[mdlug] HughesNet Gen4???

[Jeff Hanson]

I looked into it a while ago but went with Exede from ViaSat as they had
higher bandwidth and lower prices at the time.

Exede's lowest subscription is 10 Mbs down and 1-2 up.  They have several
different plans with various caps and "free" times.  I'm on the cheapest
"original" plan which is 10GB per month but is free between 12am-5am (the
"Late Night Free Zone" - LNFZ).  With a 2-year prepaid equipment lease it
worked out to about $60 a month.

Overall it has been reliable.  There was some initial problems with dish
alignment but if you have the modem key and know the correct web page to
access on it, you can enable the audible alignment transducer and align it
yourself.  My problem was with the sloppy initial installation that had
loose bolts, resulting in repeated misalignment and signal loss.  They did
replace the TRIA (transceiver) on the dish once early on when it first
failed.  The part was free but there was a $100 labor charge.  I fixed up
the mountings and haven't had any problems since.

One word of caution - satellite links have very high latency (500+mS).
TCP/IP error correction doesn't handle it well.  The modem fakes it by
converting TCP to UDP (or something).  However, this doesn't help encrypted
TCP communications tunneled via VPN or SSH so they are nearly unusable.  I
haven't tried them myself but it's a well-known limitation.

Unlike WildBlue, ViaSat's other network, Exede has a pod-based antenna
array.  Satellite modems are registered to a specific region (like northern
LP) and will not work in another region.  They also have a subscriber limit
in each region.

WildBlue is slower than Exede but uses a single antenna so it works better
for mobile users (like RVs with an automatically aligning dish).  A modem
registered in one location can be used most anywhere in North America.

ViaSat is planning on launching another satellite in the next year or two.
The current satellite reportedly has a bandwidth of 140Gps, the highest
currently in orbit.

On Fri, May 29, 2015 at 11:30 PM, ricky <rstaff at sprynet.com> wrote:

> Anyone using HughesNet Gen4 satellite service for internet access?
> Gen4 offers speeds from 5 to 10 Mbps, and monthly limits of 50 to 60 Gbs
> of data.
> Thanks, Rick
> P.S. I do not have access to cable or phone line data service.
> P.P.S. Currently using AT&T AirCard, which is slow and maxs out at 5 Gb.
> _______________________________________________
> mdlug mailing list
> mdlug at mdlug.org
> http://mdlug.org/mailman/listinfo/mdlug
>