About curtis-m

Turns out my signal is CDMA which could be either Sprint or Verizon. Boost is the no-contract MVNO for Sprint and I could get 23gb of data from them for $50 a month. With 7 days left in my billing cycle, I have only used 7gb of my 24gb total data pool.   Cell signal booster is expensive but is also a one-time purchase. Comes with a 30 day return policy. And since I'm joined at the hip with Hughes until May 2018, I have plenty of time to figure all this out. ... View more

I'm joined at the waiste to Hughes until May of 2018. I bought my equipment outright, and Hughes will not exchange for Gen5 modem, radio. To go with Gen5, I'd have to buy all the missing parts. I will be gone most of the summer. Very likely that I will be moving back into town in the fall.   The nice thing about having a cell signal booster is that I would have cell coverage when I'm here. This obviates a lot of the reasons why I needed Hughes in the first place.   The nice thing about MetroPCS is that I can pick it up and drop it as needed. No contract. 32gb at 8Mbps means I could stream Netflix,etc. I won't be switching my phone # over to Metro. I'd just be using them as a data source. Win/win for me.   HughesNet is an anachronism. They launched one satellite and everyone is all giddy. Space X will launch several thousand low orbit satellites in the next few years making low cost, high speed, low latency, internet access available to everyone on the planet.   Best, Curtis     ... View more

I did get a site visit and I feel like the tech knew his stuff and did everything possible but in the end I still have the same slow speed. It seems to me that I should have more than one option for improving speeds but the truth is if I want faster speeds then my only option is to switch to Gen 5. This is bait and switch.   I'm not going to upgrade because I am now exploring the use of a cell phone signal booster and a cell phone plan that would allow me to use a phone as a hotspot. Something happened over the winter, a cell tower upgrade perhaps, and I can now, sometimes, get LTE at my house. Hopefully a cell signal booster would bring the signal in at LTE all the time and if so then a $60 plan from MetroPCS for 32gb of data at 8Mbps is all I would need. Still exploring this option and I really hope it bears fruit.   Best, Curtis ... View more

  Here's my usage this AM. It is all being drawn from the correct pool of data, and that's fine. I would just like to get back the approximately 250MB's that were taken from the wrong pool the other day. ... View more

Gwalk,   I really don't need you to question my integrity. But thanks anyway.   This has happened at least three previous times and each time Hughes has come through with tokens as compensation.   I think they sometimes think I'm in CT time zone when I'm in the MT. ... View more

Gwalk,   In regard to vnstat, I am on linux ubuntu 80-90% of the time and I will be using this tool to monitor my upload and download data until something better comes along. Neither the HughesNet Usage tool nor the modem tool are of any help to me partly because they don't update properly. For instance, yesterday, Saturday the 1st, I monitored my use closely and I was only on the internet for a brief period of time during regular hours yet somehow I used 700mb of data. I only surfed a few pages and did not do anything multimedia so how could I have used 700mb of data?   Something is wrong. A couple of months back, several gbs of data were taken from my anytime pool when I was very careful to make sure any download was started and finished before 8AM. I didn't catch this early enough so only a few gbs of data were replaced. This month at least 1gb was charged against the wrong pool of data and I believe this happened again yesterday.     ... View more

Daniel,   I have had similar issues. Actually mine was that data was being charged against the wrong pool of data. This has happened to me twice. Mods have been very helpful in restoring my data. Hopefully you'll have the same experience. In the meantime, there are several free tools out there that will monitor your data usage.   Just search: upload download monitor   But you will probably have to install the tool you choose on each device.   I use vnstat on Linux. Very accurate.   Best, Curtis ... View more

dhorwath,   Good idea. Thanks. ... View more

Amanda, Liz, Chris, anyone?     ... View more

Amanda, anyone?   Those diagnostic tests? Remember? And then the tech visit?   Does Hughes need to hire some more people?   Chris said I was entiteled to a free onsite tech visit. Where's Chris? ... View more

dhorwath,   You wrote: " The thing that makes me frustrated is that they have a new satellite.  Those of us that have had speed issues for 5+ months in my case, should automatically get moved to it and not expect to pay more or start over on a contract.  Seems reasonable to me."   Your statement seems reasonable to me.   Best, Curtis ... View more

