About Sweetpea3829

Still not able to attend to this much, due to full blown baseball season as well as some family stuff (nothing bad, just extremely busy) but for the sake of maintaining documentation and stats, here are the current data stats.     I have to note that the initial very steep drop is, in part, due to a video I was uploading from my phone to FB, while using the wifi connection.  Not something I normally do, but it was a video of my son's first flying lesson and mobile data wasn't having it.  Come to find out, Wifi wasn't having it either and it chewed up a good bit of data.  He took his flight on May 9th, and I attempted to upload the video on the 9th and 10th. Though on the 10th, it was using Bonus data.     Regardless, even if we take that approx 1 GB into consideration, HN...these repeated data graphs, showing these significant drop offs from the first or second week to the rest of the month, are ridiculous.  There is CLEARLY a problem here.  Month after month after month.  I'm down to 2.3 GB of Anytime data with almost half of May left to go.     Combined data usage, so far, according to HN, is nearly 11.5 GB.  GW shows 6.3 for the month of May.  Factor in the GB from my phone's video.  And maybe another 1-2 GB for tablet use for the kids' Prodigy game and uploading a couple of e-books.     When baseball season ends, and following a visit from family in early July, I hope to sit down and fully address this again.  In the meantime, I will keep stats updated.     ... View more

Have had some personal stuff going on this month, even aside from baseball season, and have really not had time to pay much attention but...for the sake of documenting stats...   The "slide" began earlier this month than usual.  It did last month, too.  For both months, the slide appears to have begun around the end of the first week of the cycle.     The gradient drop was less sharp this month than past months.  Still, there is an evident part of the slope where the gradient does take a turn.  GW does not show a significant uptick in usage from one part of the month to another.  The data discrepancy between GW and HN is about 1GB with HN showing higher use.  And actually, the discrepancy is much higher when we include the HN data that was used during bonus hours.  There, the discrepancy is about 4GB.  I can assure you, there has not been 4GB of data used by nonlaptop devices.     Regardless, these are the current images.  I will try and grab some images at the end of the cycle, if I can remember.  Baseball season will be in full go by that point (well...if we can ever get some SPRING WEATHER).     April's MTD graph March's final graph HN Usage MTD for April GW April MTD All GW April MTD Chrome Usage ... View more

Weirdest thing...   HN, I don't get you.   I've spent the better part of today using the laptop off and on, as I'm trying to get the kids' science semester finalized and ready (for Monday...ACK!).  I've been waiting for HN to go into FAP all day...because I started with just a bit over 1GB left.  If even that.     I've been downloading small resources here and there, Googling, Pinteresting, little bit of FB here and there (shhhh...), and I still haven't used the entire last GB.  I even spent a good chunk of time dealing with Toys R Us website because one of my boys is turning 10 in April and the order I placed with TRU over a week ago still has yet to even ship.     Obviously, I also haven't had time to sit and test any of the Kindle Fire tablets because I'm just swamped.     But it's so weird because the data depletion today is more like what I'm experiencing at the beginning of a data cycle.  Not the end.  I don't know what to make of it.    So, current stats...    Oh...for the record...once April hits, I won't have a whole heck of a lot of time to really deal with this much.  Baseball season is our busiest.  They finish up in June (unless somebody makes All-Stars, in which case, kiss summer goodbye).   ... View more

Black tablet is going to have to be last for now. My hubs is due for work at 7 and he starts stirring around 5, lol. I'll see if I can get a kindle in there after he leaves for work. That said, I'm exhausted and need a nap, lol. ... View more

Next up...Samsung Galaxy Tab A (the "black tablet").   Start time: 4:24AM Start data:4938 MB   End time: 4:54AM End data: 4980, for a total of 42MB used. GW showed no data use during that half hour.   ... View more

We all know it's a political stunt, lol. It benefits very few of the actual rural residents who need it. Instead, residents who already had Internet are getting better Internet while the rest of us are in the dust. I have a few emails out and am hoping media might pick it up (coincidentally, my son's swim coach from last year is 13Whams' Mary Snyder's wife). I'm not holding my breath though. Anyways, I'm pretty sure you're right about the Gen5. They're going to tell me I should upgrade to solve this problem. Of course, that's not really going to solve anything. Dollars to donuts though...Dollars to donuts the NY HN plans will only be available for Gen5. ... View more

