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Tips for getting help with slow speed issues

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curtis-m
Sophomore

Tips for getting help with slow speed issues

If you are here hoping to get help with slow speed issues, you are not alone. In coming here, I will assume that you have already called tech support and that they have been of little or no help. Warning: if you are having issues with performance, it could take up to three months before you have some sort of resolution. From reading posts of others with speed issues and from my own personal experience, I am seeing 3 types of solutions, none of which have anything to do with speed. They are:

 

1.) Waiving of early termination fees.

2.) Lowering monthly charge.

3.) Offer of free upgrade to Gen 5 (This a new one).

 

The reason these solutions are offered over real improvements in speed is because speed issues have more to do with oversubscribed sattelites than anything else. This may all start to change as Gen 5 comes online and people begin to migrate to it. Maybe.

 

In order to achieve any of the above mentioned solutions you must start a thread and you must stick with it. If you start a thread and then don't keep it alive, absolutely nothing is going to happen. To maintain your thread just means posting something every few days. In other words, only the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

 

Hughe's official reps are the only ones who can actually help you, and they will if you keep your thread alive. These people are knowledgeable and are your liason between you and Hughe's engineers. If they ask you to run tests, then do it and provide the results in the manner they request. This will take time and dedication on your part. It will also take MB's so be sure to request replacement MB's when asked to run tests. If you don't do the tests and supply results, then likely your thread will drift off into the matrix.

 

If you start a thread requesting help with your speed issues, it will get cluttered with others attempting to help. You will be asked to do this and that and will be sent off on one wild goose chase after another. Do what you like but remember only Hughe's official reps can do anything for you. From reading thread upon thread by those seeking help with speed issues, my advice would be to focus only on the advice and instructions of the official Hughe's rep who replies to your thread. They are here to help you and will make every effort to do so but they are also busy so it might take a day or two to get back to you.

 

Good Luck

 

 

 

31 REPLIES 31
Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

Your assumptions are not necessarily correct.

You seem to be unable to grasp the fact that there are several completely different platforms in use:

HN7000s

HN9000 Spaceway-3 (includes Legacy and Monthly service levels that have differing performance levels)

HT1000/1100 Echostar 17 /J-1 Gen4

and finally the soon to be released HT2000 Echostar 19/J-2 Gen5

You don't seem to understand that an entire satellite is not likely to be overload but instead certain individual beams can suffer from congestion.

In the case of the new J-2 system there are 138 beams, each covering a certain geographical area.

In the case of J-1 there are 60 beams covering a portion of the U.S.

In your case ... HN9000/Spaceway-3 there are 120 beams. It is possible that one beam is overloaded with another with a lower population density has capacity to spare.

Every speed issue (any issue really) requires proper troubleshooting. One size does not fit all. You do a disservice to other users when you "paint everything with the same brush".

You also fail to mention that you live off grid. That means a questionable source of power for the Modem that also supplies power for the transmitter. Many electronics do not care for "simulated sine-wave" power.

You also fail to mention that Hughes has scheduled a service call to review your installation but are not able to get to your physical location due to weather related conditions.

 

 

Hi curtis-m,

 

Thank you for your contribution. I think it's important to note that with the launch of the new community, we are also taking a new approach. We are encouraging the community members to help each other out with regards to their concerns. The moderators will reach out to those who are at a point where action on our side is necessary. 

 

In slow speed cases, for example, our members have been very good lately with guiding others through the basic troubleshooting needed before us mods can escalate to the engineers. If the proper steps have been taken and it's clear there needs to be improvement, we have no issue with jumping in to assist. Until that point is reached, it's highly recommended to heed your fellow community members' advice and instructions.

 

Your desire to help others is greatly appreciated, for this is the purpose of your new community: HughesNet customers helping each other make the most of of their service.

 

 

If you have a tech or billing question and need help, please start a new thread in the appropriate board. Unsolicited Private Messages may not get replies.

Slow performance? Click me!

