Hughesnet question

[ahrjmr]

Hi,
Right now I have Verizon DSL as my internet carrier, but I will be moving in a couple of months. DSL isn't available at my new home. The only thing available is cable and satellite for internet access.

I am thinking of going with Hughesnet. Can anyone give my the pros and cons of choosing Hughesnet over cable?

Thanks,

[Mike728]

I am thinking of going with Hughesnet. Can anyone give my the pros and cons of choosing Hughesnet over cable?
Thanks,

Pros:
Not paying the cable company

Cons:
Slower
Costs more (over 2x usually)
Need another dish
Rain fade possibility

Do you need more?

[Greg Alsobrook]

have you checked into wireless internet?? via sprint, verizon, etc.

[Steve H]

I suffered with satellite internet for 5 years.......................never again. TV (DISH) is fine but I'd go back to dial up before going to Hughes or Wild Blue.

[MeSue]

Don't move! There are no pros!

Oh wait.... you can get cable? Never had it for Internet but ANYTHING is better than satellite Internet. Just visit DSL reports to learn why.

[RobertE]

Hi,
Right now I have Verizon DSL as my internet carrier, but I will be moving in a couple of months. DSL isn't available at my new home. The only thing available is cable and satellite for internet access.

I am thinking of going with Hughesnet. Can anyone give my the pros and cons of choosing Hughesnet over cable?

Thanks,

Only take Hughesnet/Wildblue if that is your last and only choice. Dollar for dollar, if something else is available, it will be better than sat internet.

[AlbertZeroK]

I have hughesnet small office, my mother-in-law has wild blue. They also just activated high speed EVDO (cellular internet) here too. There are pros and cons with both.

First, Hughes Net and Wild Blue have long ping times, about 1second. That means when you request a web page or information from somewhere, it takes about a second to get a response. Both services offer a proxy server which do a good job in negating these effects with browsing the web, but only on non-secure sites. For secure sites, expect dial up speeds - that means your online banking, paypal, etc is going to be slow.

Second, you can't play games on satellite internet that require fast ping times, typically first person shooters. My wife has played the sims, and it was okay, just a bit slower getting conversations to pop up, but she says completely playable.

Third, HughesNet and Wild Blue both implement FAP (Fair Access Policy). This is different for both services - on Hughes Net, you are allowed so many MB of download per 24 hour period - if you exceede that limit, you are kicked down to about a 20k to 30k connection (dial up) for 24 hours, then your speed resumes. Wild blue gives you a larger amount (gigabytes) you can download in the last 30 days (not per month or billing cycle, it always looks 30 days back from today.) Now if you use your allotment on Wildblue during the last 30 days, your speed will be dropped to dial up speeds - until your usage during the last 30 days is 70 percent of your download amount. If you exceed your limit too many times on Wild Blue, they will not lift the ban on the account.

Hughesnet and Wildblue allow you to pay more per month for a larger amount of download ability.

Hughes net gives you free unlimited downloads between 3am and 6am every day.

Both hughesnet and wildblue use India for tech support - but Hughesnet Small Office and Big office (the $100 and $200 per month packages) have the right to ask for us based support when you get an india tech. My mother-in-law's wildblue is through a reseller, so her support is us based with banker's hours.

Hughesnet service calls will take 2 weeks for someone to come out unless you pay for service assurance - and yes, if you don't pay for service assurance, Hughes Net WILL purposely delay your service call. Not sure what the reponse time for Wildblue is, but I know those guys, so I'm sure it wouldn't be an issue.

FYI - Wild blue has changed their FAP download amounts twice since they started up, Hughesnet recently changed their FAP download amounts from an 8 hour timeframe to a 24 hour timeframe. Personally, I think this should be illegial, but the service agreement pretty much says we can charge you money and deliver nothing if we really want - but it's a sign that they have to put more download limits in place to allow more users access to their service - in otherwords, they are overselling the service and bandwidth they have.

I will caution, Hughesnet is SATURATED on certain satellites, that means you service may get slow at night, possibly 100 to 200k with the cheapest level or service.

Wildblue normally costs 300 or less for install and 50 per month
Hughesnet consumer will cost 100 up front, 100 per month for 15 months then 60 per month. Hughesnet buisness (what I have) will cost 1000 up front and 100 per month.

Oh yeah, and neither consumer grade service from hughesnet or wildblue allow you do any type of port forwarding because you are assigned a private IP from an internal NAT'd Router. Public IP's are availabe, for Hughesnet you need buisness grade service for $100 / month plus $20 / month for the public ips. Not sure what it takes with wild blue.

Now, the service is usable, it's not as fast as DSL but you get use to it and it beats the crap out of dial up.


IF EVDO Cellular service is available in your area, I would recomend that - but it has limits too. Now one thing to think of, Verizon is really slow about updating their EVDO maps. My enV has shown EVDO service in rural VA and NC all over where their maps don't show, so I'd see if your phone has an EVDO indicator or if you can get a buddy that does to borrow you a phone.

EVDO internet access from Verizon is limited to 5G of download per month. Not sure what other services are limited to and I'm not sure what GSM service would offer.

[Brandon428]

I had Hughesnet and it was the worst time of my life..lol. FAP is the Devil! Make sure you do your research. Its a whole other experience than DSL which is what I have now. Wild blue has better overall FAP plans. I'd go with them if I had too but avoid satellite internet at all cost. Check out cellular internet as well as WISP. You might want to wait until the new spaceway sat is launched by hughes which is supposed to provide much higher speeds,less latency and higher FAP buckets. Good luck.

[ahrjmr]

I checked around and Verizon has Wireless internet. I am going that route because I can't stand cable and the reviews here about satellite aren't promising.

[AlbertZeroK]

Good Choice, just remember, verizon wireless limites you to 5G per month of download, anything over that and they will cut your service to 200k forever.

[asrabbit91]

Go Cable Internet, it is even better than DSL.

[Steve Mehs]

Get over your hate for the cable company and get better service. I once thought about going with satellite internet, with slower then DSL speeds for high costs both start up and monthly, plus with FAP. If I'm paying $70 a month for internet access at some turtle speed like 1.5Mb, I want it all. 15Mb for $50 a month, I can't complain.