No longer a luxury

[carolynruth]

The internet is no longer just an intertainment or a baby sitter for the kids.  Everything is now depenndant on being able to use the internet. Other companies, such as Spectrum, have grown and rise to this chalenge.  Hughnet is not keeping up with the needs of its customers and is becoming a company that is unable to provide a reliable internet.  The cost is prohibitive. To the customers who have no other internet companies available, they are a parasite.

[maratsade]

To customers who don't have other options, HN is a Godsend. Without it, we'd have nothing. HughesNet goes to areas where other companies (such as Spectrum or Comcast) don't have interest in going.  Perhaps you should contact those companies and ask them why they don't want you as a customer, why they don't want rural customers in general. 

Spectrum is terrestrial, and expanding the network is relatively easy and cost effective to do. HN is satellite internet (as is Viasat), and expanding the network is a slow and very expensive process which involves building and launching satellites, as opposed to laying cable. 

While no one would disagree with you that the Internet is integral to our society and needed everywhere,  it is important to recognise the problem lies in the type of technology.  Satellite is a service for those who don't have access to terrestrial Internet. 

Instead of deriding a technology that fills a very needed purpose, your energy would go a much longer way if you focused it on getting your rural area to bring in terrestrial Internet.  Contact your local authorities, contact your reps in Congress and demand they  bring the kind of service you want and need. 

[GabeU]

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@carolynruth wrote:

To the customers who have no other internet companies available, they are a parasite.

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So one of the only two services that provide internet access to the people who terrestrial services don't think enough of to bother with is a parasite?  Yeah, that makes a lot of sense.

If satellite internet didn't exist, what would you do then?  Move?  

Considering geostationary satellite internet is by far the most expensive form of internet to provide, per capita, I'd say they're doing better than what the others don't provide at all.   

On a side note, most of the problems people have with this type of service are related to streaming.  Part of the problem is congestion and the other part is something that is completely out of their control... latency.  Thankfully, streaming is not a necessity, and if visual entertainment is that important there is always satellite TV.  

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@carolynruth wrote:

Other companies, such as Spectrum, have grown and rise to this chalenge.

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You may want to research the differences between the services and why Spectrum and those like it can easily "rise to the challenge", unlike HughesNet.

[MarkJFine]

Some would argue that the demand that steaming taxes the overall system is the actual reason for the congestion, so it's a self-destroying prophesy...

Did I say that out loud?

[GabeU]

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@MarkJFine wrote:

Some would argue that the demand that steaming taxes the overall system is the actual reason for the congestion, so it's a self-destroying prophesy...

Did I say that out loud?

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Yep.  LOL.

For months I've been trying to think of the term used to describe this situation, as in the problem being caused by the action itself.  I think "self destroying prophesy" pretty much hits the nail on the head.

[MarkJFine]

really, it's a spiral:
1: "I can't stream"

2: "That's because the congestion is too high"

1: "What causes that?"

2: "People trying to stream"

1: "Oh..."