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

LIz,

 

Thanks for your reply. I've posted this because I have seen too many times when these so-called champions get carried away with "do this & do that" in an attempt to be the first to offer up a suggestion. Then I've seen these so-called champions begin to make comments to one another and in doing so they hijack the thread. The OP then has to wade through all of this clutter to try to figure out what to do next. Many times I've seen these so-called champions get nasty and disrespectful toward OP's because the OP just doesn't do what the so-called champions request of them in a timely manner. This then reflects negatively upon HughesNet. I can only imagine what would happen to me and my posting privileges if I were to get nasty with someone in this community.

 

Liz, I realize that you and the other official reps are busy helping people with problems but from my own experience and from my observations I think the best course for those with problems is to wait until you or one of the other official Hughes reps steps in to help. IMHO.

 

Best, Curtis

 

 

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

There have been numerous times where the "so called champions" and others have helped people with their speed issues.  Speed issues can be cause by numerous things, and many of them can be discovered and fixed, especially ones that have absolutely nothing to do with Hughesnet, by instructions from many people, including the "so called champions" and others who are not reps.

 

Sending the message that people who need help with speed issues should stay away from the advice of Champions or anyone else who could help that isn't a rep can not only cause unneeded delays in getting help, but also confer a sense of distrust of the Champions and others who could help that is completely unproductive, as well as undeserved.

 

Very few attempts at getting help with speed issues end up going off of the normal path, which is first trying to decipher what is causing the problem, then furthering the person's ability to get help when the problem can't be resolved without a rep's help.  

 

Not every speed problem needs the abilities that only a rep has, and there is no reason to sabotage the abilities of those who may be able to help by telling people not to trust them, nor sabotage the possibility of the person experiencing the issue from receiving that help.    

 

 

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

The "Champion" group no longer exists, if you haven't noticed.


True, but I'm sure something will take that title's place in the near future.  Until then, everyone's a New Poster.  Smiley LOL

 

But further, whatever takes its place will, I'm sure, confer to the user that they can trust the formerly titled champions, and to say otherwise not only hurts people looking for help, but is somewhat disrespectful to the people who have earned that title through their hard work in helping others.  

 

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

 Well, evidently my post was "inappropriate", as it was deleted.  I guess it's okay to tell people to not listen to the former champions, but it's not okay to rebut that statement.  

maratsade
Distinguished Professor IV


@GabeU wrote:

 Well, evidently my post was "inappropriate", as it was deleted.  I guess it's okay to tell people to not listen to the former champions, but it's not okay to rebut that statement.  


Was that a new post?  Your post starting with "There have been numerous times where the "so called champions" and others have helped people with their speed issues" is still there.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

 




 If you start a thread requesting help with your speed issues, it will get cluttered with others attempting to help. You will be asked to do this and that and will be sent off on one wild goose chase after another. Do what you like but remember only Hughe's official reps can do anything for you. From reading thread upon thread by those seeking help with speed issues, my advice would be to focus only on the advice and instructions of the official Hughe's rep who replies to your thread. They are here to help you and will make every effort to do so but they are also busy so it might take a day or two to get back to you. 

 


There's nothing like trying to sabotage others' possibility of getting help from those in the know who aren't reps.  
TampaGal
Sophomore

I certainly hope that all that time and work is not necessary with Hughes.  I too, have been very disappointed in my service, and today is my one week anniversary with Hughes (Happy Anniversary to me!).  I have had issues with VERY slow service.  But performing all of these tests should not be necessary.  I have tested my internet with the Hughes phone app, and it tests "Excellent" on the app.  I have a Google (brand new) mesh router that actually increases my speed when I use it with my router.  My Google app rates the speed as "Slow, but good enough for web use". The speed meter on the Hughesnet site while connected via my Google router is:  Download: .06 mps, Upload .20mps.  Connected directly with my Hughes router:  Download: .13mps, Upload: .30mps.  This is horrible!  I also can't use my MagicJack phone service that is prepaid for two years, and the PC Essentials program will not work with my computer.  Support was called last night and they basically told me to uninstall, reboot, reinstall- then hung up on me.  I did that three times, and each time downloading the program took almost 12 minutes each time.  This is just insane to me.

