TL;DR Version: My internet recently got fixed and I am very happy!!
[spoiler=Long Version]
Alright, so! Some of you may be aware that my HughesNet satellite internet connection has been getting slower and slower over time. Within the last month, my speeds have actually dwindled to literal dial-up speeds, in fact. Yet, I accepted it. Other people had been expressing their concern over slow speeds for months, so I figured things were just getting slower everywhere. Still, when things got to dial-up speeds with no good reason on Friday, I finally got tired of it and made a satirical post on the official HughesNet forums about it. The reply I got back was a simple "give us your case number, or if you don't have one, call HughesNet." Well, I didn't have a case number, but I didn't plan on calling HughesNet, either. As I said, I figured it was just typical satellite internet nonsense.
Later that day, when speeds were even slower than dial-up speeds, I finally broke down and, in frustration, decided to call tech support as they'd suggested. Rather than being forced to jump through the usual series of pointless tests, however, the representative immediately requested the engineering team look at my connection. And uh... They found something. I honestly was not expecting them to find something.
Basically, either my dish needed re-pointing (very possible considering the heavy winds we'd been experiencing for the last year) or the modem was getting too old to do its job properly. He also told me, on my current plan, I should have been getting an average of 900 Kbps (which is what we were getting) rather than the 50-150 Kbps we'd been experiencing at various times. So, I decided that maybe having a tech guy come out wasn't such a bad idea after all.
So... The tech guy came today. Much earlier than expected, I might add. After about an hour and a half of work, we were back online. And, if I might say... running better than ever! Literally better than ever, in fact. Here's what the tech did:
- He replaced the modem, which apparently had a malfunctioning LAN port on it (you couldn't hook a computer directly to it for some reason, but it worked with a router just fine).
- He replaced the feed horn, which didn't have a rubber ring in the metal O-ring, had water in it, and had a cracked plastic part).
- He re-pointed the dish slightly, bumping my signal strength from 150 to 182.
Now things are working like they should be! Pages load up super-fast (comparatively speaking), YouTube videos load faster than they're playing (on the lowest settings), I can play (non-twitch) games again... I don't think I can express my happiness properly. I'm just... so... satisfied right now! This guy went above and beyond. He really did.
And to think, it was the modem the whole time... Nothing unusual on HughesNet's side, like I thought... I mean, I expect some slow-down as it gets later in the night, but not speeds of 50-150 Kbps, especially not during the dead parts of the days, like we've been getting the last couple weeks. Heh heh.
Good day, good day...
[/spoiler]