New Customer as of April. Constant video buffering.

[chrmyr]

We signed up in April with the expectation of having faster speeds than our Verizon DSL.  I can't say that is the case.  We have a smart TV and when trying to watch anything on Amazon Prime the movies typically buffer throughout viewing.  Unfortunately, this month we somehow went over our usage limit (I think it was the result of downloading Office 2016 which took two days because of slowness).  I've done some research and tried several things to correct the buffering issue, but so far nothing has worked.  I have an AC wireless router installed.  I can't see that being the issue.  But I'd welcome any suggestions.  We tested the speed and from what I've seen from other posts it seems normal.  Ping time is a little high.

[Amanda]

Hello chrmyr,

Welcome to our community and thank you for your post. We're very sorry to hear you're having so much trouble with the service and would love to lend a helping hand. Generally we recommend to our customer to switch to standard definition when streaming or downloading movies online because high definition can use about 1.3GB an hour and is very straining on your home network. Unfortunately, as far as I know, with Amazon Prime you cannot switch the definition of video manually. This will cause both buffering and large amounts of data usage. What speeds are you currently getting and on what device? Ping times for satellite will always be high as that is the natural round trip time for a ground to space connection.

Thanks
Amanda

[billmiller43]

Please do some research! DSL speed is stated in speed within one mile of the switching station. Max distance is about 10 miles. Speed decreases the farther away you are.
 Hughesnet is not suitable for movies, they are too large at about 2gb each. When I monitor the download speed it starts out slow and continues to speed up to the max at that time. This is all based on traffic. If all users tried to watch a movie at the same time, speed would be very slow. If I wanted to watch a movie, I would download it during "Bonus" hours.

[BirdDog]

Bill, my wife and I watch Netflix frequently set at low definition. An hour uses about 250-300 MB.

https://help.netflix.com/en/node/87

[Pawnee County]

I watched the Five on Fox News yesterday and the one hour show used 200MB and never buffered.  I don't  know the resolution as it was streamed on the Fox News website but from the quality I think it was 360p a bit fuzzy at times.   I think Chrmyr must be watching in HD and that smart TV will also eat up data at an alarming rate.

[GabeU]

chrmyr,

Just a couple of things that can help you to avoid running out of data.

The Hughesnet Status Meter, which will show how much data you've already used and what you have remaining.  It's at the following address...

http://my.hughesnet.com/

Then there's Glasswire, which will give you a much more detailed breakdown of your usage.  With this, you can see exactly how much data is used for streaming, downloading programs, updates, etc.  It's free, and it's at the following address...

https://www.glasswire.com/

[GabeU]

True, but they can at least see the stuff they are doing on the computer and what it's using.  The OP said they though that the data ran out as a result of downloading Office 2016.  This would help in showing them how large that download is, and others, as well, and how much those files are affecting their data.   

[GabeU]

Of course, but anything that helps someone be aware of their usage is a plus. 

[Chris11]

Hello chrmyr,

If you can also provide which website you use when running tests, this will help too.

- Chris

[chrmyr]

I research this a lot.  Everything I saw led me to Hughesnet.  My data overage was due to a Office download, my own fault for not running it after 2AM, but I didn't plan on being up at that time.  However, HughesNet advertising amazing speeds.  If that isn't the case, then it's blatant false advertisement.