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Why is Gen5 using way more data that Gen4 ever did?

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rsp87mam87
Freshman

Why is Gen5 using way more data that Gen4 ever did?

Hughes HT 2000W Gen5 since 10 April 2017

HP computer running Windows 10, IE, Chrome, Bing or Edge

Windows Defender and Malwarebytes 3.0

Glasswire download doesn’t show anything unusual.

 

My internet situation; one computer, two phones (a tablet and a laptop, for travel, that are only switched on for updates the day of departure and while running on bonus data) has not changed, and neither have my internet habits. I have password protected all access – so I’m pretty certain no one else is using my modem. I don't stream movies, or tv and only the occasional YouTube or other short video. I have turned off auto download of video on web pages and have also set Windows to a metered connection – neither of which had to be done before this modem and still in the 9 hour test of having the LAN unplugged, as suggested on the forum (see pictures), I used an entire gigabyte. Today I turned off the wifi on both phones and still dropped another Gigabyte.

 

On Thursday May 18, 2017 at 11:15 a.m., I just happened to check the Hughes Status Meter, that’s what got me started reading the forum for help and info on this problem, and I wrote down what the meter read: 55% with 22 days 12 hrs and 45 mins remaining. I was startled, I’ve never used that much data in a whole month let alone a few days unless I have a new computer to get running. As of 1pm this afternoon (May 21) I’m down to 47%. With more than 19 days remaining of the first real month of service with the HT 2000W I have somehow used more than half of my 10G of data. I am using way more data than I ever did on the old Hughes 1100 or the Hughes modem before that.

 

I find this particularly worrisome since I have to be out of town and wanted to leave a motion detecting security camera attached to wifi in my absence I therefore do not want to leave the modem unplugged – not that it seems to make a lot of difference.

 

A few stats from Hughes: ( If these stats are accurate I shouldn’t even have 2G missing from my monthly total. I just want the speed of a decent connection when I want to look at the internet or check my email.) One GB = 2 hours of video streaming, 300 photos uploaded, 200 streamed songs, 1,024 web pages loaded, or 2,000 emails sent or received

 

12:15 PM  19 May 201712:15 PM 19 May 20179:15 PM 19 May 20179:15 PM 19 May 20176:23 this morning 21 May 2017 when I turned my computer on - it is always off at night.6:23 this morning 21 May 2017 when I turned my computer on - it is always off at night.1:47 PM this afternoon 21 May 20171:47 PM this afternoon 21 May 2017

44 REPLIES 44


@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

@lifstrand

If you want help, start a new topic and outline any troubleshooting you have done there.


I have done so.


@lifstrand wrote:

@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

@lifstrand

If you want help, start a new topic and outline any troubleshooting you have done there.


I have done so.


@lifstrand,

Where might that topic be?

According to your profile you have six posts total in the Community:

Profile.PNG

 

Four of your posts are replies within this topic that belongs to @rsp87mam87

@C0RR0SIVE suggested that you start a new topic of your own due to not every issue having the same root cause.

 

Your fifth and sixth posts in the Community were on an unrelated subject.

https://community.hughesnet.com/t5/Tech-Support/Error-message-Unfortunately-the-page-you-are-looking...

 

 

 


@Gwalk900 wrote:

@lifstrand wrote:

@C0RR0SIVE wrote:

@lifstrand

If you want help, start a new topic and outline any troubleshooting you have done there.


I have done so.


@lifstrand,

Where might that topic be?

I'm so sorry, I actually went to one of the moderators and asked directly.  I got the replies I was looking for without having to wade through the community.  

I sure would like an official answer to this question because from the user end it sure appears that HughesNet has set it up so that everything we do costs multiple times as much bandwidth as it did before.  It is NOT helpful to say that because Gen5 is faster more data can be used in the same time period.   Useage shouldn't suck up two, three, or more times as much bandwidth with Gen5 as it did with Gen4 when the useage is the same.  If a person gets 100 emails a day with Gen4, then just because Gen5 serves up the 100 emails a day faster shouldn't equate to multiple increasess of bandwidth use.

 

 I can see *some* more, but this much more?  It's just wrong.


@rsp87mam87 wrote:

 Just wish someone could explain why with Gen4 everything was fine - while Gen5 has gobbled more than half my gigabytes a in a few days. 