I don't see how I am going to stay with Hughes - thankfully, Spectrum told me that if I am not happy after 30 days with Hughes they will gladly buy out my contract to get me back.  That is looking more and more enticing as each day goes by.  I never had to even think about all of this before.  I fired up my system and it just worked - and worked well. 

 

I wish you all the best of luck with this.  I am going to call again tomorrow and see what can be done, but I'm about done here.  It's been too much, too stressful and way too much work to get internet that works.  I'll gladly pay Spectrum more not to have all of these hassles.  The grass is certainly not always greener on the other side!  Smiley Very Happy

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

TampaGal,

 

The speed tests requested when someone is having speed issues, and the protocol for those speed tests, are necessary to begin determining what could be causing the problem.  There are a multititude of things that can affect speed, so a simple speed testing protocol is requested of the customer, and if it's determined that there is a problem on Hughesnet's end, the mods and engineers determine what to do to alleviate the problem.  

 

That Spectrum is willing to pay the $400 ETF is quite interesting.  

I agree that the tests are important. After all, if I have issues, my issues may help someone else's to be resolved if or when a solution is found. Spectrum's buyot offer actually will cost more in the end than paying the ETFs! Fine print tells that tale.

The following is a quote from Patrick Fisher who at the time was an engineer for Hughes. Could still be. I don't know.

If you just want to know why Hughes is sending everyone to testmy.net to run speed tests, scroll down to the bottom of the quote. This further explains why other speed test sites rarely or ever confirm results produced at testmy.net.

 

"Patrick Fisher (Employee)

Also, a little more information on why we have our own test. (And no, it's not so we can doctor results).

Speed Test sites have many ways at their disposal to measure your speed, and they all do things differently. Some use Adobe Flash to measure speeds, some use Java, and some use your browser and JavaScript. Sometimes they use multiple connections, and maybe to multiple servers. Or maybe just a single connection. Some try to detect your location, which is tricky because as a satellite network, the address that matters is the location of your gateway, not your own location or where the IP address is registered. So they might pick a server in Kansas, or you might pick a server in New York where you live, but your gateway is in Washington state, thousands of miles away. Then, just to complicate things, we have a number of acceleration capabilities which try to improve performance over satellite by compensating for latency.

The end result of all of these variables is that we have no idea what they are actually measuring. A Speed Test might think it is giving you more accurate results by using weird tricks to get multiple measurements at once and combine them, but maybe our acceleration software interferes with that trick and makes it look better or worse than it is. Or maybe the speed test you pick has congestion on the internet link between them and us. Or maybe they pick a server that's thousands of miles from our gateway, so you have to deal with a bunch of extra internet latency. When we have all of these questions (and when we have no control or even information from the speed test provider about how it works), then we don't really get any useful information from external speed tests that we can use to troubleshoot. Finally, the one variable that they do show - uncontrolled internet links between us and them - is both rarely a problem, and not something you or Hughes is able to fix.

Our speed test is a simple test, which is designed to do us a couple favors:

1) We use Java, so that we can completely bypass your browser and any extensions or plugins, like Adobe Flash, that might introduce other variables. We don't have to question whether Adobe is doing weird things or your browser is crawling because of other extensions.

2) We log the tests, both so that we can see the tests you as an individual have run, and so that we can run reports on all of the speed tests for users in a given area, on a specific gateway, etc. This helps us identify performance trends versus performance problems that might be caused by a single user's configuration or LAN. If everyone else on your gateway or in your beam is getting good speed test results, but you are not, we can zero in on the things that are unique.

3) We control, manage, and monitor the links between gateways and speed test servers, so we can eliminate external factors like internet bandwidth as a culprit.

4) We can skip certain satellite optimizations as described above.

We do actually go out of your gateway on the same internet connection that your real traffic uses, to get to our speed test servers. So we aren't cheating by under-sizing our internet pipes and showing you just the satellite link, either.

Hopefully this helps shed some light on why we encourage users to use our own speed test service."

..................

One unfortunate issue with TestMy.net (since they really do have a very good, simple and accurate test methodology) is that our compression software is particularly good at compressing their data.

