Yeaah! We've broken free of satellite internet!!

[ErinP]

This is one of the few places I could share this and know that people would be properly impressed.

Courtesy of a magic box (looks a lot like a standard WiFi router) from my local cell carrier, tied in to the omni antenna on top of our house, I got THIS:

An "F+" but it's faster than my satellite and certainly fast enough to stream Netflix. In fact, my husband and both kids are all watching something different on their tabs right now, just because they can. lol



$45 a month, completely unlimited, I can not wait to call Hughes Net Monday morning and tell them to shove off!

[Vosey]

That is fantastic! And we just signed a 2 year contract with Exede But we're having cell service issues here, US Cellular is refusing to open any new accounts in our area.

[WoolyBear]

Just be sure that who evers name is on the bill for hughes is the one to do the calling. Ask me how I know. You will most likely be talking to India and they may give you some hassle. I finally had to call a number for Germantown, Md. and talk to a nice lady who had no problem cancelling the service.

[mrs whodunit]

We where able to get rid of WildBlue this past December and go with wireless

Its wonderful to watch all the movie we want! The girls love to watch you tube and Khan Academy.

ENJOY!!

[logbuilder]

Just did an OOKLA speedtest on my satellite based Exede internet. Here are the results.



ping 680ms
Download speed 15.92 Mbps
Upload speed 4.42 Mbps

Not too shabby for satellite if you ask me.

And we get no cell service so that isn't an option

[That'll Do Pig]

That ping is god awful though Logbuilder. You may be able to transfer one continuous file at that speed but your real download speed for streaming or web browsing is MUCH MUCH lower.

[ErinP]

This is my Hughes Net:


(it occurs to me to wonder if they're trying to "convince" us to upgrade to Gen4 lol)

But really, even though the new cell is faster, the speed is pretty much irrelevant. This is half the cost of satellite as well as unlimited.
UNLIMITED.
Besides, I can stream three movies at once. How much faster do I need?

[logbuilder]

Originally Posted by That'll Do Pig

That ping is god awful though Logbuilder. You may be able to transfer one continuous file at that speed but your real download speed for streaming or web browsing is MUCH MUCH lower.

You are right about the ping time. I've been trying to get it down with no progress. I figured if pings were slow, so should DNS. I tried to configure it to OpenDNS which did not improve things. There is some talk about Exede highjacking port 53 traffic back to their DNS servers which are known to be slow.

Now as far as streaming, it is real fast. Probably running at almost max download speed. Browsing is pretty fast but I think DNS is holding it back.

[po boy]

With My Dishnet AKA hughs
http://www.speedtest.net/my-result/3449912422

I have to reboot abou 40,000 a day!!

[CurtisWilliams]

The best that I ever got with HughesNet was about 500 kbps. Half of their stated speed.The latency perion is about three seconds, and their 'fair usage policy' is laughable. They promised me faster speeds if I upgrade, but what is the point? I will just max out my data allowance that much quicker.

I'm looking for other options, but am not having much luck.

[Awnry Abe]

ErinP, what is this you call in America, "magic box"?

[ErinP]

I got it from my cell provider.

[That'll Do Pig]

Hughesnet is the biggest rural scam that ever existed and I hope they get effed up the you know what by uncle sam someday soon.

[logbuilder]

To appreciate satellite internet, you have to live in an area where you have no other viable options. At my place, I have a land line. I used it for several years and got 14.4 kbps. That's slow! We have no cable nor cell service. When I got satellite internet (Hughes) it was a big improvement. Over time, they added too many subscribers and it got slow. Then I got in Exede and it is really fast. Over time, will they oversubscribe, probably so. But the good thing is there is now competition. In a couple of years I may move to something better. But for now, I have the best I can get.

I currently have 4 dishes outside. One for Hughes which is no longer used, two for Dish TV (at the time I got mine it required 2 for HD, maybe not required anymore) and the Exede dish. Maybe there will be a 5th someday.

[Harry Chickpea]

Exede does re-route to their DNS. Part of what goes on w/ satellite is that there is compression on data to and from the bird, and the NOC and modem de-compress. To do that effectively, routing through their DNS servers is needed. If you want to avoid that, you can use up bandwidth with Tor or a VPN. You'll note that both are much slower on sat. due to overhead and the lack of compressibility of encrypted data.

Hughesnet was just painful.

I can do google hangout and skype on Exede with no problem. Not sure why, but the apparent latency is less in the calls than I would expect from ping times.

Exede has a 10 gig/mo limit, but the classic plan allows free time after midnight and before five AM. Last month my actual usage was 27 gig, since I just record off the streaming stuff to an old VCR and rotate out tapes after I watch.

[logbuilder]

Latency... what a pain. But, a ping going 100k miles via satellite and then the ground time in 600 ms is still pretty impressive when you think about it.

In the early days of satellite, we called it propagation delay. In the late 80's I worked for a company that operated in very rural locations. There were still a bunch of small telcos and it was really hard to get things done. We went to a satellite based voice and data. By today's standards it was slow but compared to a Paradyme bisync modem across phone, it was better. At first, the voice was really bad because of propagation delay. You had to learn how to talk on it. Plus, sometimes the voice would get garbled. In our problem reporting system we called it as 'sounding like Darth Vader'.

[unregistered353870]

Exede has a 10 gig/mo limit, but the classic plan allows free time after midnight and before five AM. Last month my actual usage was 27 gig, since I just record off the streaming stuff to an old VCR and rotate out tapes after I watch.

Harry, I do a similar thing but I have a Chrome plugin called FVD downloader that saves streaming video to my computer. It works with most streaming video players but not all.

[That'll Do Pig]

Limits on downloads/speeds have absolutely nothing to do with technology or satellites and everything to do with making money.

[logbuilder]

Originally Posted by That'll Do Pig

Limits on downloads/speeds have absolutely nothing to do with technology or satellites and everything to do with making money.

You seem as you have a bone to pick, especially with Hughes. Care to share?

[HuskyBoris]

my hughesnet,we had dial up for years,,very weak cell and no cable,I live with it as it's fast enough for what I do online,,it is at least 10x faster than my dial up was :P