SATELLITE INTERNET: HOW IT WORKS
To understand the advantage in HughesNet service, it may help you to know how satellite internet works. It differs from other sources of internet service.
In rural- and some suburban- areas, the dominant internet services are either dial-up or DSL. Each requires a phone line. Dial-up service ties up the phone, so you can’t place or receive a call while connected to the web. Dial-up is also extremely slow- too slow to be practical for any but the lightest web-surfing or e-mail.
DSL (digital subscriber line) service won’t tie up your phone, but it brings other disadvantages of a community phone line: your download speed will be affected by your distance from the central office, and by the number of your neighbors connected at the same time. If you’re close enough to the central transmission facility, you could see download speeds in excess of 6 megabits per second. If you live farther away, or if your community DSL system is under heavy usage, your download speed could drop to a small fraction of this.
With satellite internet service, you won’t face these problems. Your HughesNet system will not require a home phone line. Because it receives its signal directly from a satellite high in the stratosphere, it is independent of any neighborhood phone or fiber system, so your service will not be affected by the number of your neighbors connected at the same time.
HughesNet is faster than typical DSL service. and many times faster than the fastest dial-up service. HughesNet offers four levels of residential internet service. With the basic plan, you get download speeds of up to 5 megabits per second (MB/S), and with the best plan, up to to 15 MB/S.
HughesNet’s Echostar XVII satellite network features the highest download capacity of any satellite internet service.
Your HughesNet service will be suitable for web-surfing, e-mail, word-processing, social media, and downloading music or video. The only function we don’t recommend it for is interactive gaming. The signal from your computer has to travel 22,500 miles to the satellite, then travel the same distance back. The round trip takes about a quarter of a second. For most uses, this is not a critical lag, but it can ruin an interactive game that depends on quick reflexes.
Apart from that one limitation, satellite internet service works. Is HughesNet right for you? Call us, or fill out a contact form, to find out.