Not sure if you have used the new gen5 hughesnet but i have phone service with
it as well and am on the phone all day on business and have no problem with
delay . I also have never had service problems and am happy with my speeds
downloading and uploading. Have had it for 9 years and never missed any work
days and yes WBS has no limit on downloads, when it's working. You get what
you pay for.
Steve R
On Saturday, November 24, 2018, 7:01:35 PM EST, Timothy Millunzi
<tjmillunzi@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Hughesnet (and its competitor Exede) can be viable alternatives for rural
Internet access, but satellite based internet services come with several
caveats.
First, if you do anything that requires a low latency network, you will
generally be unhappy with satellite based internet. Latency refers to the time
it takes to make a round trip from your computer/device to the computer/device
you're talking to and then back again. Satellite networks have very high
latency of around 600–800ms ( or 0.6-0.8 seconds) which is caused by the long
distance your data has to cross wirelessly — around 88,000 miles for the round
trip between your home, the satellite, the source of your data and back again.
WBS latency is normally around 60-80ms, one tenth that of satellite.
An example of how this is important is if you want to use something like the
Verizon Wireless Network Extender, which gives you a small box that uses your
internet connection to provide localized cell phone coverage at your home.
With a satellite connection, you’ll be getting almost a one second delay in
your phone signal. So when you say “Hi” you won’t hear the answering “Hi” for
over a second. What’s even worse, instead of hearing your own echo over the
phone in just 60ms (so short of a time you won’t even notice that you are
hearing your echo) you'll hear it a half second or more after you've finished
speaking.
High latency also makes most high-end Internet gaming impossible, since your
response times will (relative to low latency connections) be ridiculously slow.
High latency also makes using a Remote Desktop connection very frustrating
(e.g your mouse lags a good second behind where you are actually pointing it,
ask me how I know).
Second, both satellite based service providers come with strict data limits
that control how much data you can download each month. When you exceed these
limits, you’ll still be able to download data, but the download speeds will be
very slow. For example, Hughesnet offers plans of 10GB, 20GB, 30GB and 50GB
per month. To put this in more understandable terms these would correspond to
5 hours, 10 hours, 15 hours and 25 hours of HD video downloaded per month. So
the 20GB plan would let you watch 4 or 5 HD movies each month. Note, you do
get an extra “free” 50GB of downloads during the off-peak time of 2am-8am, so
if you know how to schedule your downloads you can take advantage of this extra
data or if you’re willing to bing watch Castle Rock on Hulu at 4:00 am. WBS
gives you unlimited downloads.
Third, satellite providers achieve some of their speed by using very
sophisticated data compression technologies. Some data, like email, is very
compressible, other data like MP4 video is already compressed to some extent
and is therefore less compressible. The absolute worst data to try and
compress is VPN (Virtual Private Network) encrypted traffic. Since a good VPN
will make the data look like perfectly random white noise, the result of trying
to compress it will actually end up making the data volume bigger and slowing
the connection down rather than speeding it up. If your need to use a VPN to
access your corporate network from home (or you just want the extra security
that using a VPN provides) you will find that you’ll get less than expected
performance from your satellite network when using the VPN.
So you can see there are several “gotcha’s” when using a satellite internet
service provider. That being said, if you are just using email and doing some
web browsing, not doing a lot of video streaming, not into high-end gaming, not
using any type of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol, such as the above Verizon
Network Extender) and not required to use a VPN, then Hughesnet or Exede may
work for you. Since I do most of the above (I’m not much of a “gamer”), I’ve
found that WBS better meets my needs. And it costs less.
Tim M
On Nov 24, 2018, at 3:33 PM, Barbara & Cary Noel <cbnoel_1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
I love Hughesnet for my internet servie - never down.
---------- Original Message ----------
From: Timothy Millunzi <tjmillunzi@xxxxxxxxx>
To: WarwickList@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [The-L] Re: email and web blocking WBS
Date: Sat, 24 Nov 2018 12:11:55 -0500
Hi All,
Tim G. Makes some very good points, particularly about securing your router,
the first of your devices on your internet connection and the one generally
providing you with protection against outside malicious attacks.
But just to be clear, this thread has morphed a bit from its original question.
The original question was what can be done about WBS shared IP addresses being
blacklisted due to one or more Warwick users of that shared IP address having
malware on one or more of their devices and that malware is using the device to
perform prohibited network activity (generally email spamming).
First, we could all just make sure that we were all following best security
practices (such as locking down our routers as Tim G. explained and running a
quality antivirus on all our Apple, Windows and Android devices and never
clicking on an unknown link or loading a file from an unknown source, among
other things). For this to be effective everyone would have to also scan their
devices for any malware currently present and then remove that software before
continuing on with good security practices to ensure no new malware is
introduced. Once our shared IP addresses were no longer the source of “bad”
Internet behavior, we could get them removed from the blacklists and, as long
as we stayed “clean”, that would be the end of it.
Second, WBS can move to dedicated IP addresses, where each user will get their
own unique IP address. This will not eliminate the actual security issues
where people are allowing their devices to be “infected”, but it will isolate
the negative impact to that one user.
Third, you can use a Proxy or VPN service to provide you with a different
external facing IP address (one that is not part of the WBS shared address
structure and thus not subject to the blacklisting).
Only the first of these options actually addresses the overall security of your
home network and the devices attached to it. I can have the tightest network
security in the world but if my daughter gives me a USB stick with some videos
of the grandkids on it and that stick is infected with a really good virus I
could end up transmitting all my user-ids and passwords up to some nefarious
site unless I have a quality antivirus installed to catch it.
Network/computer security is really quite complex. At one point in my career I
was VP of Operations and Support and Chief Security Officer for LiveVault
Corporation. That taught me that you can spend a lot of time and money on
securing your computers and Internet connected devices from all possible
threats, but you do have to consider the cost/benefit of anything you do (cost
not only being in dollars but in complexity/difficulty of doing what you want
to do on the WEB). While a bank or a credit card processing firm will be the
explicit target of many attacks, your home network and computers are not near
as at risk. Taking basic precautions is probably all most people will need to
do:
• Making sure your router and other devices are reasonably locked down (no
passwords left at default, no unnecessary ports or services open).
• Run a quality Antivirus (there are several free antivirus packages along
with the more popular commercial products, Google “best freeware antivirus” to
get a list) on all your devices that allow it.
• Follow good security practices. Don’t accept downloads from sites you are
not sure of, don’t open links you are not sure of, if you get an email, even
from someone you know, with a link or download you weren’t already expecting,
confirm separately with the person what it is. Don’t respond to “phishing”
email with any of you private information (including user-ids and passwords, no
reputable company will ask for these). Don’t use a link given to you in an
email to sign in to a financial or store account (scammers will send you an
email that looks legit and will embed a link asking you to use it to sign in to
verify some detail of your account, the embedded link will take you to a site
that looks EXACTLY like the actual site except for a very small discrepancy in
the URL; so you will go ahead and try to sign in with with your
user-id/password and - bingo - the scammer now has you Citi Bank login
credentials), instead always go to the site using your own bookmark.
There are probably lots of other simple things you can do to make sure you
don’t fall victim to Internet fraud. If there is enough interest, maybe WBS
could host a get together to go over some of them.
Regards, Tim M
On Nov 24, 2018, at 8:26 AM, Tim Gwinn <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
If Brad's estimate is right and this conversion to public IPs is completed "in
a few weeks" and if you are able to hang on and muddle through until then, I
would not see a need to sign up for a VPN.
wonder if all devices used (say computer plus phone or ipad work all work
seamlessly with a vpn.
