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Gen 5 'throttled' download/upload speeds are....

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bare65
Advanced Tutor

Gen 5 'throttled' download/upload speeds are....

...surprisingly faster than I thought they would be. Smiley Very Happy

Yesterday we added a 500MB (it was a freebie) token just to get through the day so that my son could download some new employment paperwork without any issues, but we quickly went through that by the end of the night.

 

Today we are running on full throttled speeds (during the 'anytime period') and I've chosen to ride it out given that we only have 2 days left before our data resets for the month. I'm on the desktop computer, my son is bouncing off the wifi (HT2000W modem) on his windows phone, and my daughter-in-law is occasioning checking her stuff on her andriod phone...

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This is the first time we have FAP'd since upgrading to Gen 5 and I have to admit, I'm pleasantly surprised as to how quickly the content / websites I've been viewing are downloading.

Even uploading this photo above was effortless...

I just watched a random 3 minute utube video (144 p lowest quailty) and the video downloaded immediately with no buffering...granted, at 144p quality, the picture wasn't all that great, but as a customer who upgraded to Gen 5 from Gen 4 / Spaceway 3/Hn9000 system, (with advertised speeds of up to 5 mbps) let me tell ya....being able to browse the internet, watch video content, and conduct business as usual when THROTTLED is, by far, much more than I would of been able to do if still on my old HN9000 / Spaceway 3 system.

I very much doubt, if I had been throttled back then on my old system, I would of been able to load ANY webpages, let alone watch video feed via my desktop computer or any other device.

 

Due to our very remote location, and not having any type of land line or cellular signal out here, I have always been concerned about running out of data and how the throttled speeds would impact us..especially during the daytime hours.

Would we be able to access the internet at all?

Will I continue to receive our email?

Would I be able to continue paying my online bills or communicating to family members via Facebook if I needed to get a hold os someone?

 

Obviously, we have plenty of 'bonus zone' data if the worst came to the worst I could jump on in the wee hours of the night/very early morning, but I am extremely happy to say that YES! during the daytime, I can continue doing all of this and so much more.

10 REPLIES 10
macsociety
Advanced Tutor

Your experience may vary depending where you are and if on a beam that is experiencing the late day blues or peak hour slowness some experience.

 

I was on FAP after just 9 days into my 20GB and during the day, I stay at a pleasant 1Mbps.... just enough to do the basics and even watch low rez video on Netflix.

 

If only this would stay constant after say 4PM to around 10PM where some on problem beams are probably like me, 150K download and 12k upload.. which means even web browsing stops basically.

 

If Hughes fixes this issue, I will be a happy camper as that was the whole reason I came back to Hughes, Gen 5, after having have left it when on Gen 4.  With Gen 4 FAP was like getting teeth pulled.  Very slow 128K.

 

So I am on the fence.... I see it can be a good thing I came back to Hughes with Gen 5 as duirng the day all is rosie... just between 4PM and 10PM on beam 55 stinks.  

 

Hope your beam stays steady and enjoy your service.

 

TJ

I ran a quick speed test and currently I'm getting 1.3mbps download..didn't bother with an upload test.

Like I said though, on our old system, the HN9000 / Spaceway 3 service (which was still considered Gen 4), if we had FAP'd, we would of been SOL as far as any internet service.

 

Because of our location, we didn't have much in the way of plan choices. We were limited to the 10GB anytime and 10GB bonus zone, up to 5mbps download speeds, up to 1mbps upload speed, package...and the HN9000 didn't come with Smart Browsing.

 

With our current Gen 5 throttled condition, I feel like I've simply been reverted back to my old Gen 4 / HN9000 daytime plan speeds, which, for many years, was good for us simply because we had no other means of internet out here...and still don't.

 

Personally, even Gen 4 and our HN9000 was a massive step up considering we used to be Wildblue customers back in the day ...which was downright horrible.

Our 10GB monthly data usage was on a 30 day ROLLING period..and back then I was homeschooling 2 boys, 9th grader and 12th grader.

If we exceeded our usage, which we did each and every month, we were forced to unplug our entire modem for several DAYS, until we fell back below the 70% mark just to be able to access the internet again, and even then, we had to be extremely careful with our usage. Unlike HughesNet Gen 4, our usage NEVER reset at the beginning of each month...it simply kept rolling along, day by day....whatever we used the first day would fall off the 30th day, and so on.

 

Not being 'born' into unlimited ANYTHING out here, I guess I just look at things differently...I'm grateful for having internet period, and even more grateful for being able to continue using it after I've exceeded my paid allowance.

 

 

 


@bare65 wrote:

 

Not being 'born' into unlimited ANYTHING out here, I guess I just look at things differently...I'm grateful for having internet period, and even more grateful for being able to continue using it after I've exceeded my paid allowance.

 

 

 


I live out in the sticks and what my friends and family often say is "that is the cost for living in paradise".  LOL.

 

Yeh, we chose to live in a more rural area and with that comes some loses.  Real internet has always been one for us.

 

I dream that Hughesnet irons out the afternoon into evening slow-up on some of our areas and I will be in "partial" heaven if we can have 24/7, even during FAP, 1Mbps speeds.