Much of the web traffic that we send toward your terminal gets compressed by our acceleration software. What that means is that if a web page has a 1MB JPEG image, we might compress it and only send 500KB over the satellite link before it gets decompressed on the other side by your terminal. If your connection is 2Mbps, we can effectively send you that 1MB image at a speed of 4Mbps. (As an added bonus, only the smaller size gets counted against your download allowance - we always pass the benefits of our acceleration on to users)

TestMy.net's data gets compressed by this, so they send you a (for example) 2MB file, we compress it on the fly to 500KB, and they get 4 times the actual raw speed of the link.

This makes their test accurate for seeing the effective throughput for compressible data, but not necessarily for something like a bulk file transfer. The Hughes test shows the actual raw speed of your connection, skipping that web acceleration."

 

Best, Curtis

BirdDog
Assistant Professor

curtis-m, much has changed since then. The not least of being even the HughesNet test no longer uses Java and they have admitted it has some problems of its own right now. My personal experience the Testmy.net results are about 95% accurate or a bit more, it does report high every so often though.


@BirdDog wrote:

curtis-m, much has changed since then. The not least of being even the HughesNet test no longer uses Java and they have admitted it has some problems of its own right now. My personal experience the Testmy.net results are about 95% accurate or a bit more, it does report high every so often though.


BirdDog,

 

I'm happy for you and I'm happy for anyone else who isn't dealing with snail internet. My test results with testmy.net are often times  200% higher than what I get elsewhere. I just did a speed test that showed a download of 2.7Mbs, which is approximately 50% of my "up to speed." Wonderful. But on Speedtest.net, which doesn't  favor Hughe's compression software, I just got a download speed of 1.7Mbps.  But that's not the end of this. For whatever reason it is now taking me approximately 60 seconds to download a web page. It takes more than that to refresh the community pages.

 

So walk a mile in my shoes. How would you like to be sitting where I'm sitting and watching the spin, spin, spin for up to and sometimes over a minute?

 

Best, Curtis

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

Things have changed over time, and testmy.net is one of the two tests that are officially accepted as accurate, as is evidenced by every single time an official rep asks for these tests of a customer.  

 

To further attempt to sabotage and confuse customers who are needing help with their speed issues is completely counter productive.  It needs to stop.      

 

 

Hi Gabeu

 

You said: "To further attempt to sabotage and confuse customers who are needing help with their speed issues is completely counter productive.  It needs to stop."

 

That's quite an accusation. If the truth is no longer accepted as a baseline, then, yeah, you win.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@curtis-m wrote:

Hi Gabeu

 

You said: "To further attempt to sabotage and confuse customers who are needing help with their speed issues is completely counter productive.  It needs to stop."

 

That's quite an accusation. If the truth is no longer accepted as a baseline, then, yeah, you win.


Sowing dissent and confusion in the guise of being helpful because you are frustrated that you aren't receiving the service you feel you should helps ZERO people.

 

First, you constantly tell people to not bother listening to anyone but the reps, as doing so will send them on a wild goose chase.  Subsequently, with this latest post, you basically tell people to not even listen to the reps based an old quote by a tech that may have applied at the time, but has subsequently been refuted pretty much every where it has been posted due to the facts listed in a previous post, and again, almost everywhere this quote by the tech is posted.   

 

We get it.  You are not happy.  STOP trying to confuse and sabotage people's attempts at getting help with their issues because of that.  Constantly applying your experience as the rule and cause of everyone else's problems is nothing BUT counterproductive.  Doing so helps NO ONE.  There are processes and steps to help each of the most frequent issues, and when you have someone refuting those processes because they have a grudge does nothing more than make it that much harder for anyone to trust the process and the people trying to help.  So please, STOP.  This is a place to receive help, not vent your frustration at the cost of others.  

  

Gwalk900
Honorary Alumnus

As I have stated many times ....

Curtis is on a 9000 system, using a single beam out of 120 in the case of Spaceway-3, has a truck-roll pending, is off-grid with goodness knows what in terms of sine wave output being hopefully all tied together with some type of proper ground.

There are in use:

HN7000s systems

HN9000 systems (both monthly and daily)

HT1100 J-1 system

HT2000w J-2 system