Hughesnet Community

Give us our tools again

cancel
Showing results for 
Search instead for 
Did you mean: 
GW
Advanced Tutor

Give us our tools again

HughesNet service is not "set it and forget it" like an easy bake oven. Successful use of the service requires educated customers who are willing to interact with their service to keep it working well and effectively diagnose problems. With this in mind, why do you keep taking away the most useful tools we have available for solving the most common problems?

The premier complaint against HughesNet is the Dreaded Data Drain Disease but they keep hiding the best diagnostic tool we have available for this. They bury it deeper and deeper and now they only want to give us these silly line graphs that are fundamentally useless.

The old chart that gives MB of upload and download by the hour for any and every day is what we need to pinpoint data loss problems. It really does me no good to look at my line graph for yesterday and see I downloaded 1119 MB. So what? What did I download that was so big and when did I do it? How can somebody like me even remember yesterday to identify what I did to jack my usage up to over a GB in a day?

Using the tool they insist on hiding from us, I can see 470 MB were spent between the hours of 11 and 1 eastern. Aha, now I remember the technician came out yesterday and we tested the bejeezus outta my system. Problem solved

Let me give you another excellent example of the value of this tool. Back in May I started losing data very quickly. It appeared to be the first genuine example of the DDDD I've ever encountered. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn't identify where this data was going. With the help of this tool, I was finally able to isolate it by identifying a default hourly usage of exactly 51.14 MB download and 0.83 MB per hour of upload. Once I isolated it to this point, one of our resident geniuses (Miss Amanda) quickly identified the problem. An engineer set up an automatic speed test on my account but he forgot to set the off switch. It just kept running and running and running every hour with no end point set. Without this simple hourly graphing tool, who knows how long it would have taken to figure it out? Lord knows if I was dealing with phone reps, it may have gone on for months.

Speaking of phone reps, I've now interviewed two different phone reps about this function. I was hoping one of them would give me a simple route to reach it without using an arcane link that may be here today and gone tomorrow.

Both phone reps steadfastly insisted this valuable hourly charting function no longer exists within the HughesNet system and has been replaced by the silly line graphs  Even after leaving me on hold to "research" they insist it is gone. One even went so far as to tell me it was just removed within the last week.

The second valuable tool that was removed in July has to do with the next most prevalent complaint against HughesNet. The speed. They removed the ability to export our HughesNet speed test data from http://my.performancetests.hughesnet.com/speedtest/user_history.pyt?userKey=DSSxxxxxxx. This csv spreadsheet file offers great information we can use and analyze to provide YOU with better information to help you help us.

It almost seems like educated customers who are willing to go the extra mile to help you help us is the last thing HughesNet wants.
9 REPLIES 9
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

Well we still have this one:

http://customercare.myhughesnet.com/frmUsage.cfm

Results do have to be taken with a grain of salt however.

As to speed tests, It is a diagnostic tool. It matters not if the yardstick is 12" long or 36" inches, just as long as we are all using the same "tool".

Speed tests are only used to "validate" a speed issue. Engineering is going to use their own "tools" in the end anyway.

Getting back to "data used" ... glasswire on every computer and "wind age and elevation" on the wireless side of things unless a user is willing to buy a router that will track usage buy device.

 

GW
Advanced Tutor

Well we still have this one:

http://customercare.myhughesnet.com/frmUsage.cfm


Yes, we do but how do we get there from here if we don't have the link? It's no longer accessible from the old customer care page and it's been gone from the dashboard for a long time. The phone reps claim it no longer exists.
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

"Yes, we do but how do we get there from here if we don't have the link?"

Bookmark the link ?

My Bad for posting it though.

It is no longer supported, contains line item errors if less than 24 hours old, is written from the perspective of eastern time so needs "correction" for anyone in other than eastern.

One more thing, it shows "gross" rather than "net" usage so that has to be taken into consideration.

I use it at times not as the "usage bible" but more as a general clue used in conjunction with other things to build a picture.

Like I said, needs to be taken with a grain of salt.

For what ever its worth Hughes does  provide more in the way of "tools" than brand Ex.

Chris11
Alum

Hi GW,

Thanks for taking the time to post this. We appreciate the feedback. Our developers are always trying to simplify these processes to make it easier to read understand and act upon. We'll forward your remarks off, hopefully some of your suggestions will be considered. 

Thank you,
Chris
GW
Advanced Tutor

Many people who have been with Hughes for years know the value of this tool. Most others will never know it exists and that's unfortunate. It's a pain converting from eastern but that's not as bad as dealing with zulu time.

It's just as accurate as the line charts. My line chart for August 1 tells me I downloaded 168 MB. My hourly graph tells me I downloaded 168.02 MB that day. My line chart from yesterday tells me I downloaded 1119 MB. The hourly graph tells me I downloaded 1118.93 MB. The trouble with the line chart is it gives me no info about when I did what.

The hourly chart gives me the hourly usage even when my LAN cable is disconnected.

Like this.



Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

There is (as we well know) a "heartbeat" between the Modem and the Gateway.
One of the problems with the old "traditional hourly history display" is that it shows "gross" versus "net" usage.

Not everything in this display is charged against your allowance.

That makes it a little tougher when trying to make a case or prove a point.
 If those shots are of your system with the LAN cable disconnected you have some work to do and we can only use that page as a "clue" and nothing more.
A consistent 51.14 down and .83 up IS an issue.

A modem isolation test is surely in order. I know you know the drill but here it is again:

You can only "bellyache" about what is charged against your allowance.
The old "Hourly History Display" can't be used as "evidence". It is only a tool that may supply "clues".
You will want to perform the above test and I would for accuracy use this meter for the before/after screenshots:


Note the times. I think I would do this Sunday so that the Mods can check your modem logs Monday AM.
Do NOT power off the modem prior to them getting back to you. Reason is they will want to see the 13.1.1 LAN error in your Modems State Code Monitor that coincides with hits to your usage during a LAN disconnect.

If nothing is used then No Harm, No Foul.
Out dated page or not, you show not show a "heartbeat" of more than .01-.02 per hour.
 
GW
Advanced Tutor

Too funny Gwalk. Thanks for the lesson but no testing is in order here. This problem was solved nearly five months ago.

The only lesson here is in the value of the hourly chart. Without that, it would have been more difficult to find and confirm the phantom data drain. Read up above and you'll see what happened. It's described in detail.

At this point this is a pointless conversation. In your rush to give advice when none is needed or appropriate, you completely missed the point. Chris (Official Rep) got the point, acknowledged my suggestions and sent it up the ladder.
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

GW,

Very sorry to have troubled you.


GW
Advanced Tutor

And sorry to be offensive Gwalk but we're not all always here looking for help or advice or to drop a rabid rant. Sometimes we just want to write an essay or an editorial 😉