This HS Sat internet is great. Except when it isn't.
I was a very happy customer for 2-1/2 years. Worked fine. But past 7 months - up to an including TODAY with good evidence (10 times more than the above suggested charts / screenshots) of 1/4 Gigabyte of DDDD in 4 hours. Once this past week over 2Gb disappeared in one hour
And I don't even have a ROUTER in the house. Very low tech small house. 95% of my use is as good reliable vista computer which uses almost nothing as to data for a day IF NO DDDD. No Smartphone. Dead zone for cell. AS I said, low tech.
I think something is badly broken inside Hughes and that they will not admit ANY of it. I know that is conclusory but it is NOT without a lot of evidence. Here, on this forum, it is clearly written that no one had ever proven Phantom Usage / Data Drain / Data Shrinkage / Data Loss / and the best moniker DDDD - Dreaded Data Drain Disease = “DDDD.”
The time it takes to TRY to get someone to listen with the accompanying records, data presentation is horrendous. I have DONE the above screenshots, to be told indirectly that “It’s the time zone.” “You don’t understand.”
Well, there were 8 zeros BEFORE the DDDD event and 5 zeros AFTER so even if I could not count nor add and subtract THREE (I am in Pacific time) something was still awry. I, too, have tried to plug my data “holes” and think I have done a thorough job. All my data loss, and it is an aggregate of probably 100 Gigabytes total, is WITH LAN CABLE DISCONECTED, hanging in the air.
Another time, taking up weeks, the conclusion was “It’s the router.” Great day. How about a course in remedial reading? EVERY TIME I reported the DDDD events and there were dozens, (to Frontier at first) I not only related that there was no router in the HOUSE, but I had the techs read back to me their notes. I did this, knowing that it SEEMED to be Hughes’ style to dismiss all of us as kooks or charlatans and IT / computer -ignoramuses. They are always all right We are always ALL wrong.
TO be clear, I am sure MOST of the data usage is indeed correct, that it is US, the customers, not being aware and having to face a large learning curve or just where our data is being chewed up. That said, it is NOT the case with me, and with what APPEARS to be some others out there. I wonder how much of a problem this DDDD actually is. If anyone inside Hughes actually suspects this and is in any way covering it up I would think that it would be criminal, not just a civil argument for arbitration etc. I do not mention this because I am at all interested in litigation I am not. I would just like to see this service work like it did for the first 2-1/2 years.
Recently, with good screenshots, I have “CAUGHT” data drain in the same hour I was legitimately connected and USING internet. It is a bit hard to prove, but I have done it several times. Well, I don’ think anyone at Hughes would accept anything as proof.
Now, I am a real Pollyanna, trusting believing. UNTIL SOMEONE smashes my toes several times. Then maybe I might get the idea you don’t have my interests at heart.
I doubt I can get anyone to listen, because all I get is dismissal, With one happy exception. There is one amazing Champion, with also the patience of Job, who is trying some other angles to present the case. He believes me. There is NO FRAUD here. No tinkering with the equipment. I want the TRUTH.
I have devoted probably 200 hours (admittedly not all of them efficient due to learning curve) and 1000 pages of records, a lot of them printed out - so I could intelligently communicate with Frontier tech and report the ongoing problem.
In the past 7 MONTHS I have been experiencing DDDD. 1/4 Gigabyte last night. I am NOT making this up. 2 days ago it was 2.3 GB.
Please, Champions, don't tell me to make the screenshots. I do that, and in spades. The red (DISCONNECTED) and GREEN CHECKS (you Champions known what of the SCC "Diagnostics to which I refer) are ALL WRONG. Horribly so. I am NOT connected when Hughes checks. I AM connected sometimes when the red X's indicate I am not.
If you want to skim over my story (don't read it - it will take too long and is about 37 pages in length) It is currently open. A case has been at Hughes open since mid-AUGUST. (I am indirectly a Hughes customer but subcontracted (if that is the right word) through Frontier. Frontier is excellent, however, except this time they are indeed slow about doing what Hughes directs which is to change to THIRD HT1100 modem. That will occur soon. Frontier has no ability to fix the high-tech part of any problem. However,. i have had LARGE DDDD with modem powered down (unplugged from the wall - which I very, very rarely do so Hughes can retrieve data if they want).
Not sure if this was worth the 1-1/2 pages of long read. Misery loves company? Well, I am not really miserable. Disappointed? Yes. Frustrated, For sure. It is nice to hear the DETAILS of someone else going through this same Internet from hell and to know I am not crazy and am not alone experiencing the difficulties.
Well, that’s my story. Not done yet. Hope it has a happy outcome. Hope springs eternal.
Larry Lewis
I know that Larry has been at this problem far longer than what it should have taken to drill down to the bottom of it.
There HAVE been some challenges and communication foul-ups along the way.
Larry originally was using a no longer supported hour-by-hour display that was clearly annotated as listing usage from the perspective of the eastern time zone .. and with Larry being in the pacific time zone a correction would need to be made .. fine no problem ..except we I had Larry to a test a a specific time local(PST) that action DID show up on that display, for him in PST, not eastern.
Go figure, that is a three hour discrepancy and three hours is a bunch when trying to correlate a users actions to remaining data. In the end, I thought it a rather moot point because that display is no longer accessible by normal means and is no longer supported anyway except perhaps by some remaining 7000 system users and there really are better tools available.
