Reflections of my recent upgrade to Gen5 from Gen4

[mrbrown]

A couple of weeks ago I called to upgrade from Gen. 4 to Gen 5. To my surprise, it didnt even require an installer to come out, Hughes shipped the new modem and everything was to be plug and play. Could even stay on same plan as I already had, just at a lot faster throughput.

I was originally on a legacy plan, and when upgrading to Gen 4, it was a nightmare. An installer had to come out, install a new radio and modem. Somewhere alog the way I was issued a new DSS#, but email accounts were still attached to the old legacy plan. All of a sudden I couldnt access email, and hughes solution was I would have to use a different name for email account, there was no way to move the old email account to the new plan. I called over and over again after about three weeks I finally got them to reactivate the email account, but it was a real hassle. The whole Gen 4 upgrade was.

So, after that ordeal, I decided to just stick with Gen 4, it was going to have to be fast enough (usually 1-2.5 Mbps download speeds). Well I called HN a few weeks ago to see what we'd have to do to upgrade, and made sure they wouldnt screw up my email accounts or issue another DSS#. The representative assured me I would keep the same account number, all emails would work just like they always have, etc. if I upgraded. Also, it didnt require an installer to come out for the Gen4 to Gen5 upgrade. HN would ship me a new modem and it would be plug and play. The old Gen 4 modem didnt even need to be shipped back, just throw it away.

ALmost sounded too good to be true. I like doing things on my own and usually can do a more professional job than the so called pros anyway.

The package arrived the next week, and it took about an hour to be up and running on gen 5. I turned off the built in wifi as I already have a wifi router in living room ran off of cat5e from the modem.(The modem is installed in our bedroom and I'm not crazy about being bombarded with wifi signals while I sleep, ok?) Anyhow, at peak time, on wifi, we have anywhere from 15-30 Mbps. Early morning speeds usually >25 Mbps. Upload speed around 3 Mbps. I have not tested speeds directly connected to modem via ethernet, but wifi speeds are fast enough to stream with no buffering.

I posted this to let others know how easy it was to upgrade from Gen4 to Gen5, same cost, only caveat is a new 2 year contract. I don't plan on going anywhere unless we ever get real 4G/5GLTE speed and coverage at home.

[prsmart]

Thank you for the post, as I have Gen 4 and I've wondered about Gen 5. So, to clarify, you are on the same plan as Gen 4 with same data limits and monthly cost? Just have faster speeds? Did it cost anything more to do the upgrade? Thanks-

[mrbrown]

Yes, and no. I was able to keep same plan and cost even with Gen 5. I decided to up to 20GB plan as it was only $10.

If I had known this was a plug and play from Gen4, I would have done it when Gen4 contract was up.

We have an Amazon prime account and a Roku, so it doesn't take long to use data up streaming, but had no buffering problems at all watching a movie on Prime with Gen5. I used approx 2.5-3 GB per hour though! Now on FAP the next 5 days, and it still seems faster than Gen4 was at full speed.

I think I said it in earlier post, the only caveat (for us anyway) is data cap. I understand WHY it's there, but it still sucks. It's expensive technology, with relatively small number of people to split costs. It is first truly high speed internet we've had. Yes, I do recommend you upgrade to Gen5 as long as you don't have other high speed options.