Ok, next up...Samsung Galaxy Tab A (the "white tablet").   Starting time: 3:48 Starting data: 4867   Ending time: 4:18AM Ending Data: 4912MB for a total use of 45MB GW showed practically no data use during that timeframe.     ... View more

@GabeUwrote: @Sweetpea3829   I commend you on your diligence, even with the knowledge that you're not really going to be able to show why your data tabulation is higher during the second half of your cycle, and being able to show why is the whole ball of wax.     Here's the ultimate problem with this and Gen4.  Even if you had the latest and greatest Nighthawk router with the most recent Merlin firmware and you could monitor every bit of data each device is using, individually and collectively, and you could break it down to whatever time span you want to, in the end, even if you show that during the first half of the data cycle your router showed 10GB of data usage and HughesNet  6GB, and during the second half of the data cycle the router showed 10GB of data usage and HughesNet 9GB, HughesNet's total data tally will still be less than your router's total data tally.  That's the problem with a service that has data compression, while at the same time that compression helps you save data.  It'd be the same if you only used a single device, like your laptop, and you could show that with Glasswire.  The HughesNet data tally would still be, in the end, under what your actual usage tally showed.  Again, though, I have to stress that the data compression is only my logical assumption as to why HughesNet's tally was always lower than my own with Gen4.  I used to rarely use my laptop or notebook, so for many of the months the only thing that was connected was my LAN cable connected desktop.  Because of that, it was pretty easy to compare the data tallies.  Some months the data tallies would be closer, but HughesNet's was always lower, and sometimes by as much as 40% or more.    Again, I really do commend you on your diligence, and I know it's very frustrating for you.  I just don't want you to get your hopes up with regard to anything changing.  If you showed that you're actually being "charged" for more data than you're using, that's a different story, but even if you had the tools to measure everything, I still don't believe that would be the case.     By the way, LOOK WHAT I FOUND!!!   I think it might be something that would work well for monitoring the data usage on your Galaxy tablets and your cell phone (if they have the Android OS).  You should take a look at it.  Glasswire for Android?  Heck yeah!   🙂 🙂 🙂    https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.glasswire.android&hl=en   The only thing I can find regarding monitoring data usage on the Kindle Fire keeps mentioning the "mobile network", so I don't know if there is a way to monitor total data usage, or even data usage via its WiFi connection.  If you know how, it'd be a good idea to monitor it.   @GabeU, I hear ya.  But my point right now is to prove that the rate of date depletion is not consistent.  And it should be.  As consumers, I think it's a reasonable expectation that we should be able to have an awareness and understanding of HOW our data is used.  Especially (ESPECIALLY) given that HN is being awarded that grant by NY to provide "broadband" to us rural internet users and that they're supposed to fall within certain parameters of data caps, etc.     How is it fair to us users if we cannot even determine accurately how our data is being accounted for?  At what point in my data cycle do I need to start being careful because the compression is no longer working?  Or whatever the explanation ends up being as to why data depletes slower at the beginning than at the middle and end?     If HN cannot even guarantee consistent data depletion, than how in the world are they going to accomplish the requirements of Cuomo's Broadband initiative?     I will have to look into those monitoring tools you mentioned.  Not right now though, lol.  It's already almost 4AM and I've only done two devices!   ... View more

Next up...my cell phone.     Start at 3AM, data is at 4444 MB Turning off Wifi for the laptop.       End at 3:30AM Data end: 4725MB for a total use of 281MB during that half hour (considerably higher than the laptop, which is odd).   GW shows 519KB used by the laptop during that time, a small amount, and it was actually less, but I forgot to screen cap GW just before turning on the Wifi for the laptop, lol.     Laptop Wifi is off. ... View more

I may have to bust out in song. This is one of my favs (awww, bummer...I can't post a pic from my cell phone). Anyways, it's Fierce, by Jesus Culture. Awesome song. Very 90s. I'm going to have to mute this if I intend on getting anything done, lol. ... View more

Ok, Laptop...start at approx 2:23AM.   Starting data: 4388MB     Ending data: End at 2:53AM Ending data is 4430, for a difference of 42MB.     GW shows 31.1MB used during that timeframe.  ... View more

