Super Slow Download Speeds

[CMcIntire]

We are continually getting slow speeds. I have called several times for assistance, been upgraded to advanced tech support most of the time and it still doesn't fix it for more than a couple hours. We have also had 2 different techs out to no avail.

Currently, I'm trying to download a 362 MB file...at a whole 9.6 kb/s. This is really ridiculous. We go to testmy.net and get 1 MB down and 20 or 30 MB up. I dunno if a wire got crossed somewhere, but our upload speed is consistently faster than our download speed by a lot. Why can't this get fixed? What can I do to fix it that we haven't done already?

[Derek94904]

I Installed HughesNet two weeks ago. I have yet to get a download speed in excess of 1Mbps (how about 0.14) I have spent countless hours with Customer service, tech support, account managemnt. I was promised a call back from engineering, which did not happen. I am now told its because of poor weather in Seattle, 1000 miles from where I live. I am supposed to gear my internet use to weather conditions several hour flight time from where I live. Ridiculous is an understatement!!! Now just try cancelling the service. Good Luck and pack a lunch.

[Manuel]

I've had this problem for 3 months or more. Norcal foothills above Sac.

[GabeU]

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@Derek94904 wrote:

I Installed HughesNet two weeks ago. I have yet to get a download speed in excess of 1Mbps (how about 0.14) I have spent countless hours with Customer service, tech support, account managemnt. I was promised a call back from engineering, which did not happen. I am now told its because of poor weather in Seattle, 1000 miles from where I live. I am supposed to gear my internet use to weather conditions several hour flight time from where I live. Ridiculous is an understatement!!! Now just try cancelling the service. Good Luck and pack a lunch.

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Weather at your gateway can affect your service in the same way that weather at your own location can affect your service.  Your internet service is via satellite, it's not in the satelite itself.  Your gateway is your actual connection to the net, and the satellite is, for lack of a better term, the mirror that allows you to connnect to the internet in Seattle.    

With that said, if your speed issue has been an ongoing problem and you would like to address it, please create your own post in the Tech Support section to get started.  You can get a head start by performing the speed tests asked of the OP and pasting the results URL into your new post.  

[v10bio]

I am having the same problem this evening

[bpenn3]

Same thing here in Texas. When I first got the Gen5 a few months ago, i was constantly getting better than advertised. Lately, the past few months, I think a tin can and string would be faster.I ran hughes speed test and got 44mbs down, 2.x gb up. Heck, I tether my phone and get better perfromance. I also have to VPN for work, and we all kow that doing this cuts your speed in half. When I have Skype meeting I have to tether to my phone for wifi so that I can even talk. 

Been too busy to hassle with support, but after today, I don't have an option. 

[macsociety]

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@bpenn3 wrote:

Same thing here in Texas. When I first got the Gen5 a few months ago, i was constantly getting better than advertised. Lately, the past few months, I think a tin can and string would be faster.I ran hughes speed test and got 44mbs down, 2.x gb up. Heck, I tether my phone and get better perfromance. I also have to VPN for work, and we all kow that doing this cuts your speed in half. When I have Skype meeting I have to tether to my phone for wifi so that I can even talk. 

Been too busy to hassle with support, but after today, I don't have an option. 

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Confused... you say you run the speedtest and get reported speeds of 44mbps down and 2.x up.  That is screaming fast for up to 25mbps down offerings.

Or maybe I am mis-reading that.

What are your speeds when it is slow?

Have you created your testmy.net account and ran some 25mb download tests to see how it scores?

Just curious.

Those of us with slower speeds are getting crazy slow speeds of 150K down and 12k up... during this peak time slowage that is happening.

TJ

[bpenn3]

thise numbers are thru the hughes net seped, but when you run thru speednet, I get 1 -5 mbs. so huges test is not real world, as the latency for a real world test is 500-800ms. But according to the support page, they only accept thier test. I always distrust these guys when they wll not acccept another test that is valid. 

If I were getting the speed that is reported via the hughes test, there is no way that my viop session would be so bad. 

[bpenn3]

to my previous point: 

these are the type of "requirments" to allow them to say. its not us, you did not follow the requirments. these are the same type of limit our exposure to poor service caviots. Had the same nonsense from Excede. 

Most important points to remember during this test:
-do the tests while directly connected to the HughesNet modem with a LAN cable (NO third party Router or Wireless devices can be used)
-disable the WiFi while the speed tests are being performed
-use the 25MB size download test file
-If testing upload instead of download, you must use a 4MB size upload test file
-space each test at least 5 minutes apart
-post your testmy results URL here, it may look something like http://testmy.net/quickstats/yourusername

[GabeU]

@bpenn3

No, those are the type of requirements that are needed to verify the issue and also to point to the cause. 

Your assumption is baseless.  

[ml520]

Same thing here in S. Oregon. Upgraded to Gen 5 over the summer, super slow downloads for at least a couple months now and no sign of abating. No useful response from anyone at Hughes. Just pleas for patience, promises to get "engineering" involved. But no action. Gen 4 was 100000x better, hardly ever had a problem. So many people are having the same issue now that obviously there's a problem that Hughes knows about but doesn't want to acknowledge.

[GabeU]

@CMcIntire

To help the HughesNet Customer Service Reps get a head start on your speed concerns you should create a testmy.net account and perform 3-5 tests during different parts of the day while signed into your testmy.net account. Then share the account results link with us here.

