Hello, I am deciding between Exede and Hughes. From a strict pricing perspective it's a no brainer and Exede wins. I can get 50 GB on Hughes @ 25Mbps for $99 a month, after which it goes down to 1-3 Mbps. OR I can get 150 GB on Exede @ 25Mbps for $110 a month, and if I read the fine print correctly don't get throttled after hitting 150 GB (which also seems hard to believe but that's not even my primary concern).
So with Exede I can get 3x as much data at the same speed for about the same price. BUT, that seems really hard to believe. From what I've read Exede was only able to deliver 71% of their stated speeds in 2016. And their new sat isn't even active yet.
So how is it that a service that wasn't able to deliver stated speeds in 2016, which IIRC was 12 Mbps, is not suddenly selling plans claiming 25 Mbps with 3x the data of Hughes? I don't want to sign up with Exede and the real speed is 3 Mbps (or whatever). In that case I'd rather go with Hughes because I know they at least meet their claims as long as data isn't exceeded.
I appeciate any/all input.
So with Exede I can get 3x as much data at the same speed for about the same price. BUT, that seems really hard to believe. From what I've read Exede was only able to deliver 71% of their stated speeds in 2016. And their new sat isn't even active yet.
So how is it that a service that wasn't able to deliver stated speeds in 2016, which IIRC was 12 Mbps, is not suddenly selling plans claiming 25 Mbps with 3x the data of Hughes? I don't want to sign up with Exede and the real speed is 3 Mbps (or whatever). In that case I'd rather go with Hughes because I know they at least meet their claims as long as data isn't exceeded.
I appeciate any/all input.
Posted 3 years ago
If you go with Hughes now, it's a 2 year deal. ViaSat has ViaSat-2 launched and will go live in 5-6 months and have capacity for bigger plans with more speed. Exede is the better choice unless you go with Hughes now and later see what you could have had with Exede and don't mind paying off your Hughes contract to switch to Exede.
Brad, Viasat Employee
Well the problem with that question is it cannot be accurately answered. Many factors could affect speed: A router you are using, the equipment connected, whether or not the capacity of the network is maximized or not, and so on. We do have a range of what speed to expect "up to" and sometimes even that number is surpassed in non-peak times. As for a minimum generally if you are not over your data and no other common factors like speeds slowing in our busier times (common with ALL types of internet provider) I'd say we generally have a concern when it slips below 6mbps just as a VERY rough guideline and from there we may do some troubleshooting.
Gwalk900, Champion
David,
There really can't be a stated "minimum" due to the complexities of a sat connection. This is why speeds are listed as "up to".
A sat connection is a shared resource. Shared on many levels.
First ... the capacity of the satellite overall, then shared on a more local level as how much throughput is available on a given beam and gateway at a given instant.
Some beams are more saturated than others ... users in beam can be slowed to a crawl while others in the next beam are going full blast.
Next is the shared capacity within your own LAN ... how many devices are connected to your network ... and then how many programs and background processes are accessing your small "inlet pipe" at a given moment.
A sat connection simply does not have the same capacity, the same stability as a ground based connection be it, fiber, cable, DSL or even a WISP.
Folks, respectfully, I understand this subject fairly well. Yes, there is a very good reason all network providers use careful language to describe their speeds and never guarantee them.
As far as my home network, it will employ managed layer 3 HP gigabit switches, and router, and a zone director for the access points, so I'm pretty sure the network won't be the limiting factor ;-).
Exede is purposely throttling network traffic when someone hits their limit. They have to.
They are setting throttled traffic to perform below a certain speed or within a range. They know what range they are setting and what their goals are and should be able to state them, regardless of whether they can guarantee them.
Whether it drops below that range because of bad weather or congestion is a completely different subject.
This isn't some useless question that has no relevance. If it gets throttled to 3 mbps that's pretty decent and my existing Verizon phones/tablets give me enough backup as hotspots if I'm having issues on Exede. But if it gets throttled to 600 kbps I'm going to add a couple Verizon mifi hot spots to my account for an extra 20 GB just to give myself a little extra buffer. My average usage for the last 6 months has actually been around 200 GB. But I'm going to be employing my own "family throttling" to bring that under control ;-).
Thanks
As far as my home network, it will employ managed layer 3 HP gigabit switches, and router, and a zone director for the access points, so I'm pretty sure the network won't be the limiting factor ;-).
Exede is purposely throttling network traffic when someone hits their limit. They have to.
They are setting throttled traffic to perform below a certain speed or within a range. They know what range they are setting and what their goals are and should be able to state them, regardless of whether they can guarantee them.
