Hughesnet uses more data than my cellullar service for doing the same things?

[freedom93]

After only three days of my billing cycle I have used 3 gigabytes of my monthly 10 gig anytime data surfing the internet and answering emails. The same activities on my AT&T mobile service uses less data. Is this possible and if so why? I wonder if I should just have increased my mobile plan and used my phone  as a hotspot, instead of getting Hughesnet, which is very expensive. Can anyone shed light on this? I am very worried about how many tokens I will have to buy to make it through the month with any kind of speed.

[gokartergo24]

Are you running windows 10?

[freedom93]

No, Mac OS 10.10.5

[Amanda]

Hi freedom93,

Data usage counting between carriers and ISPs can differ, especially if the infrastructure is different. In AT&T's case, they offer features like StreamSaver which reduce the quality of video automatically to save data. When you connect your Mac to the mobile hotspot, are there any other devices you are connecting too or do you only have the Mac in your home? We might want to try something to monitor your data usage per program on your Mac to compare- our members usually have some good recommendations.

Thanks
Amanda

[freedom93]

Thanks Amanda,

I have an iPhone, iPad and Macbook Air. My iPad has cellular and shares the data of my phone. Using these two devices, without doing Hotspot for my laptop uses less data than doing the same things with Hughesnet on my laptop, iPhone and iPad with wifi. Hotspot uses a lot of data., which is why I decided to go for Hughesnet.

[freedom93]

According to my status meter, I am 1.9 GB over the expected usage for this cycle.

[freedom93]

Read this in another post, "Routers themselves can use data depending on their internal settings. Data can be used by nearby devices if guest accounts are not disabled. Wireless devices can connect to your network if all wireless frequencies have not had proper wireless encryption enabled."

Does this mean than a neighbor could connect to my network, even when I have a password that "guests" need to be able to use it.

[Amanda]

Hi freedom93,

In regards to your router - your neighbor cannot access your wifi connection if they do not know your wifi password (or haven't been able to figure it out). It is good to have a strong password with numbers, capital and lower case letters as well as symbols. 

Keep in mind that mobile devices and tablets compress data and webpages differently than a laptop or desktop computer does. Browsing websites on mobile devices uses a "mobile friendly" format and has a smaller resolution area. You'll notice that some icons are smaller on your tablet or iPhone or not all the graphics you see on your computer appear on other devices. Here's an example I put together using ESPN


I hope that helps to clear things up. If you still have any concerns or questions I am happy to go through them with you and help you out! 🙂

Thanks
Amanda

[freedom93]

Thanks Amanda, that makes sense. But I am still very worried about how much it is costing me per month with Hughesnet. Clearly I cannot connect my iPhone/IPad through wifi to Hughesnet. I will keep monitoring it.