Extremely slow Internet.

[Landon_Robinson]

Hi, I am having a problem with extremely slow Internet, your website says that emails will be replied to within 24 hours but I have not received a single reply to any email that I have sent the company, and no they are not in my spam folder.

A litte background on myself... I am a professional electronics technician I do componet level circuit board repairs including SMD/SMT, for a little while I was a Tier-3 technician for what is now Century Link, and I worked at three different "Help Desks" for major companies for a total of around 17 years, I also build PCs, fix laptops, and whatever else happens to come my way.

So... my PC which runs a version of Linux worked just fine in Portland on an 85 meg DSL line, as did my Android phone and my laptop which also runs Linux, over a year and a half I had zero problems there, and then I moved out in the middle of nowhere and you were my only option, when this was first hooked up your service was slow but it worked and I barely used it while I was getting moved in...

But now I am moved in and trying to do what worked fine in Portland on the DSL line and everything is extremely slow, Netflix just sits there and spins it's red swirly thing sometimes for several minutes then the video finally loads then a minute or so later it buffers again and sometimes up to ten minutes later it will finally load the video again, other times it gives me an error to check my Internet connection.

YouTube doesn't take as long to load videos but about every 5-10 seconds buffers and is completely unwatchable, it is so unwatchable that I resorted to playing from my MP3 collection, it has also told me to check my Internet connection.

Amazon Prime Video I have only tried to use once, after sitting there for a while it gave an error and asked if I wanted to wait longer for the video to load, I said yes and then after waiting a while it gave another error that my Internet connection was too slow to provide stable video streaming and then just like YouTube if buffered over and over, it is not watchable.

Once in a while my PC will actually give an error that my Internet connection has been lost, my PC is plugged directly into your modem with an industry grade Cat6 cable and is not going through any other devices, I have tried the onboard Ethernet jack and the PCI Ethernet card and they both do the same thing, I also tried the other ports on the modem.

Normal websites take several minutes to load and usually just stall and I have to hit Reload, even the hughesnet.com website just slooooowwwwwllllllllyyyyy loads the pictures and about 2-3 minutes later the "My Account" button will finally show up.

My laptop and Android phone are both going over WiFi and are connecting at 72 megs and are both experiencing the same problems that the PC is, everything has been rebooted and I have run the required speed tests which oddly look fine (see below), but weirdly enough the best that this has ever worked was during a blizard when the dish was covered in a thick sheet of ice things were loading as well as they ever did on the DSL line in Portland and then once it warmed up and the ice melted off the dish things went back to being slow again, my theory on that is that my dish is not aligned just right and the thich sheet of ice was accounting for that and realigning the radio beam correctly.

While trying to watch a 3.5 minute music video on my phone (via the YouTube app) the download status bar was barely keeping up with the video % bar, the download bar stalled several times and then eventually the video caught up with it and the buffering started.

Also... Netflix and YouTube have their video quality turned down as low as they will go and they are still buffering.

Anyway here are the speed tests, please do whatever you can to fix this.

:::.. Upload Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Upload Connection Speed:: 1954 kbps or 2 Mbps
Upload Speed Test Size:: 1.2 MB or 1224 kB or 1253376 bytes
Upload Binary File Transfer Speed:: 244 kB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/cPJ_6pFMk
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/quickstats/lrobinson0615  https://testmy.net/compID/14725687484652
Test Time:: 2021-03-04 18:49:07 Local Time
Client Location:: Yakima, WA US https://testmy.net/city/yakima_wa
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas.testmy.net
Client Host:: Hughes Network Systems https://testmy.net/hoststats/hughes_network_syste
Compare:: 7% > client avg, 46% > host avg, 62% < city avg, 90% < country avg, 88% < world index
1MB Upload in 4.2 Seconds - 1GB Upload in ~1 Hour
This test of exactly 1.2 MB took 5.132 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.182 Safari/537.36 [!]

:::.. Download Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 39552 kbps or 39.6 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 45.5 MB or 46609 kB or 47727513.6 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 4944 kB/s or 4.9 MB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/DXNBK3s_b
TiP Measurement Summary:: Min 34.28 Mbps | Middle Avg 40.9 Mbps | Max 45.01 Mbps | 23% Variance
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/quickstats/lrobinson0615 https://testmy.net/compID/14725687484652
Test Time:: 2021-03-04 19:47:42 Local Time
Client Location:: Yakima, WA US https://testmy.net/city/yakima_wa
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas.testmy.net
Client Host:: Hughes Network Systems https://testmy.net/hoststats/hughes_network_syste
Compare:: 9% > client avg, 90% > host avg, 19% > city avg, 42% < country avg, 27% > world index
1MB Download in 0.21 Seconds - 1GB Download in ~4 Minutes
This test of exactly 45.52 MB took 9.661 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/88.0.4324.182 Safari/537.36 [!]

