[COLUG] Hughes net

[Mark Erbaugh]

On Fri, 2007-10-19 at 16:59 -0400, charles morrison wrote:
> Mark,
> 
> I have a vendor who has satellite internet service who has the same
> problem. It is not just you.
> 
> Also, earlier this year, I asked the same on this list and received a
> note from one of the list members that Hughes Net does drop off speed.
> How much was not stated, but as an engineer, there are only so many
> antennas on a satellite and if more people get onto the internet, the
> data rate must go down to accommodate them all. There are alternate
> pipes in a wired network to get around the road block, but for
> satellites there is only so much transmitter available. I too thought
> maybe the system was set up for business traffic, but not true.
> 
> I know you do not have DSL or anything similar in your area, and also
> the Aircard answer sucks for where you live in Madison County (cause
> mine sucks)(it's been better lately, BTW).
> 
> My view is that you probably have the best you can get where you are
> located, unless you can get a T1, which costs a bunch more. ($500 per
> month)
> 
> Charlie
> 

Charlie,

I think you are right. There's only so much bandwidth available. As I
mentioned, things are considerably worse than they were when I started
with Hughes Net.  My feeling is that Hughes has over sold their existing
capacity.  Hughes obviously has the ability to control an individual
connection speed. For example, with my existing hardware, if I pay more
per month, I can get a higher speed connection.  Also, Hughes has a
"Fair Access Policy" where they throttle back your connection speed if
you exceed a data transfer threshold (about 200 MB / day).

The Aircard may be the way to go once the contract with Hughes is up.

Mark