Speedtest OK but download with Amazon Prime Video for Windows is slow

[fpintos]

Hello,

I've recently got HughesNet installed and the connection speed seems good but downoading Amazon Prime videos is slow.

I've tried this during bonus zone (6am, PST):

- Laptop is connected to 5G Wifi, sitting right next to HughesNet modem/router.

- Speedtest.net reports reasonable download speeds (>25Mbps).

- Windows Task Manager shows the proper spike in my network during speedtest.

- Amazon Prime stream and download settings are set to "Good" to keep data usage low.

- I'm able to stream a video in the application and Task manager reported network rate of about 2Mbps while streaming.

- However, when downloading videos using Amazon Prime Video for Windows the download rate does not get past 1Mbps, making the download very slow, which feels a bit dissapointing.

- I've tried this with and without the network connection set as metered.

- I've also tried this with and without "Download using mobile data" in Prime settings.

- HughesNet system control center shows Web Acceleration enabled.

- I've also noticed that I have Video Data Saver on on my account settings (not sure if this affects Prime downloads). 

In other network connections (comcast in another home, and in city's library) Prime downloads were relatively fast.

I'm wondering if HughesNet is slowing down Prime downloads on purpose, perhaps as a way to reduce congestion or make them bleed out of the bonus zone?

[maratsade]

Try snoozing the VDS and see if that helps.  When you say you're downloading videos, do you mean you're trying to stream them?

EDIT: HughesNet is not slowing down Prime -- Even though HughesNet has optimised the network to favour working and learning from home, congestion and the way Amazon may be delivering the videos have much more to do with it.  If you're trying to stream during prime time, when everyone else is trying to do the same, you will likely have issues. We all do, and it's because of so many people draining the limited available bandwidth. 

[GabeU]

@fpintos 

Unfortunately, Amazon Prime seems to be the most problematic when it comes to streaming with HughesNet.  It's likely that the combination of congestion and the high latency inherent to geostationary satellite internet is something that Prime doesn't react well to.  The experience can also vary from beam to beam and gateway to gateway, as the level of congestion itself can vary between them.

On a side note, you may want to look into PlayOn Cloud.  Some HughesNet subscribers, including myself and maratsade, use it as an alternative to streaming in the normal way.  So far it's worked quite well.

[Liz]

Hi fpintos,

I see it's your first post here, so welcome to the community! Haven't heard back from you so I'll go ahead and close this thread. I hope maratsade and Gabe's replies have provided some useful insight for you. To add onto that, 

Unlike Netflix and YouTube, Amazon uses progressive streaming (the others use adaptive). A progressive video stream is a single video file being streamed over the internet. The progressive video will automatically expand or contract to fit the screen you are playing it on, but regardless of the device, the video file size will always be the same. If there is a poor Internet signal and the video stream cannot process quickly, a progressive video will pause and buffer. So there are inherently more issues with Prime than other streaming services because Amazon uses progressive video streaming.

Feel free to start a new thread if you have concerns you'd like to work out with us.

Thanks,

Liz