Please keep in mind that HughesNet will only accept testmy.net and the official HughesNet speed test results. Tests from other sites like speedtest.net are not accepted due to the compression technologies and latency that satellite deploys.

Most important points to remember during this test:
-do the tests while directly connected to the HughesNet modem with a LAN cable (NO third party Router or Wireless devices can be used)
-disable the WiFi while the speed tests are being performed
-use the 25MB size download test file
-If testing upload instead of download, you must use a 4MB size upload test file
-space each test at least 5 minutes apart
-post your testmy results URL here, it may look something like http://testmy.net/quickstats/yourusername

For a more in depth guide on running the tests, please visit: http://customer.kb.hughesnet.com/Pages/7001.aspx

The Reps are on M-F from approximately 8AM to 5PM Eastern. They will be the ones to address your speed issues, but they will need these tests to do so.

If you are unfamiliar with the process of disabling the WiFi in the HT2000W modem, please see 5.c. in the section titled "How do I manage my built-in Wi-Fi modem?" in this PDF.  

[CMcIntire]

I would love to register, test and post the results, but I cannot get a confirmation email to my inbox on any of my email accounts. Resent the email multiple times, tried changing the email to different accounts and nothing. Have any suggestions for that?

[C0RR0SIVE]

It seems testmy.net might be having difficulties, they was down most of the night last night.

[jmogey]

I would likw to offer a suggestion to those who respond to issues of slow download speeds to refrain from protocols Hughesnet has for testing download speeds. The kind of download speeds many of us are experiencing are orders of magnitude from what we should be expecting. We're not complaining about 15Mbps, but 1M and less. Less official speak will lead to a better sense of being heard. Right now I'm ready to scream because I do not believe I am being heard and every time I have to spend an hour on download tests for the umpteenth time with tech leaves me with the belief that Hughesnet won't believe me (and goodness, they have my file!).

[GabeU]

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@jmogey wrote:

I would likw to offer a suggestion to those who respond to issues of slow download speeds to refrain from protocols Hughesnet has for testing download speeds. The kind of download speeds many of us are experiencing are orders of magnitude from what we should be expecting. We're not complaining about 15Mbps, but 1M and less. Less official speak will lead to a better sense of being heard. Right now I'm ready to scream because I do not believe I am being heard and every time I have to spend an hour on download tests for the umpteenth time with tech leaves me with the belief that Hughesnet won't believe me (and goodness, they have my file!).

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The speed tests requested are required to address speed issues. Speed issues can be caused by a variety of things, and the speed tests not only verify the issue, but the patterns and other info collected can help point to possible causes.  In addition, what is causing speed issues for you may not be what is causing speed issues for someone esle.  

[CMcIntire]

I think it is pretty obvious I'm having speed issues when I have a download never reaching above 20 kb/s for 6 hours, though and averages between 5-10 mb/s. Even without a speed test. It's ridiculous that I pay for the "faster and better" internet speeds with Gen5 and cannot download a 350 MB file in less than 8 hours. When I run the Hughes Net speed test, I'm averaging between .3 and 1.3 mb/s. Which really makes me question the validity of the testmy.net speed test as when I run it at the 25 MB file size, it claims 20-30 MB/s. How come there is such a huge difference when they are run within minutes of each other? I'm more inclined to believe the Hughes Net speed test as that is my actual experience when downloading files AND it comes from the actual provider, not a third party website.

[C0RR0SIVE]

Because the Hughesnet speedtest server is most likely overloaded?
Users cried and complained, "but the Hughes test is too favorable and can cheat!!!" so testmy.net was adopted as the standard here in the community.

[CMcIntire]

Ok, but what I'm saying is that my experience mimics the HughesNet speed test. The download I spent all day on yesterday should have taken less than 30 seconds at even 15 MB/s. We started it at 10:30 am and it didn't finish until 9:30 pm. I'm approximating 6-8 hours of actual download time as it would stop off and on for some time making zero progress and showing 0 kb/s download. This happens off and on continually with no solution, apparently. I've called tech support, run speed tests, turned on and off my equipment, changed frequencies, had basic and advanced tech support help to no avail, as well as engineering and even 2 different techs. Still having issues with it being slow.

[GabeU]

CMcintire,

Just out of curiosity, your download doesn't happen to be something from Microsoft, does it?  

And actually, though not that it really matters, a 362MB file at a constant 15Mbps would take about 3:30.  

[CMcIntire]

The download was Microsoft office. But, the speeds are often slow enough that we get disconnected from Everquest...that can be run on dial up speeds.

I'd really like to see your math where 15 MB/s means it takes 210 seconds to download a 352 MB file...my mathe tells me that's less than a minute, but that wasn't my point. It should not have taken 6 hours to do so. I've downloaded that same file using a different service provider and had it done in much less than 5 minutes. If it were something that rarely happened, i wouldn't enjoy it, but it wouldn't be a huge deal. But this is constantly slowed down and it seems to me that it is throttled much of the time. It started out just being during peak hours off and on, but we can't even get a small file to download between 2 am and 8 am during our Bonus Bytes. Most of the time, the connection is so slow that it cancels or corrupts the download and we have to start over. It's very, very frustrating.