I signed up because I’d been on dialup for a year – and it was a brutal year. The bottom line is that today’s internet just doesn’t work with dialup and they might as well stop selling it if there’s no way to improve it. I live in the far edge of the outer exurbs where satellite and dialup are the only internet service options. Prior to the dialup debacle, I had a different satellite service provider – Wild Blue – but discontinued with it because I wasn’t happy with the overall quality of service, and their murky Fair Access Policy. Exceed your quota and you are completely blocked from the internet for the rest of the month. So that’s how I got frustrated and went back to dialup.
In the fall of last year I decided to go back to school, and that required internet access. To get high speed internet juice for school work, I had to drive an hour in one of two directions to the library or Panera and after a while that got old. It was getting more and more challenging to keep up with assignments. Using the internet through dialup felt like trying to suck up the ocean through a coffee stirrer straw. Finally this summer, it was to the point where I was up all night trying to research things on dialup that I knew would take just a few minutes on high speed. I did several oral presentations in my car in library parking lots. Finally I gave up and ordered Hughes net.
The Hughes net website states that if you exceed fair useage limits you will lose some capabilities for 24 hours but you would still be able to use basic functions and check email. That sounded fair enough and 24 hours of limited internet is better than several weeks with no internet at all that you’re paying for.
I ordered service on Monday and the dish was installed on Thursday. The install went smoothly and was done by a single technician on his own. When my prior service was installed I had to help the tech throughout the whole process. I was pulling and threading cable through rafters and holding whatever he needed held like I was an employee. I wasn’t too happy about that. So while I felt kinda bad that the HN guy was on his own, I let him do his job and he did not ask me for help. I was charged 125 bucks for a pole which I think is a ripoff but we prefer the pole mount to having dishes on the house so I didn’t quibble. If poles are available at Lowes or Home Depot for cheaper (I’ve never looked) it is probably a good idea to buy your own .
After the install however, it’s been so far so good. We accidentally exceeded our FAP limit on day one because of several months worth of windows updates that came pouring into a PC laptop that I barely use. My primary computer is a Mac and the moral with this HN fair useage issue is if you have a PC, make sure you set your windows update setting to “manual” mode. The speed ranges from adequate to good. By comparison broadband wifi in the hotel in Fairfax county, VA on Monday night wasn’t much different. It appears that one user can play about 5 hours of streaming video before the videos stop loading properly. I’m curious about how it would work with 2 or 3 users at the same time but we haven’t tried it yet. Static webpage loads have been adequate even when videos don’t work at all.
“Free surf” hours are between 2:00 a.m. and 7 a.m. During “free surf” time you can pretty much watch videos and take care of updates with impunity. I’m a night owl so not so much of a problem. It’s not practical for me to be up all night every night, but just having the “free surf” option when you need it is good. You can also log into your HN account to track your useage so that you know where you stand. One of the main complaints on http://www.dslreports.com/forums/all is that you can’t game on Hughes net. This is frustrating for gamers, but I don’t game so I am fine.
Hughes net offers six service packages that range in price from about 60 dollars/month to 349/month. I went with the “elite package” which costs 119/month. I chose to rent the equipment this time and I am also paying for a service agreement. So total monthly cost is 135 dollars per month. This is enough to make people in metro areas gasp in horror but when you consider that urban dwellers pay higher rents, parking, insurance and so forth it isn’t so bad and to be honest, I’d be willing to pay up for the best package offered but this is what I can afford for now.
The rural internet issue is political as far as I’m concerned and the bad economy isn’t helping matters so I’m not holding my breath. In the mean time I have grad school to get through and also want to move into e-publishing and digital journalism so I can’t sit around as a helpless pawn in the debate about whether people in rural areas need internet service. Thankfully I’m empowered to take this step and get my own juice. So far the technology has delivered as advertised.
Stylishly Bookish 