Satellite modem options

[Thoroughbred]

Hello, dinosaur here hopeful someone might help. My somewhat rural location (bit north of Charlottesville, Va) has drawn me into the painfully slow Hughesnet satellite option. I watch a good amount of horse racing streaming video online. Well, that is I used to. In the two weeks I've been with hughesnet, I can rarely watch even a 30 second clip without (latency? ) issues. My question is...are there third party satellite modems I can purchase which will allow me to stream these racing videos? These are rarely HD clips and most are in the 30 second-3 minute range. Once or twice a week I also stream a longer, 3 hour live horse racing show from different tracks around the country. ANY IDEAS? Thanks!

[GabeU]

@Thoroughbred

Only the official HughesNet modem can be used with HughesNet.  No third party modems will work with it. 

Depending on the speed requirement for the video, you may see benefit by turning off, or snoozing, the Video Data Saver.  

If that doesn't help, I recommend starting a new topic in the Tech Support section to see about troubleshooting the issue.  

Please keep in mind that streaming is a very data intensive activity, especially if it's in HD.  Going by Netflix's information, streaming in HD uses about 3GB per hour, SD about 700MB per hour, and LD about 350MB per hour.  Also, please keep in mind that, during your first 20 days of HughesNet service, your service is in what's known as a "relaxed bandwidth state", which means that HughesNet is continually refilling your data allotment during this time.  I believe hourly.   This is done as a courtesy, in order to allow new customers to bring their devices current, whether through updates or upgrades or whatever else, without it affecting what would be one's normal monthly data allotment, as doing those things can use a lot of data.  After these 20 days the data refills will stop and your data will start being counted, and deducted from your monthly allotment, like it normally would.  The relaxed bandwidth state is explained in the Welcome email sent by HughesNet. 

Hope this helps.  🙂 

[MarkJFine]

Also a bit north of C'ville here, albeit on the other side of the Rapahannock...

The thing to know is that the main issue with streaming isn't speed/bandwidth, it's latency and the acknowledgement requirements by the stream provider. The higher the stream resolution and the smaller the packet size, the more you have to interact with them. The delays in this process is what causes excessive buffering and in some cases resends of already received video segments if any acks are recieved too late by the server. Reducing the resolution can alleviate this by reducing the amount of interaction required.

Unfortunately there is nothing that can be done about latency on satellite internet. The minimum time it takes to get a radio signal from you to the satellite, to the ground station on the west coast and then back to you is a little more than a half a second. This doesn't include any further latency between the ground station and the desired server you're trying to reach, which can be impacted by network congestion.

[Thoroughbred]

Hey Mark, thanks for taking the time to respond. I'm guessing that you, like myself, are rural enough "on the other side of the Rap" where your options were limited and so Hughesnet seemed the logical choice? If in fact that is the case, do you also experience the latency you spoke of to the point where watching a short 1-2 minute, medium quality streaming video clip becomes an exercise in futility.

I became so frustrated with things that I went out to Best Buy and made a serious upgrade to my modest,older, Dell laptop. Sadly, the result was an even slower (if that's even possible), constantly buffering  viewing. Needless to say, that sweet Asus laptop will be returning to the friendlier confines of Best Buy shortly.

[MarkJFine]

@Thoroughbred

At best the only videos I watch are short minute or less types of things that people might post on twitter. Those I might get an initial buffer period, but work fine afterwards.

I try to limit any substantial video streaming to my phone when/if I have sufficient mobile signal. Audio generally works fine all the time, but even that I try to keep at a low rate, ~32/48 or so.

[Thoroughbred]

Hi Gabe, thanks very much for the info and suggestions. Duh, I should have known that hughesnet would have something in place to prevent us from improving the subpar satellite service.

I have tried snoozing the data saver and though it improved the situation somewhat, it still didn't allow me to view even a medium quality, two minute video clip. I believe I will follow your suggestion of posting this subject in Tech Support.

Again, thanks for your help.

[GabeU]

@Thoroughbred

Even if a third party modem could be used with HughesNet, like they sometimes can with cable internet, it's unlikely that it would improve anything.  But, with HughesNet using specific types of technology that is unique to them, just like their direct competition, I don't think anyone would even bother spending the money on creating a modem that might work with it, as there would really be no benefit to using one.  

Also, most of the time someone is having an issue it isn't being caused by the modem, though when it is they can easily replace it.  🙂

[BirdDog]

---

@GabeU wrote:

@Thoroughbred

Even if a third party modem could be used with HughesNet, like they sometimes can with cable internet, it's unlikely that it would improve anything.  But, with HughesNet using specific types of technology that is unique to them, just like their direct competition, I don't think anyone would even bother spending the money on creating a modem that might work with it, as there would really be no benefit to using one.  

Also, most of the time someone is having an issue it isn't being caused by the modem, though when it is they can easily replace it.  🙂

---

Can you imagine tech support and the overseas call centers having to deal with third party modems? I'm shuddering right now just thinking about it.

[GabeU]

---

@BirdDog wrote:

Can you imagine tech support and the overseas call centers having to deal with third party modems? I'm shuddering right now just thinking about it.

---

I hadn't even thought about that!  It would be crazy.