 

Same thing here and I"ve been scrolling through all posts and replies now for 3 hours this morning trying to find the answer. Totally worthless to upgrade and wishing I hadn't as this seems to be a big mistake. Doesn't do any good to have faster speeds and more data if you use 3x a much for the same behaviors. Does anyone have an answer ?

lifstrand
Sophomore

Same problem here!  I have been writing about music (blogging, social media) for over 5 years and need to listen to YouTube music videos, but  since "upgrading" to Gen5 my bandwidth use is so much more than it was before even though I have not changed what I do on the internet.  I also maintain social media accounts for clients, which means that I'm connected to those sites all day. With Gen4 I could do that but Gen5?  No way.  

I looked at my HughesNet data meter a few days into my billing cycle and was shocked to discover how much bandwidth I had used... I would clearly use up the 10GB before I was even halfway through the cycle.  I thought I had some kind of malware sucking the bandwidth.  I ran scans, found nothing.  I turned all my devices to airplane or powered them off.  I turned off the modem at night or when I'm out of the house.  I cut back on how long I would watch a YouTube videos, made sure my ad blockers were working, made sure auto-play, auto-download, auto-anything was turned off.  

Made no difference.  

Then I started researching and found out something I should have seen right at the beginning.  Gen5 says if I was on social media sites one hour a day that would use up all my bandwidth for the month -- no email, no browsing, no movies, no nothing, just ONE hour of Facebook a day. https://www.hughesnet.com/get-started/find-right-plan
 
ARE YOU KIDDING?  It takes 10GB for Gen5 to deal with 30 hours of Facebook a month?

I feel totally ripped off.  This all started with a tech call to HughesNet to complain about a problem accessing websites with Gen4 and ended up with a recommendation to upgrade.  The tech assured me that 10GB would be okay for what I used internet for and that Gen5 would solve my access problem.  He was right about the latter, but he certainly didn't tell me that Hughesnet was going to provide higher speeds but suck up double (or more) the bandwidth for my doing the same things as I have been doing for five years.

I would consider upgrading to 20GB, but that wouldn't fix the problem:  Gen5 is a data sucker.  For rural people with no ISP options, we are victims, not customers.  


GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@lifstrand

 

I'm not sure what defintion you watch your Youtube videos in, but the Video Data Saver might help to reduce the data being used by Youtube.  You can turn it on from within the Status/Usage Meter or by signing in to myAccount page and adjusting it there.  

 

It keeps videos to no higher than 480p, so if you regularly watch videos at whatever resolution the videos play at this would probably help.  

 

With regard to Facebook and the figure of one hour a day, I believe they are speaking of one using Facebook without adjusting anything, like the auto video playback and such.  Just with THAT turned off you could probably use Facebook many hours a day not use 10GB in a month, as long as you didn't click on all sorts of videos.  And, of course, you probably DO have it turned off, as most of us learn about that, with regard to Facebook, very quickly.  Adblockers, like Adblock Plus, help a lot, too.   

Hello,

 

Thank you all for your insights on Gen5 data usage. We recently brought this concern up with our engineers who let us know that they will be conducting their own tests using the same types of software and equipment mentioned here, such as Glasswire. I believe it was also mentioned either on this thread or another, that the issue could be related to a Respond-To-Ping feature. Engineering let us know that they are sure this is not causing the problem. 

 

We appreciate your patience while this is investigated and will provide any updates as we receive them.

 

Amanda

@Amanda

 

Amanda,  

 

Another moderator @Liz copied your response into her response to my thread about essentially the same topic titled "Why sudden massive data usage since upgrade to Gen5."  I don't know how to copy that thread as a link into this message.  Anyway, I appreciate your response and good to know that the engineers at HughesNet are looking into this.

 

I have seen many elaborate and detailed responses to this topic in various threads on this subject.  But I, and I'm sure countless others, simply don't have the time or expertise to spend hours and hours researching this, getting software like "Glasswire" as many have suggested, and monitoring it endlessly for days to try to prove to HughesNet that there is a problem.  This is in a vacation home where I want to relax and vacation in my limited time there, not spend countless hours trying to figure out why my data usage on the new HughesNet Gen5 is exponentially larger than on Gen4 even though I'm doing exactly the same activities online.  When I pay $120 a month for internet service, which is double what I pay for much faster internet at my primary home in the city, I at least expect that HughesNet will sort this out and not expect me or other users to figure it out or to have to prove to HughesNet that there is an issue.  

