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HughesNet and Wild Blue internet speeds

T

tnsmart

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Aug 23, 2008
279
24
I'm wondering how the speed of other HughesNet internet users compares to my own. When I do the speed test, with nothing else going in or out on my connection, at speedtest.net, this is what I get:

518939406.png


Can others post there results from speedtest.net?
 
I don't have a lot of experience with HughesNet but that seems really bad, even for satellite.

What's your contention ratio? Have you done this at different times of the day? Depending on what other users are doing, your downstream bandwidth can suck.

Did you test in anything else other than a clear day? Do you get bad packet loss?

Your latency doesn't seem too bad. When you ping out, what's the average between your 1-2 and 2-3 hops?
 
nobunaga209 said:
Yikes!! Is that the only server you can hit from your area? :confused:
Click to expand...

St. Louis is the closest server to me. I just did it from a server in MT and this is what I got:

519698871.png



Signal-11 said:
I don't have a lot of experience with HughesNet but that seems really bad, even for satellite.

What's your contention ratio? Have you done this at different times of the day? Depending on what other users are doing, your downstream bandwidth can suck.

Did you test in anything else other than a clear day? Do you get bad packet loss?

Your latency doesn't seem too bad. When you ping out, what's the average between your 1-2 and 2-3 hops?
Click to expand...

I have done this test at different times on perfectly clear days, within the past month, and have never gotten above .17 Mb/s. My download speed in Safari normally sits at around 7.0 KB/sec, but rarely will jump to about 45 KB/sec for a minute or two.

I would be glad to answer your questions about the contention ration, packet loss, and hops, but speedtest.net does not seem to give me this info. How can I test it?
 
tnsmart said:
St. Louis is the closest server to me. I just did it from a server in MT and this is what I got:
Click to expand...

Testing different locations is going to be a crapshoot for you because where you are physically has no relation to where your satellite uplink station. For all you know, the uplink could be in New Mexico somewhere.

I have done this at different times on perfectly clear days, within the past month, and have never gotten above .17 Mb/s.

I would be glad to answer your questions about the contention ration, packet loss, and hops, but speedtest.net does not seem to give me this info. How can I test it?
Click to expand...

Well, from what you're saying about download speeds in Safari, it sounds like the speed test is just off. I don't know how speedtest.net's test methods so it could be that it's just not made to test VSAT connections. Have you tried any others? I can't recall the speed test sites off the top of my head but there's plenty available by just googling.

Contention ratio is how many people are sharing your link. I think for HughesNet, its very high. You can check your subscriber agreement or call Hughes to find out. I'm not sure HughesNet will let you do this but for some US VSAT providers, you can upgrade to a lower contention ratio.

I'd also check your agreement and see what, if any, speeds they guarantee. Usually, they don't and will tell you that it's "best effort" but you still shouldn't be that low.

You can find your latency by pinging google.com, for example, from your terminal window.

Code: 
ping google.com

Let it run for a bit and then control-c to stop. This will also tell you if you've got a lot of packet loss (as a percentage).

Also, do the following:

Code: 
traceroute www.google.com

And post the results here.
 
Signal-11 said:
You can find your latency by pinging google.com, for example, from your terminal window.

Code: 
ping google.com

Let it run for a bit and then control-c to stop. This will also tell you if you've got a lot of packet loss (as a percentage).

Also, do the following:

Code: 
traceroute www.google.com

And post the results here.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the input. Here are the results:

PING google.com (74.125.127.100): 56 data bytes
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=0 ttl=49 time=1097.674 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=1 ttl=49 time=1097.437 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=2 ttl=49 time=1077.175 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=3 ttl=49 time=1107.341 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=4 ttl=49 time=1067.050 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=5 ttl=49 time=1056.966 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=6 ttl=49 time=1056.899 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=7 ttl=49 time=866.686 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=8 ttl=49 time=1317.109 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=9 ttl=49 time=1156.475 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=10 ttl=49 time=876.021 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=11 ttl=49 time=1016.370 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=12 ttl=49 time=855.778 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=13 ttl=49 time=866.423 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=14 ttl=49 time=1276.165 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=15 ttl=49 time=1075.509 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=16 ttl=49 time=765.814 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=17 ttl=49 time=1096.153 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=18 ttl=49 time=825.261 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=19 ttl=49 time=775.036 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=20 ttl=49 time=765.433 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=21 ttl=49 time=767.217 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=22 ttl=49 time=755.323 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=23 ttl=49 time=845.046 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=24 ttl=49 time=1175.945 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=25 ttl=49 time=1145.761 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=26 ttl=49 time=1135.099 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=27 ttl=49 time=1065.028 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=28 ttl=49 time=814.639 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=29 ttl=49 time=1465.108 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=30 ttl=49 time=765.134 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=31 ttl=49 time=834.402 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=32 ttl=49 time=935.004 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=33 ttl=49 time=1004.567 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=34 ttl=49 time=794.206 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=35 ttl=49 time=864.435 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=36 ttl=49 time=1015.591 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=37 ttl=49 time=1064.393 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=38 ttl=49 time=774.448 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=39 ttl=49 time=964.000 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=40 ttl=49 time=795.086 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=41 ttl=49 time=1194.883 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=42 ttl=49 time=903.882 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=43 ttl=49 time=854.722 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=44 ttl=49 time=743.810 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=45 ttl=49 time=1053.600 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=46 ttl=49 time=833.274 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=47 ttl=49 time=823.195 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=48 ttl=49 time=903.181 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=49 ttl=49 time=823.861 ms
64 bytes from 74.125.127.100: icmp_seq=50 ttl=49 time=1003.507 ms
^C
--- google.com ping statistics ---
52 packets transmitted, 51 packets received, 1% packet loss
round-trip min/avg/max/stddev = 743.810/964.963/1465.108/166.277 ms

and

traceroute to www.google.com (64.233.161.147), 64 hops max, 40 byte packets
1 * * *
2 * * *
3 * * *
4 * * *
5 * * *
6 * * *
7 * * *
8 * * *
9 * * *
10 * * *
11 * * *
12 * * *
13 od-in-f147.google.com (64.233.161.147) 1393.022 ms 989.179 ms 1020.851 ms
 
