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~300 kbps Speeds Up and Down: Service Is Virtually Unusable!

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jonagold
Freshman

~300 kbps Speeds Up and Down: Service Is Virtually Unusable!

Hello Liz, other moderators, and everyone else:

 

For the past week to ten days, our Hughes internet connection has been nearly unusable for much of the time.

 

Testmy.net -- when I have been able to access it without it timing out -- has shown typical download speeds of ~300-400 kbps and uploads in the same range. (Once I got a download result of over 1 Mbps.) That's ~300 kbps—less than half a Mbps! I would be delighted to have the speeds that some of the people posting in this forum are complaining about. I know that Hughes is experiencing heavy demands on its network with everyone working and schooling from home, but speeds in the range of 300kbps are ridiculous.

 

Needless to say, at these speeds, many web pages don't load; e-mail does not come in or comes in only rarely; I can't run a business; and my kids can't participate in distance-learning school activities through Zoom or even watch assigned YouTube videos.

 

After days of Hughes telephone tech support saying, “call back later,” I finally reached someone yesterday (3/24). With case no. 128245285, we discovered a few things:

 

1. Power cycling the modem did not help.

2. Turning off all devices except my computer made no difference to the speed tests.

3. Being on FAP status versus running on “high speed internet” service or tokens made no difference to the speed tests. In fact, after tokens were added to my account, my speeds actually got worse (if they could get any worse).

 

I was told to wait for a call back from higher-level support people, but I’ve learned not to hold my breath waiting for Hughes to call me back. So I’m hoping I can get some help here.

 

I’m attaching a few representative screen shots from the past few days of my speed test results.

 

I see the request to set up a testmy.net account and run more speed tests, but so far it has been impossible to set up a testmy.net account as the confirmation e-mail has not reached me.

 

We could really use your help, and the sooner the better. Thank you for your assistance!

 

Jonathan

 

Screen Shot 2020-03-21 at 8.41.19 AM.pngScreen Shot 2020-03-22 at 7.26.25 AM.pngScreen Shot 2020-03-23 at 10.32.26 PM.pngScreen Shot 2020-03-24 at 6.19.54 PM.png

29 REPLIES 29
maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV

May want to provide a link to your results page (as is required)  instead of individual screenshots.

 

*I am not a Hughesnet employee or representative. This is a customer-to-customer tech support community, and I am a customer.

That's ridiculous.  Even with the Hughesnet over populated instances at  the moment. 

Here's what must be an all-time record: a download speed of 19 kbps (effectively ZERO Mbps), upload of 138 kbps (0.1 Mbps). Plus another very similar result. Took half an hour to load this forum page.

 

"Your speed is 100% slower than your host average," says testmy.net.

 

Screen Shot 2020-03-29 at 10.51.48 AM.pngScreen Shot 2020-03-29 at 11.05.20 AM.png

What is your signal strength?

 

http://192.168.0.1 - > System Status

Satellite Receive Signal Strength is under WAN Info

 

What satellite are you on?

 

http://192.168.0.1 -> System Information

Satellite info is under Satellite

Name and Beam

 

Try also running testmy.net Latency test.  A lot of people will tell you that isn't a good test, but it is.  It's far more accurate than traceroute or ping.  Test won't be good if you have a bad signal, though.

Here's what I found: Satellite Receive Signal Strength: 123   

Satellite Name: EchoStar-17-NAD   

Gateway ID 3   

Beam ID 19   

Outroute ID 21   

 

Testmy latency tests don't make much sense to me (when they finally load), but it shows me this:   

4065.2 ms Average 109% deviation (4.4seconds!!)

Hi jonagold,

 

Thanks for posting. I pulled up your account and I see you have a dispatch scheduled for later this week to address your concerns. If you still have concerns after the visit, please let me know which site(s) (even if just one or two to test) are difficult to access and describe what happens when trying to access/use that site.

 

  Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

 

Thanks,

Liz

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

Hello Liz,

 

Thank you for responding.

 

I will certainly be back in touch after the site visit by the technician. But just so we are clear, our speeds are so bad at times that NOTHING works: websites don't load, e-mail does not download (and sent e-mail does not get sent), and basically everything grinds to a halt; it is not specific to any one site. This should not be surprising, with download speeds of nearly zero Mbps.

 

Many thanks,

 

Jonathan

 

I have the same problem, upload speed is from 8 to 200 kbps most of the time, lucky if i ever get to 1 Mb. I watch my Task Manager, Preformance for speeds. When I call into the tech support they agree that my speed is slow and they dial up the speed. That works for a few hours and then they dial back the speeds to 8-200 kbps. I think you already know that the testmy.net is a fake speed. Watch your task manager while the test is being run. All web sites, you tube, downloads all run at 8 to 200 kbps even though the speed test said I am getting 30Mbps.