  Good evening, morning, WHATEVS everyone!  I'm going to begin my data test with our devices, etc., now that it is past 2AM.  I'm going to stream 30 minutes through an online music site, klove.com.  (I love me some Christian music...here's hoping I can keep the singing down...don't want to wake the fam).     For each device, I'm going to note the data start, data end.  I'm going to show screen cap pics from GW, and from HN to document how much data is being used.  As I listed before, we have four Kindle Fires, two Galaxy Tabs, the laptop, my cell phone and I have one additional Kindle Fire which will not be part of the test (my dinosaur Fire).  None of these devices are capable of updating apps, as they all are pretty "full".  The kids' Kindles have little in the way of apps anyways...mostly just books.  I will monitor to make sure there aren't any backup things going on, such as automatic uploading of pics to the "cloud".     In order to maintain integrity of the test, I'm going to disconnect the WiFi to my laptop when it is not the device being tested.  That said, I'm going to start with the laptop.     I'm going to have a separate post for each device, with it's own pics.  I'll see if I can compile all of it into one later.  Hopefully I can finish all of the devices before my husband gets up for work (though looking at the time, I don't think that's going to happen).  If not, I'll finish once he leaves and/or tomorrow night.  I am hoping to get some kids on Prodigy so we can compare the data usage from earlier this month.      @Liz @Amanda   Beginning stats: Please note, we are watching the Bonus Zone, as it is past 2AM   GW this past week. No other devices were on all week. ... View more

@deserthaven really does have a point guys.  This issue started for me about a year ago with that whole stupid April the Giraffe thing.  Because I noticed I could watch youtube for a considerable length of time during the beginning of the month and then towards the middle and end, even just a minute of youtube would drain data in a ridiculous way.     But at first, I thought it was a fluke...so I watched, and watched.  I noticed that my science lessons (which I cast from the laptop to the TV) would be fine at the beginning of the month, but towards the middle/end, the data would just drain so much faster.   I have done my legwork.  I should not have to pay more money to purchase a router that can monitor every single byte when I can plainly see (as can anybody who's been following this drama for the past four months) through anecdotal evidence that the data tanks around the middle to end of the month, every single month.  I know how much usage works.  I know what my kids are doing online (practically nothing, except for that math game I occasionally allow them to play).  This is pretty clearly a HN issue and as such, HN should be the one doing the research.  Not the consumer.     That said, I understand the need for "proof".  I understand that my case could well be perceived as a BS case where I am doing something on my end and not showing it.  WHY would I waste so much time here doing that, though...seriously...I am a homeschooling mom of four, running around to a billion different kid activities...like I have time play these games.  But, I'm willing to play along and do what needs to be done.     Hopefully tonight, overnight, I can gather up all of our devices and see if I can establish a data usage rate.  I plan on using each device for 30 minutes streaming music from klove.com.  The data used for each device should be approximately the same.  Next month, at the beginning of the cycle, I will run the same test and we can compare.  The reason I'm going to do this overnight is so I do not drain the anytime data that is desperately needed.     Here's the thing.   As a consumer, this is incredibly frustrating.  I have extremely limited options for internet where I live.  I've done the Verizon MiFi (back in 2011, when we first moved here), and it was miserable.  Constantly dropped signal, very low data allowance (much lower than HN, but interestingly, running out of data wasn't as big of an issue).  We have our cell phones but the mobile data is often difficult to work with and pages do not work as they necessarily should.     Because of where we live, hard-wired internet is not an option, and it's not likely ever going to be ( @GabeU, check your PM for an update on that, btw).  HN more or less has us by the cahoonas.  If I want internet, without having to run down into our village to use the library, HN is it.  Mark my words though...if something else comes along...ANYTHING else....I'm out of here.  HN doesn't give me much reason  to stay.   ... View more

@Gwalk900  I am so sorry to hear about your illness, and the progression it has taken.  😞  I will be praying for you, friend.       ... View more