The next problem for Larry was .... what meter to use ? what usage history tool to use ?
For a "history" Hughes gives us this one:
Now the above display we have been told is "calibrated" to the users local time zone ...
That is what we users have been told, that is what the forum Mods have been told ....
And we are all human ...
It came to light that the display being calibrated to a users local time was indeed correct information ... except that none of us knew at the time that this DID NOT apply to "third party" subscribers such as Larry who receives his service through Frontier and that his display, at the time SHOULD have been based on eastern .... but all of Larry's usage tied up perfectly with the display being local to him ... that is pacific time.
Now it appears that that issue has been corrected for ALL users and the history display is indeed now "local" to the user.
Still a rather tortious path to just be able to "link up" a users actions to "the clock".
In the end, I have to say that Larry was correct, that for whatever unknown reason(s) his usage displays were showing his usage "local" rather than in eastern ... and they were, I worked that problem from every direction imaginable.
Larry just has an extremely unusual case ...
He has no router .. that in itself should turn this into a piece of cake .. and it isn't.
To the best of my knowledge, when a user follows this established procedure:
The practical effect of the above is to isolate the modem from the rest of the users "network" so as to rule out "rouge usage" (my term) on the part of the Hughes system.
When a user disconnects the LAN cable from the rear of the modem a 13.1.1 "error code" is thrown and the "event" is recorded in the modems logs for the period that the cable is disconnected.
With no LAN cable connected to the modem, it is 100% impossible for anything on the users side of the "network" be it simple or complex to use any data. Its as simple as that ... The user end or the Hughes end.
99.99% of data loss issue are going to be on the users "network" end ... it is so easy to overlook a app setting on a wireless device, to have virus/adware/malware on any device or even a issue with the router firmware itself causing problems.
These days one of the BIG ONES is Windows itself starting with Win10 and working backwards due to MS "backporting" some Win10 "telemetry" habits to Win7/8/8.1
This is all background stuff that that average user will likely not see.
But it does get us back to "clocks" ... an action by a user, occurring at a specific time, having an effect on their data usage .. now that IS the question.
Larry and I both went back and forth (and used up a lot of time and perhaps goodwill from Hughes) with just what was being reported "when" ... and "when" is what its all about.
With all the "back and forth" with this was in eastern and "that is local except" I thought I would take Larry in a new direction .... and that is as far as I know the same information that Hughes uses to VALIDATE a Modem Isolation test.
The modem is "tied" to Network Time which is based on GMT/UTC time format. Any events logged by the modem are available to Hughes employees.
There is an "offset" from UTC "network time" to a users local time so as to "tie" a given activity to some action on a users allowance.
In Larry's case (assuming no account "errors" his UTC offset (PST) of -8) just don't ALLWAYS match up:
If a user follows the above prescribed procedure of disconnecting the LAN cable at a specific time, for a declared duration, then that action should show up in the modems logs allowing a Hughes Employee to "validate" that all the users equipment was disconnected from the Hughes service for that defined period of time
If usage occurred during that time it is pretty obvious that there is something going on within the closed loop between the modem and the Gateway .. in other words it IS a Hughes problem.
If no usage occurs during that period, its definitely on the users end.
Now while the above procedure "reads bad" it is relatively simple and can give a "result" in just a few hours ... you just have to get the users "attention" and follow some isolation steps and eventually we can find the "leak".
Larry's is a very complex, well beyond the norm case.
For those interested in following along Larry's main topic can be found here:
I would ask that those that are interested please not comment within Larry's thread so as to not have an ongoing support effort "fogged" by comments not directly related.
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Is HN's stance at this point that their system is infallible and the problem has to be on Larry's end?
I can't speak for Hughes of course but I am guessing their "stance", if that's the proper word. is what it appears to have been since the beginning and that is:
The greatest likelihood of data loss is within the users own network. To that end a simple Modem Isolation test will quickly determine if the modem is using data on its own,
If the modem is only using data at a "heartbeat" rate then we have to conclude the usage leak is somewhere within the users network and there are users within the Community that can help with that.
I have never seen where Hughes has referred to their system as "infallible'" and I have seem many cases where modems were replaced.
Computers and networking are complex subjects and when they appear "broken" then troubleshooting is in order.
Sometimes that path is more difficult than expected.
Plan availability is based on two things ...
What "platform" you are on .... Spaceway (HN9000 modem) and Jupiter Gen4 (HT1000/1100 modems)
The less capable Spaceway3 system has "footprint" coverage across the entire lower 48 states.
The Gen4 system consists of 60 "beams" covering primarily the eastern half of the US and a little along the west coast. The "tan" areas in this map are Gen4 areas:
While the performance is much better on the Gen4 we have to consider that the coverage are is divided into 60 "spot beams" and a user must be within the footprint of one of those beams.
However we, as customers, are not equally distributed within each of those beams.
Some beams have "excess" capacity and therefore have plan options such as the 50/50 Ultra plan. Other beams are more densely populated with subscribers and there isn't enough capacity to allow the larger plans without bringing the speeds of all users in the beam to a crawl.
Plan offerings vary by capacity/location and platform: