![]() ![]() The dish is your standard parabolic dish. Our current provider has a similarly nice modem/wireless router, but it only operates on the 2.4 GHz band. The modem we received was fairly decent, and operated on the usual 2.4 GHz band, as well as the 5 GHz band. HughesNet leases you a modem/wireless router with their service. ![]() A (horrible) picture of the HughesNet modem. HughesNet’s hardware is actually fairly decent. Granted, it wasn’t a thunderstorm or anything major – but it did do fairly well. There was no issues – no decreases in speed, no drop-outs, or anything. Well, in the three days we had HughesNet, one day happened to be extremely cloudy and continuously raining. If anyone has had satellite TV, there’s one question: just how reliable is satellite internet? Anytime it thunderstorms, your satellite TV just fades out. Unacceptable! This setting can be disabled, but you will burn through your data allowance much quicker. I had to wait anywhere from a minute to five minutes for just a couple minutes of 1080p video to buffer. There’s one more thing: by default, HughesNet has a setting in place that saves your data by throttling speeds on video downloads. Which, in comparison to the normal speed, is just a snail’s pace. Once you pass your 10GB cap, HughesNet slows the speed down to 1 MBPS. However, there’s that elephant in the room again. HughesNet advertises roughly 25 MBPS (down), but that will fluctuate depending on the weather, your location, etc. What about speed? During basic speed tests, HughesNet did fairly good in comparison to the provider we had. Watching Netflix and Hulu, which streams in real time, usually takes place during the afternoon, and not 3 am. Most people will do their work – include working with large files – during the day. The only issue is: most people wouldn’t stream movies at these hours. HughesNet does have this thing called “Bonus Data” that allows you to download large files (such as movies, system updates, etc.) on off-peak hours, such as 3 a.m. You’ll just have to suffer as they throttle your speeds down to a measly 1 MBPS. But don’t worry! Even after you use the allotted data on your plan, you can still access the internet. They estimate that it would take only five hours of streaming HD video to deplete the data allocation. With HughesNet, the basic 10GB plan would be gone within a matter of hours. HughesNet is not for those streaming video, especially in HD. Let’s start off with the elephant in the room when it comes to HughesNet – their data caps. Here’s what I have to say about HughesNet. (Unfortunately, the Dish installer didn’t mention it until he was done.) My Review While he called a local Dish Network installer, the company in turn installed HughesNet service. He decided to try a satellite internet provider. He has also been wanting to switch his internet service provider, since he felt our current provider is somewhat expensive. Streaming 1080p video consumes a lot of data in just an hour. However, going from cable to a Roku greatly increases his data usage. I’ve been helping my father “cut the cord.” He’s switched to primarily using a cell phone, as I placed him on my plan with AT&T Prepaid (as opposed to TracFone which he’s used since the 1990s.) I purchased a Roku for him to use, which allows him to stream TV shows and movies. There are many providers of this service, but HughesNet is by far the most popular. Satellite internet, similar to satellite TV, uses a satellite dish to transmit and receive data from an orbiting satellite. Most who have lived in rural areas will learn they’re limited to dial-up or DSL services provided by their telephone provider, or they can sign up for satellite internet. For those wanting high-speed internet but live in rural areas without any major companies around, your options are limited. ![]()
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