 

Clearly something is off in how they are counting their data.  As I mentioned in my thread on this subject, I had Gen4 for several years.  As it was a vacation home, we never used more than our 20 GB per month data limit.  We even watched maybe one or two 1080p HD movies a month on our AppleTV.  So I am just dumbfounded that now with Gen5 I somehow supposedly burned through 17 GB in a single day!  This is simply not feasible.  At my primary residence where I have Comcast and speeds of 200 Gbps with data limits of over 1 TB a month, we stream 1080p HD movies or HD content on Netflix all the time.  Yet our total monthly usage is only about 95 GB per month on avearge.  We spend 3/4 or our time at the primary residence and maybe 1/4 at the vacation home where we have HughesNet.  So again, if we stream all kinds of HD at our primary residency and never break 100 GB per month, how on earth could we burn through 17 GB in a single day on HugheNet?  I have recently monitored my useage before and after watching a single 2 hour log 1080p HD movie on AppleTV now with Gen5.  It burned over 7GB for that single movie!  When we did exactly the same thing on Gen4, it only burned about 5 GB.  So what is up with that? Now with Gen5 we seem to routinely be burning through about 2 GB a day just doing routine stuff online like email, web surfing, Facebook, etc.  Before on Gen4 doing exactly the same activities we would only burn through maybe 500 - 750 MB in a day.  It simply cannot be just because it is faster it is burning more data.  Our internet at our primary residence it 8 times faster than Gen5 and we aren't burning data anywhere near that rate. 

 

So again, something is clearly wrong!  The entire reason we upgraded to the 50 GB Gen5 plan was specifically so that we could now stream some movies on AppleTV or Netflix at our vaction home.  50 GB should be more than enough data given that we are only there about 6 days a month and given that we do the same thing all the time at our primary residence the remaining 24 days a month and still use less than 100 GB a month there.  

 

HughesNet is a very expensive internet service provider, but our only option (other than Excede) at this vacation home, so I certainly hope HughesNet's engineers sort this out very soon.  Please keep us informed as to the progress.

BirdDog
Assistant Professor

Hi mmollinet, this certainly isn't cable internet like Comcast. It is a capped service similar to cell phone data. Streaming in 1080p will eat through your data in short order, even 50 GB. Best to stream at 360p or lower definition. Even then can't do it 24/7, 12/7, or even 8/7 for the entire month. A 360p definition show uses about  700 MB per hour mininum. I'm sure you can do the math when it comes to hours per month at 50 GB cap.

 

That is if you do nothing else on the ineternet.

 

Sorry, not saying you are lying but no way you used only 700 MB in a day streaming several 1080p movies. Most of those run at least about 2 GB each. Maybe 1.5 GB depending on the comprsession being used by the provider.

@BirdDog

 

Yes, I am fully aware of that, I am not computer illiterate.  Perhaps you didn't read my entire message.  I know this is capped data and not limitless like with Comcast or CenturyLink. But if you read my message, you would clearly see that I am not attempting to stream HD movies 24/7 or even use the internet 24/7.  If you looked at my entire message, you would see that I clearly stated this is a vacation home that is only used maybe 6 days a month total and that over the past 4 years with Gen4, we NEVER used more than 20 GB a month doing EXACTLY the same activities we have done so far since upgrading to Gen5. We generally only do some basic email, a little time web browsing, and Facebook.  We have not yet, but do wish to watch maybe 5 movies a month.  That is why we upgraded to the 50 GB plan and are willing to spend over $140 a month for internet at a vaction home. Even at 1080p HD, 50 GB should be perfectly adequate for that when it is only used 6 days a month.  If you looked at my message you would see that I mentioned that despite heavy daily usage on Comcast the remaining 24 days a month at our primary residence, we NEVER use more than 100 GB a month ( at any time over the past year).  Again, I did in fact monitor this with Gen4.  With Gen4 a single 2 hour 1080p HD movie was about 5 GB of data.  This is in line with what I have seen should be data usage for a 1080p HD movie.  With Gen5 that same type of movie and same length was over 7 GB.  So something is clearly wrong.  

@mmollinet

 

I am one of the authors of some of the long winded posts you referred to earlier.

 

The Internet is in a constant state of change. Our activities many remain the same but certain website behaviors may change overnight.

 

Case in point:

My homepage is msm.com, it gives me a quick "news-fix". It has changed over the years but lately there have been some changes that really chew up the data if not addressed in some way.

 

If I use a stock version of IE11, no active extensions at all, and I click on certain news links in many cases a video will auto-start. I can click on the pause to stop the apparent video from downloading and continue to read the article only to have the same video restart automatically. At the same time it is downloading another video further down the webpage. The net result here is a massive increase in the amount of data used to read a news article compared to the same activity even from last month to this month.

