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Beam 68 Update

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pswired
Junior

Beam 68 Update

@Liz, can you please provide an update on the current status of beam 68? I am still experiencing slow evening speeds, but good performance at other hours. Can you advise whether there is still a problem being actively worked?

 

For others following along, this is a continuation of the following threads:

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/What-s-the-problem-with-beam-68/m-p/81658

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/New-Gen5-install-on-beam-68-SLOW-evening-speeds/m-p/...

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/Fellow-Beam-68ers-part-II/m-p/83408

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/Fellow-Beam-68ers-it-s-speeded-up/m-p/83849

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/Fellow-Beam-68ers/m-p/82848

 

53 REPLIES 53

Hey Liz, 

 

Anything new on beam 68?  Still looking for some kind of relief to our slow internet.

 

Thanks,

 

Bill

Hi Bill,

 

Thanks for checking in. We don't currently have any updates to share, but once we do, you'll hear from us. If you haven't started your own thread, I would suggest doing so and including your testmy.net results URL, we have to make sure that anyone we escalate has gone through troubleshooting and has speed tests. We're not escalating anyone who happens to be on the same beam.

 

Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.

 

 

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!

dwhoule
New Poster

Hello,   For folks in your situation, Hughes is actively setting up processes to open up new capacity in several Gen5 regions. This expansion will optimize performance across the entire network. We weren't given any time frame for when this will happen or be complete, but once we have any additional news to share, we'll let you know.   -Liz
 
Thanks for the update Liz.
 
Unfortunately, I need, and am paying for, consistent bandwidth today, not someday in the future.  One thing I've learned over 30 years developing satcom (TDRS & AEHF) and telcom engineering solutions is that a task with no schedule has no completion.
 
I'll request a modem return box.  Perhaps if more beam 68 users cancel their service, the service will improve for the beam 68 users who continue to pay for erratic bandwidth.
 
- Dennis

My Beam 68 troubles have not ended, but I find it strange that my speed tests using the Hughes site seem to have dramatically changed for the better.  Now showing I am getting 25mbs or better at all times.  Mean while, if I use any other test service within minutes of testing on Hughes, I show a max of only 4mbs.  Sounds hinky to me.

 

The only reason I even run a speed test is because my service is so slow.  Too see my Hughes speed test showing all is well seems disengenious at best.  See my attached screen shots.  Please note, for whatever reason, the speed test on Hughes show up as 3 hours earlier than actually performed.  All these tests were within minutes of each other, not 3 hours apart.  

 

Is anything going on to fix beam 68 or am I just pouring money out for 4mbs while being charged for 25mbs or better?

 

Frustrated....

Hughes Net Speed Test 01-19-18 10-25am.PNGTestmy 1-19-18 10-29am.PNGTestmy 1-19-18 10-30am.PNG

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@Foygroup

 

This reply isn't concerning your speed issues, but instead the ads seen in your pictures.  Ads can use a good deal of your data, and every MB matters when you have a service with a soft data cap.  You should consider installing an ad blocker, like Adblock Plus or uBlock Origin.  The former is the most popular, but both work well.  They're also both free.  

 

And though ad blockers aren't going to help with your overall speed, they can have the effect of webpages loading a little more quickly, as they no longer have to load the ads.  

 

With regard to your speed tests, it has been noted recently that testmy.net is having issues with HughesNet, so contrary to what has been instructed for a long time, please avoid testmy.net.  Feel free to try other speed tests, like speedtest.net.  I've been trying speedtest.net lately and it's been giving me fairly accurate results.  With this said, please avoid fast.com (Netflix's speed test), as it mimics streaming and causes the Video Data Saver to engage, skewing your speed test results.  In addition, if you turn the VDS off to make it more accurate, fast.com uses a tremendous amount of data for its speed tests (upwards of 80MB or so), so again, it's best to avoid it.  

Thanks for the response Gabe, I will look into adblockers. 

 

Testmy is the only test results I pictured, but I actually used speedtest.net as well and got similar results.  I will re-run my tests and do new results.

