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How do Tokens work and can we transfer unused bonus zone data?

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bare65
Advanced Tutor

How do Tokens work and can we transfer unused bonus zone data?

Good Morning,

I'm on the 10 GB 'service plan data' with 50GB 'bonus zone' (Gen 5, HT2000W), and before we upgraded to this new system we had Gen 4 (HN9000, Spaceway 3) 10 GB plan.

10GB's has always been enough for us (me and my husband) so we have never needed to purchase tokens over the years we have had service with Hughesnet.

My son is transitioning from the U.S Navy to a new career in Arizona so him and our daughter-in-law have come to stay with us through January. (along with their doggie and cat, haha)

 

While we have plenty of 'bonus zone' data left (41.5 GB), but our daytime data is almost out (8% remaining/ approx. 800MB left)

 

I don't want to upgrade our plan as the kids will be leaving in January, but we need to have data (or at least the full speeds) during the day so that my son can correspond back and forth with his new employers during this transistion as we have no land lines and no cellular service/signal out where we live.

 

I clicked on the Usage Meter and reviewed the Token Prices and noticed that we have (2) 'free' 500mb Tokens (1 is prepaid? 1 is 'free')

Will these tokens automatically kick in if our data runs out?

This would most certainly help out and keep us afloat until the end of this months cycle (5 days remaining)

 

If we need to purchase tokens, should we wait until our data has completely run out before making the purchase, or should we purchase them in advance? Do any tokens that we purchase automatically kick in or do we need to physically add them...if so, how do we do that?

 

The kids are good about keeping their internet usage down to the bare minimum as they understand the type of internet service we have out here...but I can see us needing closer to 15GB for the months of Dec. and again in Jan in order for my son to continue his communications back and forth with his new employers.

 

If we do run out of data and do not purchase tokens, will we still be able to access the internet with this new Gen 5 during the day?

Will the bonus zone data that we have also be slowed? We have over 40GB of that data still available. Is it possible to transfer some of that unused data over to the other side and use it during the day?

 

Any help with my questions is greatly appreciated..

 

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

If you use the free tokens you have (about 500MB of data each) they will go into your Token Bytes Bucket.

Should you need to purchase additional tokens such as the 3, 5, 10, or 25GB token, then they will also be applied to your Token Bytes Bucket. Tokens are not used unless you have exhausted your bandwidth for a certain time period...  To make it simpler, lets imagine three buckets, Anytime Data, Bonus Bytes, Token Bytes.  Depending on the time period, we would arrange our buckets in a certain way in the order they are used.

8:00AM to 2:00AM would use your Anytime Data first, once that has exhausted, you will start using your Token Bytes
2:00AM to 8:00AM at night, you would use your Bonus Bytes first, then your Anytime Bytes, and finally if you have exhausted both of those, it would start dipping into your Token Bytes.

Data Bucket OrderData Bucket Order


Bonus Bytes can ONLY be used from 2:00AM to 8:00AM.  If you use all your anytime bytes up and have bonus bytes left, then your speeds during the bonus hours will not be impacted, only the anytime hours will be impacted.

You can purchase your tokens at any time you wish, they will not be used till you have exhausted one of your buckets, and any remaining token bytes will roll over.  Your Anytime and Bonus do not roll over, and can not be interchanged nor traded.  You do not have to purchase tokens, however, speeds will be throttled back to approximately 1Mbps or lower if congestion for your beam is bad. 

View solution in original post

10 REPLIES 10
C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

If you use the free tokens you have (about 500MB of data each) they will go into your Token Bytes Bucket.

Should you need to purchase additional tokens such as the 3, 5, 10, or 25GB token, then they will also be applied to your Token Bytes Bucket. Tokens are not used unless you have exhausted your bandwidth for a certain time period...  To make it simpler, lets imagine three buckets, Anytime Data, Bonus Bytes, Token Bytes.  Depending on the time period, we would arrange our buckets in a certain way in the order they are used.

8:00AM to 2:00AM would use your Anytime Data first, once that has exhausted, you will start using your Token Bytes
2:00AM to 8:00AM at night, you would use your Bonus Bytes first, then your Anytime Bytes, and finally if you have exhausted both of those, it would start dipping into your Token Bytes.

Data Bucket OrderData Bucket Order


Bonus Bytes can ONLY be used from 2:00AM to 8:00AM.  If you use all your anytime bytes up and have bonus bytes left, then your speeds during the bonus hours will not be impacted, only the anytime hours will be impacted.

