HughesNet Satellite Internet Service
HughesNet isn't providing a "true" path to the Internet. The only path to the Internet is at their office. Customers are given some Internet through their layers and gateways, but are not directly connected to the Internet. Hughesnet is not like Cable or DSL. Hughesnet is like not having indoor plumbing, but connecting a garden hose to the neighbors house, and using that for all your house needs by filling a bucket and walking back and forth.
HughesNet is nearly the only option for individuals in rural America to have high speed broadband Internet.
HughesNet is discussed on the Satellite Internet Service Providers Index area of the Wiki, under the HughesNet section.
HughesNet is considered a fraudulent company by some techies- they use false advertising: They advertise unfiltered access to the Internet, and they provide only partial access with support for only MSIE and Outlook. Compared to Time Warner Cable RoadRunner and most major Telco DSL/ADSL, this is not complete access to the Internet.
HughesNet advertises 700Kbps download speed on their basic residential package. With over 76% signal strength we were only able to achieve 215Kbps average, and that was tested using the Java tool on the HughesNet web site. DSL reports and CNet concur with these results. It is common practice for an ISP to oversell bandwidth. We would be satisfied with a result of 600Kbps from the download speed test. Urban broadband providers are performing at over 1400Kbps for half the price of HughesNet.
Customer Lockout Out of CPE
Dannery (the engineers name) with advanced support stated: (March 24, 2008) "The HN7000S cannot do port forwarding. HughesNet only supports Microsoft Windows with Internet Explorer and Outlook Express for Email. Anything else is considered 3rd party and not supported by HughesNet."
The HN7000S CPE (a modem and router for satellite Internet service) is not capable of operation in a bridge mode configuration. It only works as a router performing NAT. It cannot be configured for port forwarding. It is not fully capable, it is a handicap device that lacks the full functionality of standard CPE equipment.
CPE is acronym, Client Premise Equipment.
Custer is a HughesNet billing representative. He has personally dealt with customer complaints regarding the handicap CPE equipment now being distributed by HughesNet.
- 1-866-347-3292 : HughesNet contact phone number
If you are ordering HughesNet you need to demand they provide a fully capable CPE at no additional charge, that can do port forwarding. Do not accept the HV7000S, it is handicap, not fully capable, does not support port forwarding, and can not operate in bridge mode. It cannot be configured by the client. In contrast, the modem/router equipment provided by RoadRunner and the major Telco's can do port forwarding, bridge mode, and be programmed by the client.
Double NAT
NAT, or Network Address Translation, is a way of assigning additional non-routable IP addresses to an Internal network which packets are forwarded from a single external Internet routable IP address. (One or more external routable IP addresses may be used.) Double NAT is a scenario where multiple routers on network are doing network address translation. Common example is a Cable or DSL modem, to which a Wi-Fi router is connected. Both modem and router have NAT enabled. Computers on the network are connected to Wi-Fi router. Your ISP is not supposed to give you an already NAT address to your CPE (the router). HughesNet is already using NAT on their side, giving all their customers a NAT address to their client premises router, which does NAT again, resulting in twice NAT.
Hughesnet will not allow the customer to operate the router they install in pass-through mode. The client is stuck with a double NAT setup which makes VPN nearly impossible. If the client adds a wireless router the double NAT goes to a possible triple NAT situation.
Double NAT is Double Routing using non-Internet IP addressing. Hughesnet doesn't provide the customer any Internet router IP address.
When you connect at PC to the Hughesnet router, you’re behind a CGN (Carrier-Grade NAT) layer; HughesNet masquerades many customers behind a handful of massive NAT gateways. If you’re planning on remote access, you’re in for a disappointment. The IPv4 address given to your networked devices via the HughesNet modem is not a public IP address. It is a private IPv4 address in a range reserved for ISPs via RFC6598 for use in Carrier Grade NAT (CGN) systems. So, most customers with home routers are behind two layers of NAT.
Many HughesNet customers are situated behind large NAT gateways run by HughesNet. The network traffic of all the customers behind each gateway appears, to the rest of the Internet, to originate from one IP address. This practice is common among cellular wireless providers too. The upstream HughesNet NAT gateways break end-to-end connectivity for customers attempting to make it so the home network can be remotely accessed for things like VPN or a home FTP server.
DNS Lookup Error
Customers are seeing this error a lot when attempting to load a web page. Refreshing often results in the page loading correctly on second attempt. The HT1000 runs a little caching DNS server. When any DNS reply passes through the modem, it is cached. Future queries for that domain name are then served from the modem. You cannot clear the cache short of rebooting the modem. By default, the modem advertises itself as a DNS server via DHCP options. It then takes any queries sent to it and forwards them to HughesNet’s DNS servers. It seems you can specify your own DNS servers, but the cache will still see the reply to any query and holds the reply until it expires, or until the modem is rebooted.
Using HughesNet DNS will result in faster DNS lookups. If you keep getting the DNS Lookup Error, the benefit is negated. Using alternative DNS servers is an option. The DNS query will add an additional delay to initial browsing for a site, however, could eliminate the DNS Lookup Error problem. Google offers free for use open DNS servers. You can try using them. Google’s DNS server address which is (primary) 8.8.8.8, (secondary) 8.8.4.4.