 

My speed is so slow that most items in my house that rely on internet don't even operate. I have several echo dots that just says, "Sorry, I've lost connection to the internet" on most occasions.   I have a Nest thermostats that more often than not will say, "Off Line" when I go to check my house temps or make changes.  I have Nest smoke and carbon detectors that say, "Off Line".  I have a roomba vac that says, "could not connect to roomba, please try again later".  But when I get up for work at 3:00am, everything is working just fine, till I get home from work and I'm sent back to the sixties and my Amish neighbors have more tech than I do.

 

I check my speed on Hughes, which seems to take forever to run, but shows me results of 25mbs or better at the same time as I'm getting all the messages that my whole house is off line.  Even getting to websites to do other speed tests is slow, only to find out I am getting anywhere from .5mbs to 4mbs at the time on other sites.

 

Mean while, I see all these awesome commercials talking about blazing fast internet through Hughesnet.  I have a smart house that is basically pretty dumb without connectivity.  I'm not out of data, just to be sure, I pay extra for the 50gig plan.  Still, not much happening at home. Hence the frustration with the service.

Keep in mind that the more things that are accessing the satellite, the slower it's going to be.

 

I used to have about 13 things hanging off it and it slowed to a crawl until I took off the DirecTV boxes, the Smart TV, and other things from being on it all the time. I now only connect devices that expect continuous internet to when I think they should be using the internet.

 

Another thing that will slow you down is not having the right wifi protocol set for each device, or if it's too far from the wifi router. Both may unduly restrict bandwidth, and therefore speed. Being too far away from the wifi router may likewise require numerous packet resends to overcome data errors . That will not only slow you down, it will increase your data consumption as well.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

I should also add, that if you need an estimate of the wifi signal level wherever a smart device is, there's a handy signal meter in the HughesNet phone app. Because antennas on different devices are not going to be the same it may not be 100% accurate but it may give you an idea if a device is in a dead spot or not.

 

All you need to do is:
1. Switch your phone's wifi to the 2.4 or 5GHz channel that the device is using.

2. Start the HughesNet app.

3. Walk to the location of the device in question.

4. Choose the Wi-Fi tab on the app.

5. Clicking "Begin Test" should give you an indication of the wifi signal strength on the Gauge.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@MarkJFine

 

I just installed the Hughesnet app on my new phone last week and found the signal meter part of it.  It's definitely handy.  It showed me a specific part of my house where the signal seems to drop a good deal, and that's important to know.  

Let me be more specific about my setup.  I am not using wifi from the hughes device.  I could not get good signal throuhout the house.  Instead, my smart hub is hardwired directly to the hughes router.  It sits within 10 feet of the hughes router connected via a Cat6a cable.  All the smart devices in the house are connected not via 802.11 wifi, but using Zwave.  The Zwave network is a mesh network which allows all the smart devices in the house to talk to each other as a mesh so as long as each device is within say 75 feet of the next, all should be well.  In reviewing the stats on my Zwave hub, none of the devices looses attachment or signal to the hub.  What happens is the hub (which is directly connencted to the hughes router) looses connectivity or does not have enough bandwidth to transfer data to and from the network.  The amount of traffic passed by the Zwave hub to the internet is very small (only on and off status or temps and such), I do not have video from either my TV or security cameras transfering over my hughes connected internet.

 

Back to my original issue.  When I do try to use the hughes service for things such as mobile banking, access to email, web browsing, and heaven forbid, netflixs, my services run so slow, I typically end up turning on my hotspot on my phone and just use it.  Keep in mind, this is not all the time, for example after midnight, I get all the speed I want and more.  Typically during the work day when most people are in school or work, I tend to get pretty good speed as well, nothing to complain about there.  

 

Its only after 3pm thru midnight that my service seems to slow to a crawl, less than 2mbs typically.  I know this is not a wifi issue as I have my computer hard wired to the hughes router and I have the wifi router radios turned off so there is no interference with other devices or stray signals in my area.  

 

Since this service drop is predictable and replicable, I can honestly say its not an issue with my network in house, but only the hughes network.

I am having trouble connecting Nest smoke detectors. The first one connects fine but I can get any other ones to connect. I get a timed out error. Is that the same problem? 

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@JWP524

 

Your best bet to get help with this issue would be to start a new topic in "Third Party Products", which you can do here.... 

 

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/forums/postpage/board-id/ThirdParty