Should I upgrade to gen5.

[k9vqr237a]

I have had gen4 for 3 years would it be worth up grading to gen5?  I live near west central Wisconsin.  My plan is for 50gb.  At times I  have a slowdown normally in evenings and Saturday morning. So would it be worth the upgade?  Or is gen5 and gen4 loaded about the same. Is there a good reason for me to up grade.

[C0RR0SIVE]

To be fairly honest, it sounds like you are on the old Gen4 Ultra plan which is like $90/m...  I personally would not upgrade!  Modem Lease is a bit more expensive, plus a similar plan will cost a good chunk more.  Add on that you might end up on the same satellite, it's just not worth it to upgrade in your situation.

Right now, I would say both satellites are evenly balanced in areas that have access to both.

[k9vqr237a]

Thanks for the reply's I will stay where I am I was reading what is going on inthe Messages from everyone and it seemed to me that everyone was having the same slow downs.  I at this time have no problems with gen4 outside of the slow downs and I can live with that.  I see the cost is higher with the new plan that is why I asked if you thought I should upgade.  I have been using it for over 3 years and have had very few problems except a receiver failure and they sent  me a new receiver which I installed and it fixed the problem.

Thanks again.

Archie

[GabeU]

@k9vqr237a 

Whether it would be worth it to upgrade to Gen5 really depends on how well your current Gen4 service works.  The evening slowdown if fairly universal on both services, but just like it does with Gen4, the significance of it varies from beam to beam.  The overall speed of the service varies from beam to beam, as well.  

How is your overall speed now, and how much does it drop during the evenings?  Do you tend to use a lot of your 50GB monthly data allotment, and if you ever run out of data, how is your speed while subject to FAP (Fair Access Policy)? 

Knowing how well Gen4, as well as your data plan, currently works for you will help to know whether upgrading to Gen5 would really be worth it.

One negative I can tell you about Gen5, at least for me and some others, is that the data compression doesn't seem to be as good as it is with Gen4.  Immediately after my upgrade I noticed that I was using more data than I did with Gen4, and it definitely wasn't due to having higher speeds with Gen5 (which I do have).  Depending on how much data you presently use, and what Gen5 plan you'd be able to get, the impact of this could vary for you.  

Edit:  As Corrosive mentioned, if you currently have the Ultra plan, which is the 50GB plan for $99 (?), the cost difference may be a big factor, as well.