Intermittent slow internet speeds, HIGH variations, occasionally unusable

[Wolf]

I have opened a case with HughesNet and they promptly closed it with a "Everything is fine at the moment" canned message.  Called on lunch at work, got a person in India who read from a script, said the same thing, and apparently didn't know the meaning of "Intermittent."  Said for me to gather data when it happens again.

So it happened again, gathered data, used the email form... "ERROR 404" when I try to send.  NOW the internet is sporadically getting better as the night goes on, my window seems to be closing.  I was instructed by Sasha Matthews to use TestMy.Net, however I know that you on the forums here state it MIGHT not be the best test.

Here are my tests, Regardless:

TEST 1, Auto Test:

:::.. Internet Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 234 kbps or 0.2 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 256 kB or 262144 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 29 kB/s
Upload Connection Speed:: 1559 kbps or 1.6 Mbps
Upload Speed Test Size:: 1.4 MB or 1432 kB or 1466368 bytes
Upload Binary File Transfer Speed:: 195 kB/s
Timed:: Download: 8.966 seconds | Upload: 7.524 seconds
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Test Time:: 2018-01-16 22:13:26 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas4.testmy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/D6z3UctEp.qfa5LPNMT
TiP Measurement Summary (Download):: Min 0.16 Mbps | Middle Avg 0.23 Mbps | Max 0.26 Mbps | 48% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.26 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.22 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Test 2, Auto Test:

:::.. Internet Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 278 kbps or 0.3 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 528 kB or 540672 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 35 kB/s
Upload Connection Speed:: 1992 kbps or 2 Mbps
Upload Speed Test Size:: 1.3 MB or 1288 kB or 1318912 bytes
Upload Binary File Transfer Speed:: 249 kB/s
Timed:: Download: 15.568 seconds | Upload: 5.298 seconds
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Test Time:: 2018-01-16 22:21:29 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas4.testmy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/d0Az3JT7C.oiRUAVu3S
TiP Measurement Summary (Download):: Min 0.19 Mbps | Middle Avg 0.27 Mbps | Max 0.74 Mbps | 113% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.22 Mbps, 0.19 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.22 Mbps, 0.19 Mbps, 0.19 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.28 Mbps, 0.41 Mbps, 0.68 Mbps, 0.74 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Test 3, Auto Test:

:::.. Internet Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 216 kbps or 0.2 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 256 kB or 262144 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 27 kB/s
Upload Connection Speed:: 1206 kbps or 1.2 Mbps
Upload Speed Test Size:: 816 kB or 835584 bytes
Upload Binary File Transfer Speed:: 151 kB/s
Timed:: Download: 9.699 seconds | Upload: 5.545 seconds
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Test Time:: 2018-01-16 22:22:31 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas4.testmy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/2oPThWAw0.NxDWopjwt
TiP Measurement Summary (Download):: Min 0.12 Mbps | Middle Avg 0.21 Mbps | Max 0.27 Mbps | 70% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.27 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.22 Mbps, 0.12 Mbps, 0.12 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps, 0.19 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.24 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Test 4, Manual Test:

:::.. Download Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 1076 kbps or 1.1 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 12 MB or 12288 kB or 12582912 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 135 kB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/F6E9QqwSC
TiP Measurement Summary:: Min 0.5 Mbps | Middle Avg 1.42 Mbps | Max 3.73 Mbps | 138% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.51 Mbps, 0.82 Mbps, 0.81 Mbps, 0.86 Mbps, 2.73 Mbps, 2.4 Mbps, 1.88 Mbps, 1.52 Mbps, 1.43 Mbps, 0.76 Mbps, 0.5 Mbps, 0.78 Mbps, 1.73 Mbps, 1.99 Mbps, 2.02 Mbps, 0.68 Mbps, 0.68 Mbps, 2.63 Mbps, 3.73 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
Test Time:: 2018-01-16 22:24:55 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas3.testmy.net
Client Host:: https://testmy.net/hoststats/Unknown
Compare:: 273% faster than client avg, 96% slower than world index
1MB Download in 7.59 Seconds - 1GB Download in ~2 Hours - 19X faster than 56K
This test of exactly 12288 kB took 93.683 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Test 5, Connectivity Test:

IP Gateway J2STC035HNSIGW0101
Packet Loss 0%
Average Delay 620 ms
Minimum Delay 589 ms
Maximum Delay 640 ms

Test 6, Current Auto Test:

https://testmy.net/db/h5qswjNVJ

Test 7, Current Test with Speedtest.net

http://www.speedtest.net/result/6972894634

Test 8, Current Test with HughesNet's own Speed Test

--

DOWNLOAD SPEED: 9.78 Mbps

UPLOAD SPEED: 3.28 Mbps

--

As you can see, my window closed, but I noticed the degraded streaming performance and began testing.  This has been happening ever since the January 1st Echostar-19-NAD downtime that I have a 3GB token of apology for still.

