About DougMac

Thanks Gabe.  I'm glad I was on the right track.    Regarding "squirreling away" tokens, you make a good point. However, good or bad, I don't think I'm going anywhere soon. We are in a fairly rural county and in our part of the county there is a low population density. I've been talking with my county commissioner who is a big proponent of universal high speed internet.  He's working hard to make it happen. I understand where private providers do the numbers and the infrastructure is to costly for the potential customer base.  My commissioner agrees with me  that this is no different from rural electrification. In the 1930's, 90% of urban areas had electricity. Only 10% of rural areas had electricity, 9 out of 10 farms had none. Electrification did not make economic sense, but forward thinking men like Roosevelt realized those areas would never thrive without it. I feel the same about high speed internet.  If the market won't provide it, government needs to create cooperatives.  It will pay off in the long run. Covid 19 has driven home the need because of telework.   I hope to get high speed in the future, but I'm not a Hughesnet basher. I understand the limitations of the technology and have come to terms with it. ... View more

Late to this party, but my modem is on all the time unless there's a power outage. 🙂   @GabeU wrote: I've done the same since the day I got HughesNet in Dec 2004.  When my desktop computer gets turned off, the modem gets unplugged.  I don't do it for data reasons, though, but only because I don't want it on when I'm not using it.   ... View more

Looks like Excede is rolling out their new Satellite now.  Still not available in my area.  😞   I'm going to keep checking.   150g unthrottled simply can not be beat.   Even their 50 gig plan beats HughesNet.  100/month vs 129.99/month.   If HughesNet would give me 50gigs at 100/month, I could live with that.   But they don't.   I know the arguments.  HughesNet doesn't have the capacity. HughesNet won't offer what they can't support.   I don't care about their problems.   All I care is getting as much as I can for as little as I can.  Just like every single other person and business out there. I am not a charity.  I am not going to take pity on a company simply because they "can't."   If Viasat (Excede) comes to my area, I'm gone.  Unless HughesNet wants to make me a better offer. ... View more

I just signed up.  I went through Dish. They transferred me to a sales representative.  We had a long discussion, some of it technical, and I decided to sign up.  Before she let me say "I do", she read a long list of caveats including VPN service.  I was then asked if I understood all the limitations and was willing to accept them.   I go through a VPN to get to my work.  I haven't had a problem and it has been no slower than the Verizon service I had in the past.  I use web apps and check my email, but I don't try to edit documents, etc. ... View more