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Western North Carolina The Mountain Region including Asheville
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Old 11-08-2017, 12:44 PM
 
78 posts, read 130,854 times
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Hi,

We are looking to move to the Asheville area and looking at several rural areas like Saluda, Waynesville, etc. My questions is does anyone here have Hughsnet, Excede or using a 4g cellular service. If so how do you like it for Internet and what are the draw backs. I would hate to turn away from our dream home because of lack of broadband. My wife works from home so it's important.

Thanks
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Old 11-08-2017, 01:13 PM
 
Location: Spring Hope, NC
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I’m in Marshall, I use Dishnet, fast dependable service, but pricey.
Hughsnet sent me an offer, but I haven’t acted, they have an early termination fee.
I’m thinking of dropping Dishnet the first of the year, and use my Smartphone Verizon data
plan.
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Old 11-08-2017, 01:23 PM
 
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How much data do you use? If you stream video (Netflix), you can get about 8 hours per month with Hughsnet before hitting their middle tiers cap, double that for the most expensive tiers.

That doesn't work for some people, for others it's no big deal.

From a price perspective, so long as you can get 4g wireless, it tends to be cheaper (and faster) than Satellite. You might want to look into WISP's (fixed wireless, line of sight ~ the new 5g stuff will start in this space) too.
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Old 11-08-2017, 02:40 PM
 
Location: Mtns of Waynesville,NC & Nokomis, FL
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I am fairly certain that Hughesnet/DISHnet are one and the same, both part of Echostar/DISH.

A couple of neighbors have fiddled with Hughesnet/DISHnet but the speeds are just so-so, and tend to flow at much less than advertised, at least here on the mtns 'above' Waynesville. Those sats are 22,000+ miles up in the sky; works well for TV, less so for On Demand, internet, streaming, etc., in our experience.

As for using 4G from your phone/hotspotting it, in my experience it is a stop gap and eats data by the mouthfuls unless one is just checking email a couple times a day.

For the many of us that are not close to/connected to cable, eg Charter/Spectrum, some of us use Skyrunner, an Asheville area wireless ISP provider: not cheap, esp for speeds higher than their '5 X 5', which tends to run <5 Mbp down/1-3 Mbp up.
They do have speedier plans, but as they are one of the few games in area and know it, they price it like 'broadband' in the early 2000s.

I can't speak to all of your areas, but Waynesville, (where I live), Canton, Clyde, Maggie Valley et al, have some Charter/Spectrum cable ISP/TV et al, but many of us do not have it available and thus rely on Skyrunner and their ilk.
GL, mD

Last edited by motordavid; 11-08-2017 at 03:56 PM..
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Old 11-08-2017, 06:48 PM
 
Location: NC
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We have Hughesnet and actually think it's really good (we came from an area where we had Time Warner high speed internet). It's not as fast as a DSL high speed, but it's decent. The one main issue I had when I was working from home through a VPN is that there is already a bit of a delay when you are on a high speed provider and it's much worse on Hughesnet. I was able to bypass this issue by using my cell as a mobile hotspot. However, I didn't have to use the VPN for more than an hour or two a day.

We originally tried to use a jetpack as our mobile hotspot, but it went through data like crazy. Verizon (pretty much the only cell service that works up here reliably) couldn't explain why the jetpack went through data so much faster than when we used our cellphones as mobile hotspots.

So basically, Hughesnet isn't bad, but if speed is super important, try using your cell as a mobile hotspot when necessary.

***I wanted to add that there are times, when the clouds are heavy or a big storm moves through that we DO lose our signal. Not for long, but it could be an issue if your wife needs to be online for the entire work day.
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Old 11-08-2017, 09:11 PM
 
78 posts, read 130,854 times
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This is useful information. Have u tried speedtest.net to see what speed u are getting with Gen5. They claim 25mbps. I was reading the reviews for Hughsnet and I couldn't believe how many negative reviews the customer service department has gotten. Have u had to deal with them other than installation. I also Googles the Verizon Jetack. That is a great alternative if they have a plan with enough data for an average family at a reasonable price.
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Old 11-08-2017, 09:58 PM
 
Location: Carolina Mountains
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If your wife is working from home doing anything that requires data transfer you need to just accept you need cable.
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Old 11-09-2017, 04:34 AM
 
Location: Boydton, VA
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Hughesnet is not known for great customer service. They used to have a "free" download period, (maybe 1am to 5am?) that did not count against your data plan...not sure if they still do. Be aware of the ping delay due to the distance from the satellite....as mentioned, it may not play will with a vpn.

Regards
Gemstone1
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Old 11-09-2017, 07:00 AM
 
Location: NC
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Quote:
Originally Posted by traderfjp View Post
This is useful information. Have u tried speedtest.net to see what speed u are getting with Gen5. They claim 25mbps. I was reading the reviews for Hughsnet and I couldn't believe how many negative reviews the customer service department has gotten. Have u had to deal with them other than installation. I also Googles the Verizon Jetack. That is a great alternative if they have a plan with enough data for an average family at a reasonable price.
We are on Gen4. They tried to get us to switch to Gen5, but that gave us less data for more money. Besides, as more people move to Gen5, the less traffic there is on the Gen4 so the speed is better. We can watch Netflix on it with no buffering or any other issues.

We have had to deal with customer service a few times and they've been fine. Not fabulous, but better than the customer service we used to get from Time Warner.

Just ran the speedtest and got 29.57 mbps. And it's very cloudy up here this morning.
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Old 11-09-2017, 07:03 AM
 
Location: NC
3,441 posts, read 2,777,941 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gemstone1 View Post
Hughesnet is not known for great customer service. They used to have a "free" download period, (maybe 1am to 5am?) that did not count against your data plan...not sure if they still do. Be aware of the ping delay due to the distance from the satellite....as mentioned, it may not play will with a vpn.

Regards
Gemstone1
We have 50 MB anytime data and 50 MB bonus data (2 AM to 8 AM). The speed is a bit slower during the bonus data hours, but not enough to really notice.
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