Hi bkeeper,   I have been monitoring this site since about Sept/Oct last year. With regard to slow speed issues, I have only seen three solutions offered, none of which have anything to do with an increase in speed. They are:   1.) Offer to lower monthly bill 2.) Offer to let you out of your contract without an early termination fee. 3.) Offer to let you upgrade free of charge to Gen 5   And now there is a 4th: 4.) Recommending that you upgrade to Gen 5 but without any suggestion of doing so at no charge.   The problem with #4 is not everyone who is reporting back after having upgraded to Gen 5 is saying they're seeing an increase in speed. It appears, at least for now, that migrating to Gen 5 is a crap shoot and an expensive one at that.   It should also be noted that many of those pumping Hughes are installers.   I appreciate the fact that you have not given up and walked away. If you should do that, then all your efforts over the last month and more will have been done for nothing.   Best Curtis ... View more

Just read the first post. It's all there.   Lately even the Mods are suggesting that the only solution to slow speed issues is an upgrade to Gen 5.   But the upgrade comes at a cost initially along with an increase in monthly bills.   GL ... View more

Amanda or anyone?   Did you forget that you were going to run those diagnostic tests?       ... View more

Really hope this works for you.   Best, Curtis ... View more

Amanda,   Did you forget that you were going to run those diagnostic tests?   And now that my road and field is dry, I'd like to setup that tech visit. And don't forget that Chris said this tech visit would be on Hughe's dime.   Thanks, Curtis ... View more

My road is dry. My field is dry.   It's time to schedule the tech visit.   It's Tuesday, March 21st. I will leave the modem on all day so tests can be run.   Thanks. ... View more

I have just reviewed some of the threads in which people are complaining about slow speeds and asking for help. Some of these threads are months old with no resolution. They are following the suggestions to do speed tests and supplying the results. Still no resolution.   CORROSIVE posted the following a few hours ago:   "rlucken, You might want to call and see about getting an upgrade to Gen5, as there may not be much they can do for Gen4 users as of this moment till the load on Jupiter One is decreased. Thanks, C0RR0SIVE"   This is what I've been saying for quite some time. The satellites are oversubscribed and until this load is reduced then a person can do all the speed tests they want and nothing is going to change. The solutions listed in my original post are the only solutions available now.   I have a cell phone and provider. If I have a problem, I can call and talk to someone in the U.S. and my problem will be resolved before the end of the 1st call. This kind of customer service is not unique to my cell provider, but when it comes to Hughe'sNet then that's another story.   Best, Curtis   ... View more

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. ... View more

@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 ... View more

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 ... View more

I did a screen grab showing that it took a minute to reload the main Hughe's tech support page. Unfortunatley no way to upload it.   But it is now taking a full minute to load most web pages. When I first complained about these speed issues last fall, it was taking up to 30seconds to load a page. ... View more

TampaGal,   Your best bet for getting any kind of real help is to start a new thread. Hughe's reps will then see it and, since your install is so new, may be able to do something for you. Continuing to post in this thread is not likely to draw the attention of Hughe's reps to your problem.   Good luck   ... View more

Liz,   Thanks for the roadmap. Found it. ... View more

Liz,   Thank you. I did get the email. I'm not seeing these tokens yet. Where should I look?   Thanks, Curtus ... View more

Amanda,   I am leaving the modem on all day today, Monday, March 13th, so you can run your tests.   Thanks, Curtis ... View more

Monday, 03/13/2017   My usage seems to be coming from the proper pools of data now but there is still the issue of the 900MB's taken from the wrong pool.   Please move the 900MB draw from my anytime side to the bonus side.   Best, Curtis ... View more