[maratsade]

To have speed issues addressed in this community, first you will need to follow the procedure detailed here: https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/Think-you-have-slow-speeds/m-p/110034#M74607

Pay particular attention to the required file sizes. 

The only URL you need to post for your speed tests is this one:  https://testmy.net/quickstats/lrobinson0615

[Landon_Robinson]

OK, I have run numerous speed tests at the "25 Meg" size, my WiFi has been turned off this entire time (both bands), I am not going through any other routers or switches and am using a Cat-6 cable plugged directly into the modem, and I have tried other ports on the modem.

The link for that is here: https://testmy.net/quickstats/lrobinson0615

And at least on the surface things look fine but... when I used to tech support for what is now Century Link any pings that were higher than 300ms were considered bad and someone needed to take a look at things, with that being said... I can ping my modem which is 0.xxx ms, I can ping my gateway which is also 0.xxx ms, but as soon as I get past the gateway I am getting roughly 600-1200ms returns that are coming from within the HughesNet network.

"traceroute to www.hughesnet.com (34.197.164.140), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 _gateway (192.168.42.1) 0.221 ms 0.232 ms 0.256 ms
2 host-67-45-0-1.hnremote.net (67.45.0.1) 655.225 ms 655.202 ms 655.240 ms
3 host-67-45-5-5.hnremote.net (67.45.5.5) 655.217 ms 1284.667 ms 1284.642 ms
4 host-67-45-5-33.hnremote.net (67.45.5.33) 1284.688 ms host-67-45-5-4.hnremote.net (67.45.5.4) 1284.716 ms 1284.693 ms
5 4.16.168.17 (4.16.168.17) 1358.411 ms 1358.388 ms 1358.420 ms
6 ae-2-3615.edge1.Dallas2.Level3.net (4.69.209.110) 1402.262 ms 823.377 ms 823.346 ms
7 99.82.183.120 (99.82.183.120) 823.398 ms 643.962 ms 1040.475 ms
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
"
I have some online classes coming up soon that I need to take that will require a working video streaming capable Internet connection and I need this fixed as soon as possible, I do not have the option of going to a friends or neighbors house to do this.

[GabeU]

@Landon_Robinson 

Latency of 600ms - 700ms is typical with geostationary satellite internet like HughesNet, both because of the round trip distance and infrastructure, though upwards of 1000ms or more on anything more than occasion is high.  

Hopefully they'll be able to determine why it's hitting as high as it is.

[Landon_Robinson]

I just received an email today from Hughesnet asking if the reply to my question had solved my problem?

I'm going to say with a resounding NO IT DID NOT!!! Good lord, real the previous reply and tell me if you think if solved my problem.

Speaking of, when is someone to look into this as I would really like it fixed?

What I have figured out so far is that the "Gateway" is actually at the Hughesnet ground station and since I can ping both my modem and gateway from my PC with 0.xxx ms returns that my connection to the modem, through the satellite, and all the way to the gateway are fine, the slowness problems are being caused by something beyond the gateway.

And if I had to guess I would say that Hughesnet has oversold their service and there are way too many customers going through inadequate bandwidth and it is bogging everything down, and I am not alone if you dig through all of the issues that were posted here for the last month or so you find the following...

VERY slow email access
Extremely slow internet
Slow Speed HELP
Extremely slow Internet.
...slow to no connection
Erratic speeds and poor connectivity
No Internet Connection
...Delay Problem Continues
No Internet Connection
Slow speeds with...
I have low speeds
Crippled internet...
Unable to get a reliable connection
Horribly slow speed with...
Extremely slow download speeds...
Internet and Phone Randomly Dropping Every...
Buffering issues
almost unusable internet speed...

18 other people all having issues with their Internet being way too slow, please get on this soon.

[maratsade]

Your speeds looks to be way above  the advertised 25 Mbps, so not sure what kind of "speed help" you're looking for, as your speeds are not "almost unusable internet speed."  Satellite internet is sensitive to congestion, and congestion is easy to reach, especially during prime time, and also (not saying this is your case) if you have many devices connected to the wifi.

