You probably got something like this in the mail last week.
Good ole HughesNet up to their tricks again. Currently, Netflix shows HughesNet at 1.29 megabit/s. That’s the average speed of a customer of theirs to the Netflix system during prime time. While only 0.5 megabit/s is required, Netflix recommends 1.5 megabit/s for SD viewing and even 3 megabit/s is recommended for optimal SD performance. Now we are fully aware that the problems could be in the subscribers’ home, such as poor WiFi signal, low resolution phones, etc. However, that problem would present itself on other networks as well. The satellite providers have many beams coming out of their satellites, each serving a portion of the county. In many areas, the beam is full, so you don’t even get the average performance. That 1.29 megabit/s is the average, meaning half of HughesNet users are getting worse than that.
Another possible reason is due to the low data caps that HughesNet has. People could be voluntarily reducing their Netflix data consumption to help stay under the data transfer limits that HughesNet has in place. You can see their plans in one of the pictures above. The most they have is 50 gigabytes per month. Once you use up your allotment, your speed is reduced. Netflix thankfully also publishes guidelines for how much data they consume. If you have the lowest HughesNet plan, you’re only good for about 3 hours 20 minutes of HD viewing a month. The largest plan only gives you 16 hours a month. The US Bureau of Labor Statistics says that the average American watches 2.7 hours of TV per day. That’s roughly 80 hours per month or roughly five times the amount of HD content that HughesNet allows you to view per month. The rest of the time, you’re stuck at a much lower picture quality.
It’s not just Netflix that’s using these data caps or suffering poor performance. Streaming video is the number one use of the Internet, so lump in there Hulu, YouTube, Amazon Video, Facebook, Instagram, HBO, etc. If you use any of those or similar services, you’re having the same problems.
The average ICS customer uses 125 gigabytes per month. That’s 2.5 times the highest plan you can get with HughesNet for on average worse performance. Most ICS customers are on a 4 megabit/s service., with faster plans available. That’s already 3 times faster and at less cost than what HughesNet can do with Netflix. Ask yourself this, can you afford HughesNet, a worse service?