Happy Hughes
Yesterday, Hughes announced they’ve shipped more than 2 million VSAT terminals since the mid-80’s:
Hughes Network Systems, LLC (HUGHES), the global leader in broadband satellite networks and services, today announced that it has shipped an aggregate of over 2.1 million satellite terminals as of Q3 2009, continuing the company’s leadership of the global very small aperture terminal (VSAT) market which began in the mid-80s when Hughes shipped the first VSAT network to Wal-Mart.
For over 25 years since it first designed and developed VSATs, Hughes has consistently maintained the position of worldwide market leader in satellite networks and services. These networks provide rapid, reliable transmission of data, voice, video and multimedia to sites located virtually anywhere over continent-wide areas covered by geostationary satellites. Customers of Hughes satellite networks and HughesNet® broadband IP services include many of the world’s leading companies, spanning a wide range of vertical sectors from retail, to oil/gas, hospitality, lottery, automotive, banking and entertainment/media, as well as government and multi-national organizations.
"We are extremely proud of reaching this significant milestone," said Pradman Kaul, chairman and CEO of Hughes. "It marks a quarter of a century during which Hughes has built its successful business as an innovator of VSAT-based satellite networks and services, and has made major contributions in evolving this technology to become an integral part of the world’s broadband telecom infrastructure. From enterprises and governments to businesses and consumers, Hughes serves customers in all market sectors and in more than 100 countries, including providing high-speed Internet services by satellite to nearly 500,000 consumers in the U.S. in areas where terrestrial alternatives aren’t available."
Hey, that’s great: a half-million people use it. The rest have been built up over time by businesses. Are they all as happy as those featured in this TV spot?
According to the fine print, "speed and uninterrupted use of service are not guaranteed." Anecdotal, yes, but here’s a recent opinion via Broadband Reports…
I have had this Satellite connection for about (or over) 5 years now. Yes, that means before Hughes came in, I was using DirecWay (bad because it was still satellite. Good because the download speeds were better, there was no limit on what you could download, and the tech support was ok back then). I don’t even know why I switched to Satellite, because I had Cable and DSL already here… Well I had the plan which was about $80/month (way too much for trash) and had a 24 hour limit of 375MB, and I have the HN7000S modem.
Let me say that if you really complain about your internet connection being slow or something, please, there is worse. At its very best, I get a 1.01Mbps Download/0.15Mbps Upload speed with a ping of almost 900. Takes about 12 seconds to fully load this site’s home page. Online gaming sucks, it’s horrible, you can even call it respulsive using Satellite. In shooter games like Halo, I would warp around the map, and if it wasn’t that, people would kick/ban me for ‘lagging’ the server. In the Xbox 360 game Halo 3, I can’t even do matchmaking; I’d be lucky to even be able to sign into Xbox Live.
Really, I sometimes find Dial-up more reliable than this. If I downloaded a file over 375MB in a whole day (not during their Happy Hour–2am to 7am) I would get throttled down for 24 hours with a top download speed of 1.75KB/sec. Now at it’s best download/upload speed with no limits, which is called Happy Hour, my very best download speed would be 121KB/sec which I find somewhat slow. During a rainstorm, I would not have a connection at all to the internet, but if I do, it would be very slow. If I had a little ice or snow on the Satellite dish, no connection at all.
Found Verizon DSL and I already purcahsed it. I have the 1.5Mbps Download/384Kbps Upload plan for $19.99/Month (way under 50% of what I was paying for, while getting better connection). They already sent me the Wireless Router Modem (Westell model 7500) which was free becuase I purchased online, and my service will be activated 12/1/09. On that day, as soon as I find a connection to the internet with the DSL, and all computers are connected to it; I am trashing HughesNet.
If you have no internet connection around your area except Dial-up (which I find more reliable at times, using Hughes, in my opinion), try satellite, but if you do have something else, stay with what you got or switch to something not satellite.
[I will most likely be writing a review of my plan of Verizon DSL after month or two of using it]
Goodbye Hughes.
P.S. Will not miss you, and I will probably celebrating when you are gone and replaced by Verizon DSL.
Sure, satcom companies are lining up for some broadband stimulus money, but this is not a sure thing. Look out for WiMAX, cable and DSL to get in there first. They’ll probably play up the "job creation" angle, too. Of the satcom players, I think Wildblue is in a better position to capitalize on this opportunity.