Thanks for your comment. Actually I have been seeing the extremely slow speeds (under 100 kbps yesterday and today; typical speeds over the past week between 300-400 kbps) via testmy.net. And like you, tech support (when I can get through to someone!) seems to be able to increase my speeds (to, say, 5 Mbps), but that soon disappears.

 

I'm guessing that "Task Manager" is a Windows utility. I'm on a Mac, but maybe there is an analagous utility that I can use.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@genejohn2147 wrote:

That works for a few hours and then they dial back the speeds to 8-200 kbps. 


They don't "dial back" your speed.  It drops again because your beam channel load increases over time.

 


@genejohn2147 wrote:

I think you already know that the testmy.net is a fake speed. Watch your task manager while the test is being run. All web sites, you tube, downloads all run at 8 to 200 kbps even though the speed test said I am getting 30Mbps.


SMH.  Testmy.net is not fake  It gives legitimate service speed results.  You may want to learn about the difference between service speed and the speed of activities, like streaming and downloads, to understand why speed test results and the speed of those activities very often don't match and the latter is almost always lower.

Hello GabeU:

 

So, may I ask what are your view as to the larger issue, which is consistent Hughesnet speeds of less than 1 Mbps, sometimes nearing zero?

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@jonagold 

 

My view is that your speed is terrible.  Hopefully the tech visit will remedy the issue.

A Hughes tech contractor came out on March 23, three days ago. He replaced our indoor and outdoor equipment and re-directed our dish to the new satellite, Echostar 19. Our download speed went from close to zero Mbps to over 30 Mbps, a speed which we have never seen. 

 

This was very exciting for us. My next step was to be to call Hughes billing and request some sort of rebate for the profoundly sub-standard service that we had been receiving for months.

 

However, I thought I should wait a few days to see how things worked out before posting here. And indeed, as of today, our download speeds are back to near where they used to be: just above or below 2 Mbps. So we're still in the same boat as before.

 

Screen Shot 2020-04-05 at 4.44.58 PM.pngScreen Shot 2020-04-05 at 5.16.11 PM.png

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@jonagold 

 

For the sake of redundancy, have you checked to make sure that you are not currecntly out of plan data?

Yes, we are over our data cap allowance; but our speeds have been slow regardless of whether we were within or over our allowance.

 

Furthermore, for the past three weeks, Hughes has been reassuring its customers that they would not be slowed down if over their data caps in light of the COVID-19 pandemic ("we are increasing the amount of available capacity across the network and providing more data for users who have exceeded their data plan").

 

At the moment, notwithstanding our tech visit, we are back to where we were before, with almost nothing working.

 . . . and I was assured on the phone by Hughes top-tier tech support (who arranged for the tech site visit) after our service call that being over our data limit should not affect our speeds.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@jonagold wrote:

 . . . and I was assured on the phone by Hughes top-tier tech support (who arranged for the tech site visit) after our service call that being over our data limit should not affect our speeds.


That tech is mistaken, as this is not at all what they're doing.  When you run out of plan data you will still be throttled.  

Well I would not agree with that at all, I am currently in FAP, and getting 20mbs. So with that being said, and yeah I know all the traffic, location, beam, COVID-19 and all that jazz...isn't always the real answer. I see a lot of redundancy on a daily basis. There still may be an issue, and I am sure there is. I am not disagreeing totally on "system strain" but something else is Def an issue. I am not saying our issues were the same, but they were pretty much the same. And after our tech came out, replacing everything from dish and it's related components, to replacing our modem 3 times while here as some were dead out the box,  and aligning us with 19 instead of 17, we are where it should have been since day 1, which was 7 months ago. Now granted there are times when we see 14-18mb and its usually around same time each day, and that's totally fine as everyone should understand the congestion at certain times.  But, I can't always and won't always believe in the influx as the problem. But that's just me. I wish you well and hope that they can get you fixed up right @jonagold 

"To help improve your experience, with so many working and studying at home, we’ve increased the speed you receive if you exceed the amount of data in your monthly service plan. . . . These changes went into effect today to help improve network performance during this time of high demand." --Hughes, March 18.

 

Also, if you've read my posts, you would have seen that adding data tokens does not help.

I have read your posts about that and spoken with you in those regards to your issues. Was just trying to see if you had data tokens left or purchased any after this tech visit, to put the strain on the network to rest or if it was an ongoing issue. Again, I am currently in FAP and still have above 18mb, and I know each person's speeds will be different.