END OF MESSAGE TEST:

https://testmy.net/db/PVpOGBroY  (Slow again, but not as bad)

EDIT: Note: Tested the links, they show "Not found" but if you refresh the page, they show up fine.

EDIT #2:  Figured this is worth mention.  Last Night (January 15th) the internet was barely usable.  speedtest.net failed to work with "Latency Error!" showing up.  using the legacy site, it took a while, but came up with a ping of ~2,000ms and speed of 0.2mbit and 0.05mbit upload.  of COURSE I Didn't save it, like a dummy, but I hope all these tests of it just "Degraded" helps somewhat.  I won't be able to even post this if it gets as bad as it was last night.

EDIT #3: Checked speedtest.net history, last night doesn't show.  Something was REALLY screwy, as it doesn't even recognize ME as the one who tested.  However, I did run one on Friday, and it was acting up (Not unusable, but not good), so here is the link to that one:

http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/6958022710

That should show it does get REALLY crap, even with speedtest.net.

[mladamson]

Hey Wolf - My local service provider has helped me understand what's going on at HughesNet.  They've recently launched a new satellite and are in the process of "migrating" customs to the new satellite from the overloaded old one.  The problem is that they've changed the beam locations which effects the reception and strength you receive in different areas.  These are all corporate issues that can't be solved by tech support.  Like all new tech ventures, the customers are just "beta testers" for the upgraded technology and we're at the mercy of the corporate masterminds on how and when they will fix the problems created by the addition of the new satellite.  I'm a long time HughesNet customer who lives in an rural area with limited bandwidth access.  They've solved problems like this before, but not necesarily in a timely manner for the customer.  I know this doesn't help your problem, but I thought you might like to know you're not the only one suffering.

Good Luck,

Larry

[Wolf]

Thanks for the reply, I am aware many are having the same issue.  As for further info, I have again ran a speed test tonight, and this is my result:

MANUAL TEST 25MB

:::.. Download Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 186 kbps or 0.2 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 25 MB or 25600 kB or 26214400 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 23 kB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/qpWijfzyw
TiP Measurement Summary:: Min 0.13 Mbps | Middle Avg 0.18 Mbps | Max 0.23 Mbps | 56% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.13 Mbps, 0.13 Mbps, 0.15 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.19 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.21 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.18 Mbps, 0.2 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
Test Time:: 2018-01-17 18:40:42 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas5.testmy.net
Client Host:: https://testmy.net/hoststats/Unknown
Compare:: 96% slower than client avg, 99% slower than world index
1MB Download in 44.52 Seconds - 1GB Download in ~13 Hours - 3X faster than 56K
This test of exactly 25600 kB took 1128.137 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

As for anyone wondering what beam:

-Satellite Name

--EchoStar-19-NAD

-Gateway ID

--16

-Beam ID

--35

-Outroute ID

--6

[Wolf]

Update:  Still slow internet speeds.  After failed attempts at getting customer service, I have looked up providers in my area, and found DSL is now available at my location.

I have now ordered a DSL install next month, and am SEVERELY Dissattisfied with HughesNet on their customer support, and how this suddenly happened.  5 months of perfectly fine data, then suddenly ISDN is a better option?  This makes me sick and now looking at the contract in efforts to waive the cancel fee.

There is no way that HughesNet is living up to their contractual obligations at this point.  People, including myself, are having problems, and they just sweep it under the rug like it's no big deal.  When I pay a large sum of money a month, I expect service that equals the amount I am paying for, not a [REDACTED] pushed hard up my [CENSORED]

If this all didn't happen, if their customer support was good, I would still be a customer... But instead people are just dollar signs to them it seems.

