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My experience with Gen4 vs Gen5 data usage

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GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

My experience with Gen4 vs Gen5 data usage

I've been noticing that I seem to use more data with Gen5 than I did with Gen4.  Rather, not necessarily using, but seeming to be charged for more.  

 

Those of you that have seen me in here for a while have probably seen a few past posts of mine where I was thrilled that the amount of data I was being showed as using with Glasswire was actually more than what I was being charged by Hughesnet.  It wasn't always by a lot, but the amount as tallied by Glasswire was always higher than what was tallied by Hughesnet.  I always chalked this up to the compression being used in the Smart Technologies.    

 

For both April and May, which are the only two full months I've had with Gen5 thus far, the opposite is happening.  Not by a ton, but enough to notice that the opposite is going on.  

 

So, for this month, I am ONLY going to use this desktop.  I won't connect my laptop or notebook at all, and will wait until next month (after my reset on the 5th) to do their updates.  I want to see what happens throughout the month and at the conclusion of the month.  

 

My data reset on the 5th, but I didn't use my computer at all yesterday (It shows, on the little graph below, data being used through early AM on the 5th, but there's no data amount, and my computer was shut off at about 11:15PM on the 4th.  Why that graph shows that is anyone's guess). With each day I check, I will keep my start date on Glasswire set to the 5th at 12:00AM, which was the date my data reset.  This is so far... 

 

There's already a nearly 80MB discrepency in nine hours of usage (I got on at about 8:50AM).  

 

Capture.JPG

14 REPLIES 14
BirdDog
Assistant Professor

Personally don't trust the software monitoring solutions much except as a tool to see what is being used by what device and track down a data eater device. Especially with satellite and all the compression going on.

 

Only real accurate overall usage data monitoring is with a router that has the capability IMO. Even they can be off a bit from from what HughesNet reports in my experience. Again the compression going on off site, as in satellite and gateway, skew the numbers somewhat.

 

They really should have included device and total data amount monitoring in the new modem IMO.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@BirdDog

 

While anything's possible, and only that which can measure the data at a through point, like a router, can be counted on as being accurate, it is of note that in the first two full months of my Gen5 usage the Anytime Data tally has been higher than it ever was with Gen4, and by a very noticeable amount.  You guys that know me know that I watch my data like a hawk, and will notice when anything seems off.  And, although Glasswire may not be accurate to the MB in a month, it's still a decent, overall gauge of what's going on, and there's most definitely something different with Gen5.  

 

With that said, there were two months that my Gen4 Anytime Data was higher, but they were due to large files being downloaded, and those files and sizes were taken into account as not being part of my normal monthly usage.  They were the exceptions, but for the noted reasons, and were adjusted accordingly with regard to my "normal" monthly data usage.  

 

It's most likely due to the compression technology either being different, or being applied differently, and if that is the case there's nothing I can do about it.  

 

With all of this said, the increase in the data allotment over my Gen4 plan should make it so it won't be of concern, but that still doesn't stop my curiosity regarding such.  If I my Anytime Data average hovers around 10GB I should be okay.  But, with my Gen4 Anytime Data averaging around 5.5GB with all three of my computers and nothing of note changing, other than my internet service, you can see why this would pique my curiosity.  

 

Time will tell...

 

@MarkJFine

 

Though that may have been happening for you, I've not been having any issues with my service, nor any state codes caused by anything other than a lost connection due to a storm or one that I have instigated myself (disconnecting the LAN cable).  I believe my issue is due to a different utilization of the compression technology used by the service, or a different compression technology being used.  Either way, it's not really an issue, per se, as I have enough data to cover the difference, but it is still enough to pique my curiosity.        

@GabeUYeah, it's kind of hard to describe. These aren't really problems that you'd notice over the course of a day unless you saw a blip in that page. And, it may very well not be it at all.

 

There is a common denominator somewhere though because it was what prompted me last month to start hunting down where it was possibly coming from... before they stopped resetting the counter every day. We were burning it at a pace that would run out of anytime data in a period of 15-20 days, which would have driven me bonkers.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

@GabeU

Been thinking about this for the past few days, because I'm still seeing several unexplained discrepancies in data when only my laptop is involved. At least there I can see what both the machine and network sees in a head-to-head comparison (and primarily why I've been playing with the usage monitor).

 

Although those connection errors may be a contributor for me, it still doesn't explain what happens the times when those errors don't occur. Instead, I'm seeing a trend where the discrepancies are larger when images are involved - even small ones like twitter avis.

 

For example: File downloads for the most part seem to be similar in size. In fact, I downloaded an 800MB update to Xcode this morning and it checked out nearly perfect. The same is true for sites that are mostly text based with a smattering javascript and css. However, as soon as you start to hit sites with images on them, the discrepancy between what your machine and the network thinks transferred really starts to explode.

 

I've not tested anything with video yet, mostly because it's become so DNA-level ingrained from years of avoiding that on this network. I'm sure it works well now, but I got a cheap unlimited plan on my phone last Feb, so I use that as a personal hotspot for streaming whenever I can wrangle 1 or 2 bars of LTE.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@MarkJFine

 

I'll have to keep an eye on the data when I go to websites with a lot of images.  I'll also check this specifically, at some point, by checking my usage amount after signing in at HughesNet's site so I can get the data reading to the MB, comparing it to what Glasswire says as the time, going to a few sites with some images, then comparing the two again.  