The issues you have listed seem to be just the speed issue relisted using different words. Given that your speeds are not slow for the service, and in fact are faster than advertised, there doesn't seem to be a problem other than you may be expecting cable internet when you have satellite internet. 

[Damian]

@Landon_Robinson,

Thank you for posting. After running diagnostics on the equipment, it appears there was inclement weather at the gateway location around the time you ran your tests. This will most definitely cause bigger spikes than normal. I know this is true due to the fact that the current speed test that I just ran showed results well above average and the latency you are receiving is within the normal range now. When checking your current gateway location, the weather is normal and the skies are clear. I also see no network or current equipment issues. In regard to the load on the system, it is no secret that congestion has always been present in some capacity. We have continuously made efforts and tangible strides towards improving this. Of course, a pandemic of this magnitude was not foreseen and the load on the system was an extreme challenge. Over the last few months alone, we have made great efforts to combat the extreme load, which is why you are able to receive the speeds you do now.  

I would also have to agree with @maratsade in regard to the expectations you place on satellite service. If you are accustomed to cable internet or DSL speeds higher than 25 Mbps, the speed for HughesNet will feel much slower. This is due to latency. With this satellite service, data must travel up to the satellite and back (about 45,000 miles). This does create a greater delay that is not present with common terrestrial-based providers. When it comes to the services you are used to, the signal is ground-based which makes these types of services feel faster, and in most ways they are.

With all that being said, I will continue to monitor you service over time and if these type of spikes return without reason, we will investigate the issue and resolve it. If you would like some tips to improve your streaming experience and other daily activities with the service, you have come to the right place. Please don't hesitate to ask for this, as there is a plethora of information to be gained on this community. 

-Damian 

[Landon_Robinson]

Thank you for getting back to me, sorry for my frustration but it has been two months now and this still does not work as well as I would like it to, and as I mentioned before I have some online classes that I need to take and I need this to work.

I did a lot of research before I signed up for this mainly because of the two year contract as I didn't want to get stuck with something that sucked, and everything I read said that Netflix was supposed to work fine with Hughesnet so I signed up for this.

A while back I (long story short) had a 3 meg line (yes 3) with Comcast, YouTube, Netflix, etc. all worked fine and I had no issues with any of them so I know what 25 megs should be capable of, regarding my Internet loads I have one PC, one laptop (that is rarely turned on), and one cell phone (that is also rarely used), I do not have any roommates and I do not share my WiFi with any of the neighbors (who would be too far away to pick it up anyway), and the neighbor's cat that visits me occassionally does not get online.

I agree that the speed tests look amazing but I don't think that they are telling the whole story, so again... the problems that I am having are that when I click on a Netflix program it will sit there for as long as five minutes before I even see one frame of video, YouTube will start a video and then 10 seconds later it buffers, then a little more video, then if buffers again and again and again, even normal websites just sit there and take forever to load even the Hughesnet.com website takes nearly 1.5 to 2 minutes before it finishes loading.

Web pages don't work right they either stall or links do not work when I click on them and I have to reload the page, and constantly having to reload pages is eating through my data allotment, even auto-correct is usually around eight words behind where I am before the red underline will show up, on DSL it was fairly instant.

And also regarding Netflix and YouTube I have the video quality turned all the way down and they still buffer.

And one final thing... a while back we had a really bad snow storm where the snow was really coming down, my dish was completely covered in a sheet of thick ice and it worked absolutely amazing like the fastest that it has ever been, I was expecting the transmit/receive lights on the modem to turn off and everything to stop working, I have no explanation for that.

So... with all of that being said what advice does anyone have to try to get this to work right?

[maratsade]

If there's congestion you may not be able to improve the experience; congestion coupled with the latency that's normal for satellite internet will slow everything down. The next time you have a problem, go to this modem page and note the number next to State Code. It should be 0.0.0, but sometimes there are other numbers and they indicate different issues.  Weather at the ground station or in your area can also cause issues, though sometimes, as you noticed, some weather may make the system work better. Ice normally makes it stop working for me, but in your case it was different.  

Was satellite internet your only option?  Keep in mind that Comcast, Verizon, and others are all terrestrial, so their latency is minimal -- comparing them to satellite internet is not a good comparison. 

[Landon_Robinson]

I live out in the middle of nowhere now instead of in the core of the city I had been living in, nobody provides "cable anything" out here and while Century Link does provide phone service out here I live too far away from the equipment to get DSL to ever work, I also live so far from the nearest cell tower that my cell phone does not work out here either, so yes satellite Internet is my ONLY option for getting Internet out here.