You can purchase your tokens at any time you wish, they will not be used till you have exhausted one of your buckets, and any remaining token bytes will roll over.  Your Anytime and Bonus do not roll over, and can not be interchanged nor traded.  You do not have to purchase tokens, however, speeds will be throttled back to approximately 1Mbps or lower if congestion for your beam is bad. 

Thank you @C0RR0SIVE Smiley Happy

 

If is 'add' these (2) free 500MB tokens to the Token Bytes bucket, (I haven't added them yet) and do NOT use all of them (1GB total) during these next 5 days, would I then lose any remaining mb's once my new monthly cycle/data allowance kicks in or would they simply be stored for another rainy day?

 

I'll go ahead and add these two free 500mb token as I have no doubts that we will need them over these next 5 days.

My son's new employer is emailing him all kinds of documents/packets to download/print and send back as part of this new employment transtition and both my son and daughter-in-law are also trying to locate apartments and conduct other moving related tasks (which, in itself is using more data that we are used to using)

 

If I recall, when we were on our HN9000/spaceway service (Gen 4) we would not of been able to do much of anything once we depleted our monthly data allowance. The 'normal' speed was around 5 mbps and the throttled speeds were SOL mbps, haha

Again, we never used but 4-6GB during any given month of having Gen 4 so 'throttled' speeds have not been something we have personally experienced (yet)

Hoping the 'throttled' speeds for Gen 5 are as good as people are claiming, up to 3mbps is better than nothing...Smiley Tongue

 

thank you again for all of your help...

p.s So very happy to have both our youngest son and our daughter-in-law home for this short time, and even more so through the holidays....even if they do use up all of our data, haha

 

 

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Correct, if you add any tokens and do not use all of them, they will roll over to the next rainy day.  You could in theory add 500GB of tokens to your account over time, and they will always roll over unless you have used them up.  Only the unused portion of your token data gets to roll over.

Gen4 while it had SmartBrowse, suffered a lot, Gen5 should be a little more tolerable, but it depends greatly on which beam you're in.  I can personally stream in very low resolution during peak hours while in FAP, and browse most websites.  There is a notable delay, however, it's usable, at least, for me.

@Corrosive
Back when we had Gen 4 (HN9000, Spaceway 3) we didn't have the SmartBrowse feature where we lived...so if you did exceed your usage, you were pretty much out of luck as the throttled speed was next to nothing. Our full speed with Gen 4 was only UP TO 5 mbps so needless to say, with Gen 5, I'm happy seeing speeds up around the high 30's most days.
bare65
Advanced Tutor

@C0RR0SIVE

 

thank you again,

I went ahead and clicked on 'add' tokens on both of the 'free 500 MB' tokens I had available.

I got a little message appear telling me that they had been added to my data allowance and they are showing up on my main meter too..

This gives me peace of mind for these last 5 days...much appreciate your reply.

 

hn.png

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

Just a caution, when you click to add a token, give it ~20 minutes to show up.  Sometimes they take a while to process and show up, and if you click repeatedly, the system will end up processing all those clicks.  So be DARNED careful of how often you click!

There have been times I clicked 3-4 times on a purchase and... The bill went up more than I wanted >.>

@C0RR0SIVE

 

I shouldn't be charged anything for clicking 'add' on these FREE tokens correct??

 

The two tokens I added a few minutes ago both said FREE..

hn.png

 

C0RR0SIVE
Associate Professor

No, you won't be charged anything for the Free tokens, I was mostly referencing the tokens that cost money...  Like that $25 token... lol

bare65
Advanced Tutor

@C0RR0SIVE

Don't scare me like that, haha

 

After reading your last reply, I made a 'b' line over to my account to check my billing and verify that these tokens I added were indeed free, lol (couldn't remember how many times I clicked, haha)

*phew* looks like we are all good..

making mental note..ONLY CLICK ONCE!!

 

hn.png

bare65
Advanced Tutor

quick update...

As I had anticipated, we exceeded our 10GB allotment of 'anytime' data with 3 days remaining in our month.

One of the 'free 500mb' token that I added yesterday kicked in this morning and our speeds do not appear to have been throttled or otheriwse interupted as a result..

This is most certainly GOOD news as my son has several work related documents needing to be downloaded and sent back. With the other 500mb token still in the 'bucket' we should be able to get through these next 3 days without any problems until our 10GB of alloted monthly data kicks back in.

 

Thanks again @C0RR0SIVE for all of your help.