOL.  That improved tremendously with the newer modems. 

[GabeU]

@maratsade 

That's interesting.  I'd seen posts about https problems, but they were older, like you're describing.  I never had that problem, or at least not that I remember, but the one thing I did find a little annoying, aside of the aforementioned, short lived speed issue, was trying to use one of the free monthly tokens.  The speed would drop so low when I rant out of data that it often took me three or four tries just to be able to open the token page to use on of them.  It would literally drop to slower than dialup.  😛  

Thankfully, I didn't have to use a token very often.  Most of them were used when I would bring my folks' laptop to my house to update it, as they had dialup, and the Windows 7 updates were usually too large to perform in any reasonable amount of time with dialup.  I had to use a few when I upgraded my PCs to new versions of Windows as well, but that wasn't very often.

[maratsade]

Oh, it was absurdly slow to get to an https site.  Very memorable indeed.  I also remember how hard it was to use the token because if you were in FAP (which happened to me often at the beginning), it took a very long time to be able to get the token activated.  I think at some point I had decided to wait until the free zone and then add the tokens.  I think I can definitely say that back then, at times, the speed was slower than my AOL dialup account (and that one was pretty darn slow). 

[lighthope1]

I've had HughesNet since 2003 I think.

I remember when a single raindrop would knock out your interent for days.  I have to admit, today it takes a significant amount of snow to stop the signal from getting through.

On that note at least, HughesNet has done a massive improvement from 16 years ago.

[maratsade]

Ha ha, I remember that too! It was in the times of DirecWay, when weather had a massive impact on the system, but I think when Hughes took over, things began improving rapidly. 

lighthope1 wrote:

I remember when a single raindrop would knock out your interent for days.  I have to admit, today it takes a significant amount of snow to stop the signal from getting through.

---

[stevef]

I'll reach the 1st year now.

HugesNet as a company is excellent, they give discounts, their (after Cap reach) net speed is slightly better than our former Internet Provider's. Hughes has great customer service too. The Satellite Internet system has It's limits, but as a company I like them a lot. I can't complain and I wouldn't complain, because I think they are doing a great job. I'm planning to stay with them as long as possible. 🙂 I wish Hughes would start 5G system in our rural area. 

[maratsade]

I've been happy with them too, and with their customer service, which improved considerably from what DirecWay had, which was a bit rough around the edges. 🙂  I've had nice customer service reps who have done what they can with the limited authority they have, and the community kicked things up a notch with expert help from fellow subscribers and from the HN team on here. 

Lately, and possibly because it's the holiday season and more people may be at home using a lot of data and causing congestion on the beam, I've had measured speeds of under 1Mbps at times (if Testmy.net is to be believed), and while some things are a bit slooooooooow (big downloads are a nope, for instance), normal browsing and email work pretty well.   

[MarkJFine]

Noticed it started going wonky last Tues/Weds. I'm guessing that either someone bought something new that's using a f-ton of data continuously, and/or it's someone new on 68/SDO that's doing that. Eventually that person's going to get throttled. If it takes 20 days to get throttled, we'll know it was the latter.

How I know it was last Tues/Weds: I had two 3GB macOS updates, an iOS update, a 3.5GB Xcode update, a whole bunch of apps, a mac Office update, and a Win10 update all in one day - and all of it was much slower and sinusoidal than normal - even at 3am.

[maratsade]

Last night I tried to update the Mac with an OS update which was around 3.3 GB.  The Mac estimated the update would take 5 days (LOL), so I checked speeds and it was around 700 kbps (edit: that's almost 13 times faster than dialup, by the way).  This morning (around 8 am) the update went just fine, took about 10 minutes.  I also updated apps for a total of about 5 gigs, and they updated in 15 minutes.  Amazing. Must've hit just the right time.