Well, after 8 long years of Frontier Communication Service for so called High Speed DSL service at over $100 a month, my wife and I have decided to at least give HughesNet a try for the 2 year commitment. We are excided for a change of pace, we are excided to see what we hope to be speeds faster than the .5 to 1 mbps download speed we are achieving now. My wife does some Netflix, and I do a some Youtube, but nothing like streaming all day long. We have read a lot of posts, and done our research. I have turned down the streaming quality of Netflix as far down as it goes. We DO NOT need HD Netflix. We are also in due time signing up for Directv, thus allowing us not to even need Netflix. It should be mentioned that our dish/service will be installed this Monday (7/25/16).
I'm looking to hear some positives? It's so easy for folks to see ONLY negatives. I'm very computer savvy, and have actually been shaking my head at some of the negative posts on the site. I know I may get a lot of backlash for saying this, but honestly, if you are complaining of data leaks and have NOT checked your AUTO UPDATES, or your wi-fi enabled devices for accessing your wireless router, that's totally on the user and not on hughesnet. We have, in anticipation of the service, checked both cell phones to make sure all settings that want to allow access to wi-fi without our knowledge are turned off, and both computers and Playstation 4 have been taken off of auto updates. We also plan to shut our personal Belkin wireless router OFF when not in use, and turn it on when we get home or want to use hughesnet service. May even need to turn off the Hughesnet box as well we will see how much data our devices are eating up. We have ordered the ULTRA plan, 50gb anytime, 50gb bonus bytes. Up to 15mbps download. I would be happy with half that. But I have seen posts around that folks sometimes get 27mbps. It would be nice for a once in a while PS4 game update at 3gb, to take hours instead of 14-20hours to download like it is now with DSL.
Lastly, has anyone played Tom Clancy's The Division on hughesnet. I've been playing it single player, but would anticipate it running better on the faster connection through hughesnet. Single player connects to a server for saving and keeping data. This is the only "Online" game I play, and I play it as single player anyway. Thoughts?
Have a great day!
ericdanielle,
With regard to using Hughesnet for on demand viewing with DirecTV, I would be VERY careful. The problem is, once your DirecTV receiver is connected to Hughesnet, it will start using your data, whether streaming on demand or not. It will use the data to update the guide, movie descriptions, settings, and can even download occasional movies so that they can be viewed instantly, even though you never asked it to do so.
My advice is to never connect DirecTV to Hughesnet at all. Smart TVs, on the other hand, can be used for streaming through Netflix and other services without it using data for anything other than streaming whatever it is you asked it to, save for an occasional small firmware or app update.
It's great that you are doing your research and are being proactive in adjusting things so they don't use up your data. So often, as you've seen on here, that doesn't happen.
One thing you may not know of is that during your first 10 or 20 days of service, your monthly data will reset daily. This is done as a courtesy to enable you to update/upgrade your devices and download any programs you might need or want without it affecting what would normally be your data for the full month. So, during this initial time period, you practically have unlimited data (not really unlimited, but you get what I mean). After this initial 10 or 20 day period is over, your data resets will revert to normal. BUT, make sure to download the Hughesnet Status Meter to keep an eye on your data usage and remaining amount. You can download the meter at the following address...
You can sign in on that page and see your data usage, as well.
A third way to view your data is to go to the System Control Center, at...
I hope you have an enjoyable experience. If you ever need help or advice for your service, you've come to the right place.
Cheers.