@Lollipop wrote:I appreciate the input and suggestions, but I beg to differ on a couple points:
I disagree that people would leave if ground-based (or viable cellular) service came to be. There is always a cost, and sometimes being able to deal with "the devil you know" is easier. So if the "product" (Hughesnet service) were set up to be such that people didn't feel they were being ripped off and angry in order to have what is fast becoming recognized as an important part of modern life (we'll leave that debatable value for another discussion, eh?) then they might opt to retain it. I might, in fact, if it came to pass, since my property is down a very long lane, and is very secluded. So regardless of the speed and reliability, or even a cheaper month to month cost, I would weigh the benefits of changing over very carefully before dropping HughesNet IF (big IF) the plans were tailored more to actual people and actual usage.
Well, I can say that myself, and most people that I've seen post in here, and others that I know who have HughesNet, feel differently. A service that is expensive, data restricted, not cord cutting or gaming friendly, and one that cuts out during bad weather, vs a service that is less expensive, has a very high or zero data restriction, is cord cutting friendly and isn't susceptible to bad weather. For me, it's a no brainer, and I like HughesNet very much. With HughesNet I have to watch my data usage carefully, I can't stream on a regular basis nor connect my DirecTV receiver to watch On Demand titles, I can't game, and I can't utilize if for the "Ticket to Work" program from Social Security because it's not reliable enough (that's my own and wouldn't apply to most), as well as a few other things. There just isn't a comparison, and for me, no matter how loyal I may feel about HughesNet, I'm a consumer, and I want the best I can get for the money I pay.
@Lollipop wrote:Speaking of tokens, you did not mention my comment regarding "satellite internet is limited" in that I stated I could buy a thousand 50GB tokens ... how is that limited? I would like your thoughts on that, if you please. (not being snarky ... I really think it is a DECISION to artificially limit the bandwidth, especially here in Alaska, where we share a time zone with ... um ... no-one ... in order to maximise profit at the expense of customer's happy feelings).
How is it limited? Well, I suppose if you're well to do and you don't mind spending hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per month on data tokens so you can do the same things as an average user of ground based services, or $150,000 for your argument, it's not limited. That's kind of a silly argument, though. For the average user, it's limited. Actually, technically, it's unlimited, as you aren't cut off when you exhaust your monthly data allotment, but I'm speaking of high speed data.
And you're absolutely right, it is a decision to limit bandwidth, and necessarily so. The system has a finite throughput, and a throughput that is considerably smaller than ground based systems, and having high speed data caps keeps the system usable for everyone. Get rid of those data limits and it turns into this...
You can't drive 100,000 cars per hour across a bridge that's designed for a maximum of 5000 per hour, and not having data caps would create a situation like in the picture above, slowing the entire system to an absolute crawl. Much of the ground based infrastructure, which is used by many service providers, has very high throughput, but the satellite is a bottleneck, like the mentioned bridge. The data caps must be in place to limit the digital traffic. People are forced to decide when and for what they use their monthly data. And before you say anything about buying 1000 50GB tokens, the number of tokens people buy and use doesn't affect the system very much because the instance of such is relatively low.