 

Then we have another Nasty, HTML5 video pre-fetch .... even with video Auto-Play turned off, unless you have installed a specific browser extension to block it ... Your browser will download HTML5 video content in the background so as to be available "just-in-case".

You are NOT going to be aware of this behaviour unless you have taken certain steps to see just what it is that is using your data.

 

Now, I am NOT saying that there isn't issues with the way Gen5 calculates data and that issue is being investigated, but you simply have to have more to go on than guesswork, supposition and suspicion.

 

A router that tracks data per device, per defined usage period and per application will very quickly determine if there are security issues, both wired and wireless, within a Network including vulnerabilities that you may not be aware of.

 

Using GlassWire as a tool to get a VERY detailed report on what programs, processes and applications are using data is not a difficult and time consuming process. There are users here in the Community that can help you by simply posting a screenshot.

The effectiveness of browser extensions can be determined and tweaked through the use of GlassWire.

You don't have to become an expert in the use of these "tools" as there are those of us that will assist, but you have to be sure that "all is right" on your end of the Network connection.

There are just so many ways for data to be used and websites are in a constant state of change.

 

 

 

 

 

 

@Gwalk900

 

Yes, all good points. I fully realize things change over time and that many websites have auto load features now for video, which increases data usage. But again, my point is that this changed dramatically when comparing the week after the upgrade to Gen5 compared to the week before on Gen4.  Things didn't change that quickly.  Yes, I understand that it may be helpful to gather evidence through something like Glaswire. But given that there seem to be many people having this issue, enough so that the HughesNet moderators have said their engineers are looking into it, that the burden should be on HughesNet to troubleshoot the problem, not the customers.

I have also experienced much higher rates of usage and am only in my second month of GEN5. I am not PC savvy so my simple calculation is % days passed (or remaining) divided by full period compaired to usage passed (or remaining)divided by Total usage allocation.

My usage with Gen 4 over many years never exceeded the 10 gig allocation and in most cases was substantially less.This must have included many internet changes as well as the upgrade to WIN10 last year. In this, my second month I have used almost 10gig to this date. No changes in myhabits, no Virus program (use defender), no streaming and Hughes Router. 

One interesting event, during my first month I noticed that my usage after a few days reset to "0" . This happened on several occasions. Since there is no free lunch, I wondered if this was to discourage my cancelling during the initial 30 day period.

 If usage under Gen 5 was to be that much greater it should have been "up front" info in the initial sales presentation.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@ommapop

 

First, the data resets.  During your first twenty days of service your data is reset constantly.  This is done as a courtesy to allow new customers, or those upgrading from a legacy plan, to update/upgrade their devices to current without it affecting what would be their normal monthly data alottment.  Doing those things can use a LOT of data, especially if they are devices that have not been connected in a long time.  It's not meant to mislead anyone about how far their data will go, and it is alluded to in the Welcome email sent by Hughesnet. 

 

Now, Gen4 vs Gen5.  I, too, have noticed that data usage seems to be more with Gen5 than Gen4.  This can always be due to a number of things, but, in the most basic terms, at least for me, I seem to use more for the same things.  But, with this said, and again, I'm only speaking for myself, I've tested what I've actually used, both with Glasswire and my own 3rd party router, and I've never been "charged" for more data than I've actually used with Gen5.  It just seems that the "Smart Technologies" used with Gen4, such as data compression, may have been a little "smarter" than with Gen5.  But, with that said, it may also be that some things needed to change in order to be able to provide a faster and more sophistocated level of service, including the Video Data Saver.  Again, this is only my speculation, and I don't represent Hughesnet. 


@GabeU wrote:

@lifstrand

 

I'm not sure what defintion you watch your Youtube videos in, but the Video Data Saver might help to reduce the data being used by Youtube.  You can turn it on from within the Status/Usage Meter or by signing in to myAccount page and adjusting it there.  

 

It keeps videos to no higher than 480p, so if you regularly watch videos at whatever resolution the videos play at this would probably help.  

 

With regard to Facebook and the figure of one hour a day, I believe they are speaking of one using Facebook without adjusting anything, like the auto video playback and such.  Just with THAT turned off you could probably use Facebook many hours a day not use 10GB in a month, as long as you didn't click on all sorts of videos.  And, of course, you probably DO have it turned off, as most of us learn about that, with regard to Facebook, very quickly.  Adblockers, like Adblock Plus, help a lot, too.   