 

TJ

@macsociety

ahh yes, "that is the cost for living in paradise"..very familiar with that phrase.

 

Our closest gas station is 40 miles away (that's if we want to pay almost $4.50 a gallon...less if we drive an additional 50 miles), along with the closest emergency services (ambulance, fire dept, etc)..the closest grocery store (major chain, and/or Walmart) is 96 miles away..in ANY direction.

 

but we wouldn't want to live anywhere else..we love it out here in the middle of nowhere.

Satelite ISP has come quite a long way just in these past 10 years...and while it is not perfect or as fast as some may come to expect when the words 'high speed' are used, for us living in the boonies, this is, indeed, HIGH SPEED, especially when you compare it to the alternative of NO SPEED, lol

 


@bare65 wrote:

@macsociety

ahh yes, "that is the cost for living in paradise"..very familiar with that phrase.

 

Our closest gas station is 40 miles away (that's if we want to pay almost $4.50 a gallon...less if we drive an additional 50 miles), along with the closest emergency services (ambulance, fire dept, etc)..the closest grocery store (major chain, and/or Walmart) is 96 miles away..in ANY direction.

 

but we wouldn't want to live anywhere else..we love it out here in the middle of nowhere.

Satelite ISP has come quite a long way just in these past 10 years...and while it is not perfect or as fast as some may come to expect when the words 'high speed' are used, for us living in the boonies, this is, indeed, HIGH SPEED, especially when you compare it to the alternative of NO SPEED, lol

 


Ah, you win! hehe

 

We live about 20 minutes from town and our 1st gas station.  Main shopping is another 5 minutes up the road.  So, a trip to town is basically a hour round trip by the time you get your gas or whatever.  Still far enough that getting ice cream on a sunday night on a whim is not a quick thing to do so one needs to stock up on basics to save on gas, which we always don't do well at.  

 

Enjoy your Gen 5 service! TJ

I love this time of the year and welcome the chilly temps coming in for the main reason that this is the only time of the year that we can transport icrecream and other frozen foods/treats from the grocery store to our home without having to load up multiple ice chests and dry ice into our truck.

I picked up two, 5 quarts buckets of icecream, from Sam's Club the other day (approx. 104 miles from our house, one way) and they held up well over the 90 or so minute drive back home. Gotta have icecream with my homemade apple pies on Thanksgiving Smiley Tongue

 

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Sheesh, and I thought I lived in the boonies.   Up until about two years ago my closest gas station was about three miles, but now I have one right around the corner.  With that said, other than a few mom and pops shops and a local grocery store that is EXTREMELY overpriced due to them knowing they are the only choice for a lot of local people, our closest area that has anything sizeable, like a Walmart or anything like that, is about 20 miles, and anything more than that, like a mall, is about 30.  

 

On the FAP note, I hope that if I ever go into FAP I have the decent speeds a lot of people get rather than the not so decent speeds a few do.  I haven't been in FAP since upgrading to Gen4 in Feb 2016 (then Gen5 in Mar 2017).  I used to go into FAP on a semi regular basis with my legacy plan, but I almost always had a free token to use.  One in a while, though, it was a "wait until it resets" scenario.  In the nearly thirteen years I've had Hughesnet (12/02/2004) I've never purchased a token. 

I am a new Gen5 customer.  We've been on not quite a month, and my concern was the speed after the data plan was depleted.  So with a week to go, we hit the limit and are now "degraded".   The 20 day grace period was nice, but delayed my finding out the true "unlimited" speed.   I now have data and depending on what you may expect, can be good news or bad news.  For me, it's good.   We live at what I call "the edge of technology".   While only 15 miles from town and gas, stores, etc., we are 4.5 miles from the nearest DSL node.   At the end of the power line and no cell service.   When we moved here 2 years ago I asked around and was told Hughesnet was NOT good.    We opted for DSL, in spite of being beyond the so-called limit for DSL (distance).  We knew it would be slow, but were willing to accept what we could get.   We ended up putting in two DSL lines in order have what we needed.  Speed was about .5mbs download and .25mbs upload.  OK for most of what we needed, and we could actually stream a Netflix with only one or two buffers if everything else was shut down on that particlur modem.   Gen5 came out, and I researched what I could find out, and decided even if it delivered half of what was promised after being "downgraded" it was better that what we had.   And it is.   Consistent 1.75mbs download, and (I'm suprised at this) 2.5 - 3.5mbs upload.  Netflix streams just fine, and everything else is good.   3+ times faster than what we had, even when "throttled".   S0, there are some hard numbers for someone wondering.  The good news - we are saving about $45/mo over what were paying for DSL.  The bad news - a minor dusting of snow shuts it down, and we have to sweep off the dish.  I'm probably going to add some heaters to the dish if this is a really big deal this winter.  So far, I'm a happy customer.   Your mileage may vary, but it's working well for us.

I am having the same slowdown problem between 4-10pm.  For reference I live in western Washington. I am going to check out Wild Blue for better service.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@lostmtnman

 

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