[Wolf]

@Liz At this point I am severely upset with this service.  I want to take my gun and shoot the satellite!  I am still getting crap for speed, as seen in this recent speed test:

:::.. Download Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 1250 kbps or 1.2 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 1.3 MB or 1280 kB or 1310720 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 156 kB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/PCEiHYWqg
TiP Measurement Summary:: Min 0.3 Mbps | Middle Avg 1.63 Mbps | Max 3.16 Mbps | 162% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 2.2 Mbps, 1.81 Mbps, 1.6 Mbps, 1.44 Mbps, 0.95 Mbps, 0.42 Mbps, 0.3 Mbps, 0.45 Mbps, 0.99 Mbps, 1.35 Mbps, 1.6 Mbps, 1.85 Mbps, 1.9 Mbps, 2.32 Mbps, 2.68 Mbps, 2.53 Mbps, 2.61 Mbps, 2.87 Mbps, 3.16 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
Test Time:: 2018-01-20 11:44:31 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas3.testmy.net
Client Host:: https://testmy.net/hoststats/Unknown
Compare:: 690% faster than client avg, 94% slower than world index
1MB Download in 6.56 Seconds - 1GB Download in ~2 Hours - 22X faster than 56K
This test of exactly 1280 kB took 8.493 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Still no-go, Customer support is no help.  They just say "You need to be home" but I can't be, because my internet is my calling (Wi-Fi cellular calling, to prevent further charges) and when the internet acts up, I have NO CALLING at my house.  I am too far out for any cell service.

Emailing doesn't work, it worked once, but ever since then I can't even access the form properly.  I get errors on my browsers, and emails lost.

I have turned to the forums, and got one "Well that sucks" response from another customer, and nothing else, no help, not even a tinge of hope.

Since your service was so bad, and customer support was so bad, I shopped again, and ordered DSL which is recently available in my area.  It wasn't available before, but now it is.  I am cancelling my service next month, timed with the DSL install.  I want out of this "Contract" as your service provided does not meet advertised expectations, and I am shafted when I try to get it fixed.  Getting charged a cancellation fee would just be a twist of the knife in this already deep wound.

[kbills]

I agree with you. Hughesnet is the worst internet I have ever had. I can't even watch a video on facebook without it lagging. It seams to get worse. I can't wait until my contract is up. 

[Wolf]

It's surprising that a company can be worse than Comcast, is it not?

:::.. Download Speed Test Result Details ..:::
Download Connection Speed:: 196 kbps or 0.2 Mbps
Download Speed Test Size:: 256 kB or 262144 bytes
Download Binary File Transfer Speed:: 25 kB/s
Tested At:: https://TestMy.net
Validation:: https://testmy.net/db/REUsTibzP
TiP Measurement Summary:: Min 0.12 Mbps | Middle Avg 0.18 Mbps | Max 0.27 Mbps | 74% Variance
TiP Data Points:: 0.21 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.26 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.23 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.13 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.12 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.25 Mbps, 0.22 Mbps, 0.16 Mbps, 0.12 Mbps, 0.17 Mbps, 0.27 Mbps
Client Stats:: https://testmy.net/compID/2229861827468
Test Time:: 2018-01-21 21:07:00 Local Time
Client Location::
Target:: Dallas, TX https://dallas5.testmy.net
Client Host:: https://testmy.net/hoststats/Unknown
Compare:: 47% slower than client avg, 99% slower than world index
1MB Download in 40.96 Seconds - 1GB Download in ~12 Hours - 4X faster than 56K
This test of exactly 256 kB took 10.828 seconds to complete
User Agent:: Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/63.0.3239.132 Safari/537.36 [!]

Still TERRIBLE internet speeds.  Speedtest.net states 40mbit but I laugh at that.  Regarding it's accuracy, reading through posts, Speedtest.net was considered "Innacurate" due to it's compression it uses, so it doesn't play nice with Hughesnet.  Makes sense!  It's why they always suggested testmy.net vs other speed testing methods as it's more direct with actually downloading files.

Testing a known download, I got 230-270KB/s, (Video data saver off, Google being the server host)  which equates to 1.8mbit - 2.1mbit, still quite shy of 25mbit!  at 25mbit a download should be 3MB/s roughly, and at 40mbit it should be at 5MB/s roughly.  Considering I am getting 230-270KB/s that leads me to believe the "Speed Tests" are not showing very accurate data!

Either:  Hughesnet detects speed testing, and artificially "Boosts" the speed to show "Oh, we get HIGHER than advertised speed, see?!"  or there are compression algorythms in place that are skewing results.

[Liz · Accepted solution]

Hi Wolf,

Thanks for posting and welcome to the community! I appreciate you running tests and providing many updates. Please check your private messages in the top right corner of the community page as I've sent you a PM to further address your concerns.

Your patience and understanding are much appreciated.

[Wolf]

Thank you, Liz, I have sent a reply PM.

I am sated, though my speeds are not fixed, I am sated with what Liz has said in PM.  Note: Nothing other than personal info was said, good luck to all who are currently having issues, like me.  I hope HughesNet actually fixes things, or else they'll beat out Comcast for the worst company in the world!