@maratsadewrote: Does the Kindle still constantly download stuff from Amazon?  I had to turn off the wifi on mine because the thing inhaled data, what with the constant updating from Amazon. No, all of the Kindle devices have the Wifi turned off.  They are primarily used for e-reading, and my kids use a dictionary/thesaurus app on theirs.  Occasionally, I'll let them use theirs to play Prodigy, but that hasn't been the case in quite some time, as Prodigy isn't 100% compatible with the Kindle tablets.  It works, but it's glitchy.     My dinosaur Kindle doesn't really have anything at all that updates/downloads except for when I add a book to it.  And I haven't turned it's wifi on in a long time because I have a six-book series on there that's technically expired from the Drive library and the moment I turn on the Wifi, it'll pull those books off, lol . (I have one and a half more books to finish in the series!).     The kids' Kindles...if I have to turn on their Wifi, I try to do it only during off-peak hours.  One of them had taken fifty million pictures or so of random nothingness...and then clicked on something that told the Kindle to upload ALL of them to a backup cloud.  This was last spring...I paused the upload, but haven't been able to figure out how to get rid of it completely, lol.  Obviously, I don't want their fifty million pictures of random things (dog ear, counter, nose, grass, etc) uploading to any cloud, lol.  So I have to watch that tablet carefully, when the Wifi is turned on.  ... View more

@GabeUwrote: @Sweetpea3829   As you're beginning to see, the bottom line is you may be able to see that there is more data being used during the second half of the cycle, but there's no way to see what's using it, and no way to know why more is being used.  Without a router that can either monitor your data usage as a whole, or monitor each device's data usage, you're not going to know what's really going on.  And, really, at this point, that HughesNet is somehow "charging" more data for doing the same things during the second half of the cycle is still an assumption, and an assumption that's not based on actual evidence, but rather what appears to be evidence, but may not be.  I'm not saying that this isn't what's happening, but you've got to be able to show it somehow, and just the fact that there is an increase in data usage during that second half in and of itself doesn't show that.  It's still entirely possible that the increase is due to a legitimate reason, but without being able to see the data used by everything even that's not possible to prove or disprove.  😞        Yeah, I get it.  It's frustrating though, because I know what I'm seeing, lol.  I need time to sit down with each device and document the baseline usage for each one on a given website, and monitor how that usage changes with nothing else changing that might cause that increase.  Kind of like what I'm trying to do with Prodigy.  Which I haven't had the kids on in some time because we're full swing into baseball season (pun intended, haha!) and are still finishing up swim season.  In other words, it's a bit crazy 'round these parts.     @Liz Is there a particular website you can suggest that might give a clear indication in the increase in data?  I can maybe stream a radio website for a half hour on each device...that should show pretty consistent data, I would think.  The problem with using Prodigy is that the kids would have to play it using each device and that's not possible due to time restraints.     I'm going to list all of the devices here:   1. Dell Inspiron laptop 2. Galaxy Tab A (White) 3. Galaxy Tab b (Black) 4. Ancient Kindle Fire (mine, but I haven't connected this to the network in a couple of months and don't plan to) 5. Purple Kindle (Daughter's) 6. Red Kindle (Son's) 7. Blue Kindle (Son's) 8. Green Kindle (Son's) 9. Samsung Grand Prime (my phone) 10. Hubby's phone (but scratch this one because his is not connected to our network, never has been, and he doesn't know how to connect it).     Just to reclarify...all of these devices are in my own personal care.  Nobody has access to the passwords for the Wifi on the kids' kindles, except for myself.  My husband and I are the only ones that can even turn on the Galaxy Tabs as they are password protected.  All devices are kept in our great room and the internet is never turned on for them outside of my supervision.  I'm very strict with this.     Current stats, btw Never mind, lol.  The data thing is not currently working.     ... View more

@alfrescowrote: I don't know if this will help your situation or not. You can get a Cheap router at a thrift store for around $4.00  and flash it with DD-WRT (just make sure it is compatible, DD-WRT has a router data base on their website) you can do all kinds of things with it . It has a wireless scanner so you can see who's connected to your network and how much data they're using. Thank-you for this suggestion!  I have no idea what any of it means, lol.  My tech savviness ends at the word "router".  😉  ... View more

@Lizwrote: Hi Sweetpea3829,   I've sent you some complimentary tokens to help with your investigation into this unusual pattern, so you may have received an e-mailed order confirmation for the free tokens. If I have proof to present to engineering that data is depleting faster on all your devices, I'd be glad to escalate for you, otherwise engineering may not acknowledge this without solid evidence.   Your cooperation, patience, and understanding are much appreciated.   Thank-you Liz.  I am going to try and start tackling this later today, but it will depend on how the day goes with the kids.  We have a Co-op every other Friday, lol.  I do hope to get them on Prodigy again today, which I had documented that specific webpage a couple of times earlier this data cycle.   ... View more

