Hi Chris -- I can't tell if you are a Hughes employee or a sort of go-between as an "Official Rep." In an case, I am very grateful to the suggestions I received from Charles McCool and sgoshe, and for your offer of additional help. I did look into the Padavan software and started download process, etc., but it appeared that I was venturing into territory over my technical head. I have returned that ASUS router.
I just searched Hughes FAQ re: routers -- wish I had checked that first -- and see that the "con" of my ASUS model is its set-up! I'm leaning towards the Cisco LINKSYS E1200 now, especially as I see Hughes recommended it not long ago.
What I also see searching the Hughes website is that there used to be, as part of the Tools section, some instructions on how to set up routers with Hughes service. That information appears to be gone, though I found, through Search, three old documents on Hughes, two trouble-shooting specific aspects of router set-up and use, and one more generic, but the latter refers to the no longer available tools.
I feel compelled to add that along with gratitude for the support I received through the Hughes.net Community, I am left with an unaddressed concern, indeed (not re: the Community members'responses, but re: Hughes.net): I am paying Hughes $1200/year for Internet service. (I live in a rural area that ended up not getting any cable Broadband option, and my work requires more than rudimentary internet access. (Well, actually, $10/ month of that is not the ISP service, but rental of equipment, as we had been led to believe that cable was coming in within a year or two of our signing up for Hughes... many years ago.) In any case, my unfortunate decision on equipment rental and total annual cost aside, I'm guessing that most all Hughes.net customers must end up using routers, yet "we're on our own" -- and Hughes.net Community -- re: set-up and configuration info for what is more or less an essential "accessory" in order to USE Hughes.net.
The ASUS router WAN set-up page had a section for ISP-specific setting (and the problem was very much with how ISP was interfacing with the router), and yet directly receiving from Hughes Tech Support even the WAN "ISP-specific" settings was going to cost $99- I know I needed additional help beyond just those settings, but it would seem, one way or another, SOME more of the basic Router WAN set-up info should be routinely provided.
So, again, THANK you, Hughes.net community members for your generosity of time to respond, even if I couldn't implement the suggestions. But something still doesn't feel right on the corporate "customer care" side: Frustrating and expensive -- the $99- "offer" was just the last straw...and I am left still needing to spend some more time to get a new router set up...to see how/if that works...