YouTube is set to watch in the lowest definition possible, but at any rate I don't look at YouTubes more than a minute or so because of the bandwidth consumption.  I only watch enough YouTube videos to ensure that what I'm linking to is actually a functioning video and the one I want to be linking to.

I've not heard about anything called a Video Data Saver.  I will look for it.

 

I already use AdBlocker, all auto-anything is turned off.  All my other devices are on airplane mode or powered down.  I only turn them on before 8 a.m. so as to not use my regular allotted bandwidth.

My modem is password protected.

I run regular antivirus scans.  My antivirus is paid not free version.

My Win7 computer is set to load only the barebones minimum on startup.

I will probably upgrade to 20GB or maybe more, because I have to be able to work and I have no other internet options.  I do wish I could understand why it takes so much more bandwidth now to do the same work I have been doing since I first got HughesNet.  I am more stingy with internet access with Gen5 by far than I was with Gen4.  I wish I had never upgraded.


 

Don't know if you upgraded to 20gb plan or not but that's what I have and the first two days on this new Gen5 I used, according to Hughes, over 14GB of data! It's not possible. And yes, wifi on modem off, only one computer hardwired, no movies, not videos, and the video saver on hughes is enabled. Doesn't make sense and certainly isn't acceptable, especially when this system was touted as being such a great thing, faster speeds, more data, (well yes, because you're going to use three times the amount of data for the same activites as before), etc. Not at all acceptable.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV


@deserthavenwrote:

Don't know if you upgraded to 20gb plan or not but that's what I have and the first two days on this new Gen5 I used, according to Hughes, over 14GB of data! It's not possible. And yes, wifi on modem off, only one computer hardwired, no movies, not videos, and the video saver on hughes is enabled. Doesn't make sense and certainly isn't acceptable, especially when this system was touted as being such a great thing, faster speeds, more data, (well yes, because you're going to use three times the amount of data for the same activites as before), etc. Not at all acceptable.


Here's the bottom line.  The longer you choose to accept that it's simply not possible and choose to delay working on the problem to figure it out the longer it is going to take to get it fixed.  That's it.  As I stated in the other thread, if you want to figure it out, please start a new topic in Tech Support.  

I don't need to start a new topic as I've already seen everything sweetpea was told to do. Not hard to follow directions step by step. The issue is that it is clearly not an issue on our end and it's really frustrating and condescending to keep being told it is. There is absolutely no explanation for instantly using more data upon being connected to Gen5 with nothing else changing. That's not even debateable. If it was just one or two people across the customer base then maybe, yes, something weird going on, but it's not. It's a large number of people. We are not all so computer illiterate that we don't know what we have running. Whether it is simply the Gen5 data not being compressed as in previous systems I don't know. If that's the likely reason then why doesn't Hughes just come out and say so? Why isn't that told to prospective customers before they sign on? If that can't explain it then something strange is going on and it simply doesn't make any sense for it to suddenly be everyone's mysterious browser changes or video changes or phantom programs they forgot they had. Taking many months to walk through a problem is just ridiculous. I have glasswire installed and am checking things as recommended. It does not behoove me, clearly, by reading other posts, to spend the time post after post after post communicating when all that is being done is rehash the same scenario over and over. But, I do thank you for responding, seriously. I know you are sincerely trying to help.

GabeU
Distinguished Professor IV

@deserthaven

 

Though you haven't indicated what you normally would have used with Gen4 during that same time, the difference between Gen4 and Gen5 isn't extreme.  It's not like 1GB with Gen4 and 10GB with Gen5.  The difference varies, depending on what someone does, as some things can't be compressed and will be the same no matter which generation service is/was used.  If the difference you're seeing is extreme, that's not compression, that's data being used by something you aren't aware of, even the computer you're actively using.  

 

Just keep an eye on Glasswire, like you've mentioned.  It should help.  If you have a 3rd party router that has the ability to tabulate data usage, even as a whole, use that, too.  A 3rd party router is most likely going to be more accurate than Glasswire, even if all you're using is a LAN connected computer.  

I realize people are trying to help but the majority of these suggestions are so basic that it's just not helpful at all. Most of us know to turn on wifi on the router, to know if we have more than one computer connected and if it's updating or sharing info, we know if we have icloud services running, we know that our video data saver is already on, we know what resolution we are watching videos on, etc. For some reason it seems that anyone related to Hughes does not want to accept that, at least with Gen5, data usage is massively higher for the very same behaviors on the very same computers at the very same times and with the very same programs as the day before the Gen5 was installed. Why is that so hard to address?