Whether it drops below that range because of bad weather or congestion is a completely different subject.
This isn't some useless question that has no relevance. If it gets throttled to 3 mbps that's pretty decent and my existing Verizon phones/tablets give me enough backup as hotspots if I'm having issues on Exede. But if it gets throttled to 600 kbps I'm going to add a couple Verizon mifi hot spots to my account for an extra 20 GB just to give myself a little extra buffer. My average usage for the last 6 months has actually been around 200 GB. But I'm going to be employing my own "family throttling" to bring that under control ;-).
Thanks
(Edited)
Gwalk900, Champion
"and router, and a zone director for the access points, so I'm pretty sure the network won't be the limiting factor ;-)."
I was referring to the fact that IF your connection, your "inlet pipe" if you will was supplying .... 12 Mbps at the modem and you had two programs or processes each using 6 Mbps you would be at your inlet pipe capacity but both functions would be operating as desired. If a third device or program/process were to kick on then the two requiring 6 Mbps each would start to appear to slow down.
Multiple devices and concurrent connections among your networked devices can easily exceed the small inlet pipe capacity of a fragile sat internet connection.
Bev, Champion
On the same vein, it's also a matter of how computers, be that our home computers or, the huge servers at gateways, game servers, even the DNS servers work. While we love to multi task, and might even think all of those computers multitask well, in fact they don't multi task at all.
A computer does one thing at a time PERIOD. They do switch between multiple tasks very quickly, giving the illusion of them doing several things at once, but, they actually are doing one thing at a time.
Say you are downloading a file, reading an online encyclopedia, streaming an internet radio station and, writing a thesis at the same time. Computer is going stream, stop, file, stop, stream, stop, browser, stop, stream, stop, word processor, stop, stream, stop, file, stop..... Hitting each task possibly hundreds of time per minute but, still doing only one at a time.
The more different things the computer has to do, the longer it takes for it to cycle back to any one of the tasks. - that's congestion. Like Gwalk900 said, you end up asking for 18mb when only 12 is available. The computers involved have to find that someplace, they do it by stopping or, drastically slowing SOMETHING else.
With our connections, it's multiple connections (multiple customers) the satellite and gateway are trying to handle. You might be the one that gets drastically slowed sometimes. And that's far more likely once you exceed your data allotment for the month.
A computer does one thing at a time PERIOD. They do switch between multiple tasks very quickly, giving the illusion of them doing several things at once, but, they actually are doing one thing at a time.
Say you are downloading a file, reading an online encyclopedia, streaming an internet radio station and, writing a thesis at the same time. Computer is going stream, stop, file, stop, stream, stop, browser, stop, stream, stop, word processor, stop, stream, stop, file, stop..... Hitting each task possibly hundreds of time per minute but, still doing only one at a time.
The more different things the computer has to do, the longer it takes for it to cycle back to any one of the tasks. - that's congestion. Like Gwalk900 said, you end up asking for 18mb when only 12 is available. The computers involved have to find that someplace, they do it by stopping or, drastically slowing SOMETHING else.
With our connections, it's multiple connections (multiple customers) the satellite and gateway are trying to handle. You might be the one that gets drastically slowed sometimes. And that's far more likely once you exceed your data allotment for the month.
Bev, Champion
Then their is those of us who go way below 1mbps after data plan is exhausted.
Brad, Viasat Employee
If you're on a Liberty Plan you may go below that mark in peak hours http://www.exede.com/liberty/
Brad, Viasat Employee
if you are over priority data*
I thought I'd update this thread. I had Freedom 150 with 25 mbps boost installed. Obviously there are a bunch of variables when doing speed testing but in a nutshell it performs as advertised. I'm very pleased and find it pretty incredible for a satellite connection.
I thought it was pretty funny that after the inability to get anyone from exede to answer my question here about throttled speed, that when the operator who took the order read from her script she warned me that throttled speeds would be between 1 mbps and 5 mpbs.
I thought it was pretty funny that after the inability to get anyone from exede to answer my question here about throttled speed, that when the operator who took the order read from her script she warned me that throttled speeds would be between 1 mbps and 5 mpbs.
All Right!!!!!!!!
David
But then the next paragraph you get this when they talk about the Freedom plan:
I thought that was saying no throttling but now I realize they were probably referring to people on other plans who exceeded their limits having to wait til the wee morning hours to download if they didn't want to pay extra.
David
Grumpyoldman
David
BTW, I'm in Illinois, so hopefully that means good coverage.
DebG