@Liz, I have done the router test several times, each time showing that there is not any data used when the router is unplugged.  Which implies that something in this house is using data.  But what?  I've explained several times that the devices in this house that can use data are locked down and the only people who can turn the wifi on are myself and my husband (and at that, my husband can't turn on the wifi for most of those devices).  There is a wireless printer, and a Google Chromecast dongle.  Both are connected to the laptop and I would imagine would show up in GW, yes?  The Chromecast, again, is not even connected (though it is plugged into the TV).     I have not been online since this morning at 8AM.  Not on the laptop.  And none of the devices are on for Wifi.  And yet, HN is showing around 200MB of data was used today since 8AM.  GW shows 91MB for the entire day thus far.  Quite a bit of which is Windows processes, which makes sense.  Some of which is Chrome from this morning when I first posted.  Where is the rest of the data going?     And still, why is the rate of depletion faster during this part of the cycle?  I'm more than happy to check in with each device, one at a time.  It will take some time (when I have time to sit down and not be disrupted by kids), but sure, I can do that.  But I feel pretty confident in stating that the problem is occurring across devices, just based on what I've witnessed in the past (almost) year that this has been happening.  That it's a HN problem.  I don't know why.  I don't understand the tech aspect of it.  But my gut is this is something wrong within HN.     Our data is limited enough.  We don't need that problem compounded by erratic data depletion.     ... View more

So pretty much there's no help from HN on this? No answer on why the data use is inconsistent? Nothing can be done? You do see the inconsistencies here, right? Every month, that usage chart shows the same thing...stay usage and then a sharp slide. ... View more

I've done that test, several times. It shows no data is being used when the router is unplugged. But that's more is a side issue anyways. The main reason I came here is because the rate data depletes is not consistent from the beginning of the month to the end. If a Web page uses 5MB of data in the beginning, it's using 10MB in the end. And that's happening for ALL of the Web pages. Look back a couple of pages. I had my kids on a math game website. In the beginning of the month, it used very little data. The last time they played, which is about when the slide had begun, the same website used much more data. I'm going to try and get them on it again today and see what it looks like. ... View more

Ok.  I started this thread at the end of November, and I have been documenting data usage since.  We're going on four months now.  @GabeU and several other HN users have been quite helpful in trying to troubleshoot with me, but we have not been able to identify anything specific.     And yet, there is clearly a problem.     @Liz, I have heard nothing of any value from HN.  You guys are the moderators of this forum.  This particular section is for Tech Support.  WHERE IS THE TECH SUPPORT?  My patience with this is starting to run thin.  Honestly, I do not have tons of time to be sitting here documenting usage every month, while I still hear nothing from HN.  I have four homeschooled kids at home who rely on this internet for a number of various purposes and as it currently works, we are being snowed every single month.     I started out yesterday morning, month to date, with 3790MB used in Regular Data.  And 2431 MB used in overnight data.  This morning, I have 4230MB used in regular data and 2546 MB used in overnight data.  That's a total of 555MB of data used, by my laptop, since yesterday morning at 11AM.     Glasswire shows 349.9MB used during that same time period.  No, none of our external devices were on.  None of them have been used  and they're all stacked right next to me where I'm sitting.  My kids have wanted to use their tablets, but I have been telling them no, precisely because I want to keep the data used strictly to the laptop.     Obviously, there's a gap in usage.  206 MB is not huge, but it's big enough!  Moreover, when we look at the data from early in every single data cycle, we see that GW always shows MORE data being used than what HN shows.  @GabeU was kind enough to explain that this is due to the Gen4 data compression.     I would appreciate answers, again from HN ( @Liz )  as to why this is not consistent across my data cycle.  Why am I able to be online for hours in the beginning of the cycle and lose little data, but towards the middle/end of the cycle, I can't even be on for five minutes without the usage tanking?     Every single month, our usage graph looks like this:  ... View more

Current stats as of this morning.   GW for all data on 314/18 GW so far on 3/15/18 HN as of 7:40AM on on 3/15/18 ... View more