Packet loss isn't terrible; 1 lost packet out of 52 isn't a huge concern. Unfortunately it looks like your ISP may be blocking trace routes though (which is dumb, but some do that)

I would call your ISP and ask them to look into it, it really should be faster than that.
 
Yep. You need to talk to your HughesNet.

Offhand, from looking at how wildly your latency varies, they've got too many users subscribed. There's also a small chance that something's wrong with your modem but probably not.
 
Unfortunately, HughesNet has just as bad customer service as it does internet service. After I explained to "Razor" what the words "contention ratio" mean, he said that do not have any of that information. He was able to tell me that HughesNet does not block trace routes.

Is there anyone else out there that has HughesNet who I could compare internet speeds with?
 
You'll probably find more help, people with the same problems/ISP if you look at dslreports.com
They also have free diagnostic tools on their site (speedtests, trace routes, pings etc.)
IMO, the traceroutes showed *** because the ping was so high.
 
Today we switched to a new modem (same model, but new) and we were moved to a new satellite because the old one is being decommissioned. I don't know which did it, but this is what I now get from speedtest.net:

524681467.png


Thanks for the help.
 
I had hughsnet and it sucked. I now went with an Alltel wireless plan and it rocks. No cap limit for $59.99. I have a UTStarcom UM175 modem with an external antenna hookup and I can get EVDO about 10 to 12 miles from a tower. I also have a 8 dbi gain antenna and if not getting evdo I hook it up. works great. I did alot of research first before I did any switching to mae sre Alltel evdo was in all the areas where I go. I found out in Wisconsin here that Alltel use's towers registered to Wisconsin RSA. then i went to FCC website and found all the towers by doing a search here:
http://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrRegistrationSearch.jsp

this listed all the towers Wisconsin RSA has and also gives the town located in and the latitude and longitude. then I went to a map site and figured "as crow flies" how far each tower was that I needed.

I can't show you my speed test case I am trying to sell my Mother in Law on Alltel over her current Century media dial-up, but I usually have a test about
100 latency
over 1mbs download
and .65 mbs upload
which is faster than my DSL which specs out as:

Oh yeah I bought my the UtStarcom outright cuase I didnt want to be locked into the 2 year plan. search ebay for the modem and make sure it is Altell.like this one
http://cgi.ebay.com/Alltel-UTStarco...trkparms=65:12|66:2|39:1|72:1205|293:1|294:50

Hopeflly I didn't break any rules here.
 

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<50 miles:



~350 miles:



~1200 miles (too lazy to find something at ~900 miles like yours):



Hope that helps!
 
I actually don't know, my dad bought the service and he doesn't know what he got, he just wanted something fast enough for home. But at like 0.xx MB doesn't it take forever to load a page like MR? It takes me long enough to load this (like 8 seconds).
 
ikermalli said:
I actually don't know, my dad bought the service and he doesn't know what he got, he just wanted something fast enough for home. But at like 0.xx MB doesn't it take forever to load a page like MR? It takes me long enough to load this (like 8 seconds).
Click to expand...

You have 12ms latency. It's physically impossible to get a signal to a geostationary satellite in under 500ms. Usually, it's 700-800ms.

There are low earth orbit satellites comms where you can get around 50ms, but I can guarantee you that you do do not have one of these systems.

Your slow page loading is another issue. Maybe you should start a separate thread.
 
I used to have HughesNet. It was absolutely terrible, much worse than dial-up and it costed over $100 a month (plus $600 for setup). Very rarely had under 1000 ms ping, so online gaming was a joke. This is all under clear skies too. We're using a Sprint laptop broadband card in a wireless router now, it's still pretty bad but not nearly as bad as HughesNet or dial-up. OP, if cable and DSL aren't available where you live, check out the 3G coverage of AT&T and stuff. Get a USB broadband card and put it in a router, it will be much much better and cheaper than HughesNet.
 
That-Is-Bull said:
OP, if cable and DSL aren't available where you live, check out the 3G coverage of AT&T and stuff. Get a USB broadband card and put it in a router, it will be much much better and cheaper than HughesNet.
Click to expand...

We do not have cable or DSL available, all though we have been on the "expansion list" for DSL for a long time. Unfortunately, 3G is not available where we live (at least through AT&t). What is the data cap for the broadband card and how much does it cost?
 
ikermalli said:
I actually don't know, my dad bought the service and he doesn't know what he got, he just wanted something fast enough for home. But at like 0.xx MB doesn't it take forever to load a page like MR? It takes me long enough to load this (like 8 seconds).
Click to expand...


Judging by the ISP shown on your speed test results, I would wager that he has cable internet from Rogers ;)
 
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