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Posted 2 years ago
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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I'm on a Liberty 12 plan. The prioritization works great for me however I am on a plan that offers me speeds of 1 to 5 mpbs on the Liberty Pass. That means there is no priority to give me speeds beyond 5 mpbs. Yes, I do get speeds beyond 5 mpbs at times but it depends on what resources are available.
The time right now is 9:10 am and I am getting 6.8 mpbs on testmy.net.
Someone on an Unlimited Silver plan is paying for speeds of up to 25 mbps. This means they will be given more priority than someone like me on a slower plan. If they run the same test, at the same time, on the same beam their speed will be closer to 25 mpbs.
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What you're saying is that the affluent can buy their way to happiness - not that theres anything wrong with that - after all "you can always buy more data" implying that's what they sell not priority services. Prioty has nohting to do with speed but rather the order in which your requests/responses are served during congested periods.
ViaSat could end all the debate/questions with a simple one word answer (yes or no). we're not asking for the code to the traffic shaping. If so, say so one way or the other - it just helps people to make a more informed plan decision.
At the same time, they could end all of the "optimization" debate by simply stating what's now becoming obvious - what are the speed thresholds applied to influence video streaming content providers to deliver at a lower quality. Knowing that would allow users to know exactly how to set the content provider's preference for those providers that don't implement adaptive streaming.
Sorry, bbwithdrawals I know i promised elsewhere not to muddy the waters further on this subtle question as noted, but with that I'll respect the qualifier on your original post... "For the Exede employees," in hopes that I may have clarified the question.
Brad, Viasat Employee
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Unlimited is only *IF* we need to dial it back to work with the traffic on the network. Most reports I'm seeing has either not seen that or only saw it for about 2 hours and they were back on priority speed.
Liberty while it has a Liberty Pass in place does have a limit as opposed to the unlimited which does not so I think just based on that the Liberty Pass is at a lower priority.
Stephen Rice, Champion
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I might be shooting myself for admitting this, but I used 60 gb last month on a Liberty 12 plan. I seem to be on a very good beam and I'm a happy camper.

Brad, Viasat Employee
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Stephen Rice, Champion
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Bev, Champion
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Freedom seems to be throttled the most, then classing, then Liberty and Evolution (though Evolution only throttles some activities.) Ulimited is not throttled EVER, it is deprioritized beyond 150 GB used so, if you are over 150 GB used, the satellite will deal with your requests after it deals with those that have not gone over the data limits for their plan. How fast that will happen depends entirely on how many people are doing what on your beam at the time. If not many are using the internet at that time, or a just browsing then, after 150 GB, on an Unlimited plan, you could still see top speeds. If a lot of people are streaming, downloading, using video chat, etc... then, after 150 GB, Unlimited plans will see slower speeds.
Were we have the advantage is that there is no such thing as needing to buy more data - in fact we can't buy more. In time, we will each learn what the exact peak days and hours are for our beam and, will adapt our heaviest usage to off peak hours and days. Like here, I know midnight all the way until 3 PM is great on weekdays, weekends midnight until noon. Holidays, 3 AM until 10 am is best.
During the week people are at work or school in town during the day, weekends most in the area sleep in. Holidays everyone want's to do video calls, upload photos and such from the time they wake up until they go to bed. Summer doesn't change much since all but the grade school kids get summer jobs or, go stay with relatives for most of the summer. People leave on vacation more, so summer or winter is about the same here.
Stephen Rice, Champion
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I am on a Liberty 12 plan that only offers speeds up to 5 mpbs after using my priority data.
I'm not an Exede rep, but it would only make sense to me that someone on an unlimited plan would get higher priority than me on a Liberty 12 plan.
You are paying a premium for unlimited and faster service. I am simply paying to enjoy the crumbs that fall on the floor. The crumbs are good enough for me.
Bev, Champion
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He's guessing too and he works for them and BBwithdrawls is looking for the "official answer" as he awaits the "official answer" to his rephrased question.
At least a consensus is slowly developing - not that opinions, assumprions and guesses matter and the difference between throttling and deprioritization is emerging for some ;) - even if guessing at the cumulative effects of each.
The definitive answer can only be surmised through the longer 5-page Network Management Policy document (and others) over at the legal page... those that know the real answers (the engineers implemented the traffic shaping algorithms aren't talking and won't be; they probably did the best they could with some nebulous specs from on high) - although I do think in some areas ViaSat does need to be a bit more specific about what we all actually get for price differential in plans.
FWIW, Liberty user's pay for more speed too (Boost 25 is optional for most 12 Mbps plans) - yet another permutation. Being capable of more speed and getting it are two different things altogether and if I pay for a Ferrari but get stuck in traffic behind a lower or even slower vehicle, well... I'm pretty sure there's some road rage involved.
Is this a lug wrench? Maybe... it sure looks like one but if you provide me with the source code I'll give you an answer in the form of a truth table.
Brad, Viasat Employee
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Of course the speed advertised is what you can expect a lot of the time of being UP TO but in our busier hours it may drop.
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"When it comes to pricing you're really paying for data since that's how plans are split with Exede"
Not true, IMO. I have the Silver Unlimited plan, 150 Gb of data that I should be able to use, but can't because of unacceptably slow speeds. If the plans were based on how much data a person uses and Viasat charged by the Gb, that would be a fairer plan. Instead, they charge me $150 and I can only use 50-60 Gb per month. I understand the fact that everyone on a beam slows down the speed, but 250-700 kbps is unusable for the price I'm paying. Very disappointed. :(
GabeU, Champion
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GabeU, Champion
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