Just because I opened my mouth, today it seems to be behaving. Been as expected all morning.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

I may have stumbled onto what's going on.

 

Did over 2GB of updates this morning and everything tracked perfectly fine. Even waited around 15 minutes of settling time to see if there was anything residual. After that, there might have been around 5MB difference, but at that point it's practically in the noise.

 

Then I got PM'd on Slack, which is a workspace coordination tool with "rooms". As I was going through the rooms, someone had posted a couple of tweets with videos of a nasty fire in London. Boom. Nearly instant differential of 120MB even though I didn't play them.

 

It could just be timing, but it's quite possible that as part of the video compression (video savings?) scheme, they are pre-caching (and converting?) small links to mpeg files. It would be a terrible bug if they are then attributing the internet-side bandwidth of pre-caching to your account, even if they don't then transfer a video stream to you on the satellite side.

 

Not saying this is the case, but it's a possible explanation that might be worth looking at. Not even sure how you test it other than maybe turning off the video savings setting for a day and see if it continues. <Throws up hands, as I had between 3-400MB go out the window yesterday>


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Actually, I don't think it's part of the Video Data Saver.  I have noted in the past that some platforms, like Facebook, even if you don't click the video, will start downloading the video file in the background.  I imagine Twitter, and others do the same.


That aside... I have started a work-log in hopes that we can put this to rest once and for all...  We had people complain when they went from Spaceway3 to Jupiter One because they felt they used more data, which they did, thanks to the higher speeds users could go through more content in a given time period.  The same is happening now, even though it doesn't feel like it.

DataLogging1.PNGDataLogging2.PNGDataLogging3.PNGdatalogging4.PNGdatalogging5.PNG

@C0RR0SIVE

Thing is, if the app downloaded the video in the background, it would also show as accumulating bandwidth on my Mac, which it didn't. The delta was between the change in Mac's Activity Monitor and the change shown in Usage Meter.

 

Should add that my Mac was the only thing connected to the router when it occurred. All other phones, iPads, DirecTV boxes, TVs, etc. were taken off the network earlier this morning so any testing wouldn't be corrupted.

 

Had started a workbook as well, which is how I've been able to track this. The difference in question is the part highlighted with the red oval here, which occurred before 8am:

Untitled.jpeg

 

I too initially suspected that the rise in usage was related to a rise in speed. I'm really loving that part of it. It's the large variances that we can't explain that I'm really not so find of. The issue being that if we can't manage the variance, we really can't manage usage. The thought of overrunning the monthly data is making me obsess over it a little. And by "a little" I really mean "a lot". lol


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.

But wait... there's more... lol

Started adding an odometer-type thing on the right hand side of that spreadhseet with a macro that "bulbs" it so I can look at specific time periods. I added a button to start the macro and Microsoft wanted me to download about 90MB of extra fonts and stuff, which I did. But HughesNet ignored it all. So... I have no idea what's going on. Smiley LOL Digital Karma?

Untitled.jpeg


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Pst, just saying, I have seen Hughes ignore good large chunks of data in the past.

As for the whole video thing, never thought about that... I don't log usage at my machines but at my router instead.

Lol... I hear ya. And I'd never look a gift horse... yeah I would. Smiley LOL


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.
GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@BirdDog wrote:

 

Only real accurate overall usage data monitoring is with a router that has the capability IMO. Even they can be off a bit from from what HughesNet reports in my experience. Again the compression going on off site, as in satellite and gateway, skew the numbers somewhat.


Well, I had forgotten that my Netgear WNR2000v4 router has a traffic meter with the desktop Genie software.  It's most likely something that will require me to keep my router powered at all times so I don't lose the info, but that may be a way to measure this.  It's not going to break it down like a Nighthawk would, but a total is okay for my purposes.  

 

I'll probably test it sometime here in the future, regarding powering it down and such, but I will then connect it on July 5th to start monitoring it for the month.  I'm sure measuring the data before it enters the computer will actually alleviate some skewing by the computer itself.  I guess we'll see.  And, yes, I know it still may not be fully accurate due to what you mentioned about the compression off site and such, but it will probably be more accurate than Glasswire.  Again, I guess we'll see.  

   

MarkJFine
Professor

@GabeUAs I was previously testing, I noticed several times when there was an unusual amount of transmit problems  (error 12.1.9) and response longer than expected errors (error 30.3.4). You can check all the errors detected by using your browser to get to the state code monitor part of the modem's built-in s/w: http://192.168.0.1/limited.html#!/state_code/state_code_monitor (use the IP you normally use instead of 192.168.0.1).

 

I've also seen some discrepancies that seemed to happen around the same time as these errors. So here's my theory: When this (or similar error happens) the modem (or the user device itself) sees it as an nack and tries to resend packets until it finally gets a response instead of being in a wait state. I'm just pulling this out of thin air, as it could be anything, really.

I previously had something similar on Gen4 during the summer, when some trees had leaves on them - I finally cut down the trees. Since the dish needed to be re-angled for Gen5, it's possible that another tree is causing my issue, but the signal quality numbers don't seem to reflect that.

 

Maybe this is something one of the lab sites can have a better look at, because it appears to be a common thread.


* Disclaimer: I am a HughesNet customer and not a HughesNet employee. All of my comments are my own and do not necessarily represent HughesNet in any way.