Thank you for the link that was helpful, my only question is regarding the "Satellite Receive Signal Strength" what number range should that be in? Right now it is reading as "108".

[maratsade]

Sadly, the big terrestrial companies don't find the rural areas appetising. I'm glad to have satellite internet, otherwise I'd have to move. I have Verizon availability, but there aren't many towers here and so Internet access is substandard (and expensive) and the phone service unreliable. 

I don't know what the signal range is, but I believe anything over 90 is excellent. Maybe someone else will have an actual range.  EDIT: optimal signal strength varies by location, so for some locations 75 would be normal, and for others 100 would be normal. Your signal strength is excellent, though.  

[Landon_Robinson]

I am still having problems with things but overall things DO seem to be better...

YouTube - Most of the time it seems to work fine and the download % is staying ahead of the video %, but sometimes it just buffers around every 10 seconds or so and the video is unwatchable.

Facebook Messenger - Sometimes when I try to send someone a message it just sits there and never goes through, the little circle that is supposed to turn into a check mark just stays blank, if I try to reload the page the message that I just typed is gone.

Facebook Videos - Posted videos and/or Live streamed videos buffer unendingly and are completely unwatchable.

Twitch - Live streamed videos buffer also unendingly.

Amazon Prime Video - It takes a minute or so to load the video and sometimes I get errors to check my Internet connection or that I have a slow connection and it wants to know if I want to continue waiting?  Once the video loads it buffers every couple of minutes for about ten seconds.

Netflix - Videos take about two minutes to load and then they seem to be ok, once in a while they will buffer for ten seconds or so.

And I understand what someone was saying about the signal taking a 45k mile round trip from me to the satellite to the ground station and back but... radio waves travel at the speed of light which is 186,000 miles per second, the satellite (Echostar 19) is 22,300 miles in orbit with a signal round trip of 44,600 miles which if you do the rough math the round trip is taking something of just under a quarter of a second which corrisponds with the fact that I can ping my Gateway (the Gateway is at the ground station) at 0.4xx ms.

Which brings me back to (I mentioned this in a previous comment)... the problems that I am having are at the ground station AFTER my Gateway, you fix the problems that are going on there and I will magically stop complaining.

[GabeU]

@Landon_Robinson 

Remember, the latency is round trip.  From you to the sat, then down to the gateway, and onto the net, then back to the gateway, up to the sat and back down to you.  So, it's really four legs of distance travel.  Roughly 89,000 miles, but a little more, being that neither you or the gateway are on the equator, directly under the satellite.  

Unfortunately, problems after the gateway are out of their hands. 

[Landon_Robinson]

That is true that the distance will be further since neither I or the gateway are directly on the equator, I live somewhat north of the "45th Parallel", but still the round trip of 89,000 miles is going to be something around half a second, but going back to what I was talking about before... if I can ping my gateway at 0.4xx ms the problems should not be on my end.

[maratsade]

Latency for satellite internet is about 500-600ms.  That's for the round trip, but that's  not the only thing to influence your experience. You will need to take into account the added issues caused by Internet latency and beam congestion. 

Landon_Robinson wrote:

That is true that the distance will be further since neither I or the gateway are directly on the equator, I live somewhat north of the "45th Parallel", but still the round trip of 89,000 miles is going to be something around half a second, but going back to what I was talking about before... if I can ping my gateway at 0.4xx ms the problems should not be on my end.

---

[MarkJFine]

---

@Landon_Robinson wrote:

That is true that the distance will be further since neither I or the gateway are directly on the equator, I live somewhat north of the "45th Parallel", but still the round trip of 89,000 miles is going to be something around half a second, but going back to what I was talking about before... if I can ping my gateway at 0.4xx ms the problems should not be on my end.

---

A ping is essentially a singular event and measures the round trip access time for that one event.

Accessing a web site or streaming server just for one access may be several events, depending upon additional content (images, stylesheets, javascript, etc.) and/or secure authentication processes, which in iteself is a multi-access event due to handshaking. So more complex than a ping, and the latency effects are cumulative.

[Landon_Robinson]

As I am writing this I am waiting on a 13.9 meg video to download and I am downloading it (via Facebook Messenger) because my connection is so slow that the video refuses to play, and it took 11 minutes to download it and another video sent by the same person earlier today was 9-ish megs and took around 5 minutes to download, with a 25 meg connection I should have been able to download both of these in under 5 seconds.

YouTube also refuses to play videos I get about a half second of content and then 10 seconds of buffering, I just had to let the video sit there until it was finally done loading which took around five minutes and then let it play, this video was only 23 seconds long and I have the video quality set as low as it will go.

Netflix has gotten better and now only takes around 30 seconds to start playing instead of waiting two minutes.

Amazon Prime Video is still telling me that I have a slow connection and asking if I want to wait longer? Then it just freezes and nothing loads, I hit Reload and it starts over doing nothing for nearly 10 seconds and then things will finally start playing around 30-45 seconds later.

Pings to my Gateway still look fine but beyond by gateway things are still bad...

traceroute to www.hughesnet.com (34.197.164.140), 30 hops max, 60 byte packets
1 _gateway (192.168.42.1) 0.465 ms 0.446 ms 0.411 ms
2 host-67-45-0-1.hnremote.net (67.45.0.1) 612.213 ms 612.183 ms 612.220 ms
3 host-67-45-5-5.hnremote.net (67.45.5.5) 612.259 ms 612.156 ms 799.056 ms
4 host-67-45-5-4.hnremote.net (67.45.5.4) 799.089 ms 799.054 ms host-67-45-5-33.hnremote.net (67.45.5.33) 799.093 ms
5 4.16.168.17 (4.16.168.17) 799.063 ms 975.644 ms 975.621 ms
6 ae-2-3615.edge1.Dallas2.Level3.net (4.69.209.110) 1019.084 ms 703.975 ms 703.945 ms
7 99.82.183.118 (99.82.183.118) 1044.984 ms 99.82.183.120 (99.82.183.120) 969.599 ms 1498.418 ms
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *

This has been going on for over a month now and I think that I have been patient enough but I need this fixed, so what do I need to do to get this fixed? If I need to get on a jet and fly to Hughesnet and personally talk to someone please let me know and I will make that happen.

[maratsade]

Hopefully a rep such as @Liz , @Remy , or @Damian will get involved and provide you with troubleshooting steps. 

[Landon_Robinson]

Is anyone going to be doing anything because I would really like this resolved, I still cannot watch videos without buffering problems and waiting forever for them to start.

[maratsade]

Re-read the replies you got to your original post. You have higher than advertised speeds; the latency you are experiencing is normal for satellite internet; streaming will be difficult if there is congestion on the beam assigned to you; streaming is affected by congestion more than it is by speed, and your speed is more than adequate for streaming.

HN can't change the laws of physics, the current limitations of satellite technology, or force people not to clog your beam with their streaming so you can stream.  You may want to look into PlayOn Cloud, which lets you download material from Netflix, Hulu, and others. Download the files when congestion is slow and then watch the downloaded files whenever you want. 

[Landon_Robinson · Accepted solution]

Hi again,

It has been six months and I have just learned to put up with this and upgraded my service to account for constantly having to reload pages that freeze and videos that get stuck, recently my phone line has had a hum on it and people say that they are having a hard time hearing me, the grounding rod that the telephone demarcation box is attached to is very old and in a very bad place so its always been my plan to replace it...

I also have a new computer and a newer operating system but I'm still having the same problems.

When my satellite dish was installed the installer hooked up the ground wire for the incoming signal cable to an old propane line that just disappears into the foundation, this house was built in 1940 and I have no idea how old that propane line is but due to corrosion issues and the fact that it could have a plastic coupler or some kind of rubber seal in it somewhere (which would not make it a good grounding point) I've always suspected it as being a possible problem to the Internet being slow here.

So... to get to the point... to solve both problems I drove an eight foot long galvanized 5/8" thick grounding rod into the ground behind the satellite dish and ran a new ground wire for the signal cable and hooked it up to the new grounding rod, the service is working amazingly well now videos are streaming like they should and I only have to reload things every once in a while, I'm going to see how things go but I may downgrade my service back down if I end up not needing the bandwidth.

It is hard to quantify how much money and time this has cost me all over an installation error, if I really wanted to pursue this it would probably end up costing HughesNet a lot of money, but that is more time and effort than I'm willing to put into a billing issue so I'm just going to let this go as a learning experience.

My advice to everyone that is having slow Internet problems though is that if you can't get any kind of resolution within a month or two get a technician to come out and take a look at things if you don't know how to fix them yourself, don't put up with it as long as I did.