So I was crawling around cyberia...

And I came upon some guy's blog (I may include the link later).

He claims to be a "Satellite Internet Service Provider & Satellite Internet News Analyst". In other words, he's an installer. After he gets the call from HughesNet, he drives his truck to the customer's residence, climbs the ladder, and sets up the dish, and gets the modem ready to go.

He has three blogs linked to his profile; two about satellite internet and another about his life in general since he moved to Colorado, politics, and whatever strikes his fancy at the moment (it seems he doesn't like free speech either). Oh, and he updates his blogs only once in awhile too.

So anyway, on one of his blogs back in 2005, he's kind of pointing out that WildBlue was having problems and pooh poohing them wondering how they were going to make it without an huge influx of cash (maybe valid, maybe not, but it's well into 2007 and they're still operating).


So, here's what he says about the HughesNet FAP when it was enacted this year:
* * * * * *

2007 - The Year of the FAP Flap!
I wondered when Satellite Internet Service Providers would finally pull off the rose colored glasses and get a grip on the realities of bandwidth cost.......Have they finally learned that you have to earn a profit if you want to stay in business? Most VSAT Service Providers have found out that allowing all of your customers to download or upload whatever, whenever and however they want on a "Shared Network," is a recipe for massive network slowdowns, customer complaints and ultimately, loss of revenue.

Until late 2005, the only major satellite internet provider with any type of bandwidth limitation for users was HughesNet (formerly DirecWay). They prevented bandwidth "gluttons" from bringing an already overbooked network to a screeching halt by implementing a Fair Access Policy (FAP). This policy slows down aggressive users for several hours to permit others on the network a fair "shot" at the available bandwidth. On a typical HughesNet transponder there are about 7-8,000 customers. If everyone assigned to that transponder were active at the same time they theoretically would be surfing at about 2-5 kbps, or around 1/10th of dial-up speed! Fortunately not everyone is competing simultaneously.

HughesNet did a pretty good job in the past of "balancing the load" - spacing out the time zones of users, moving users from one transponder to another, etc. But things have changed a great deal in the surfing world over the last 2-3 years. Content that people want to download has more graphics in it......so the formulas for network loading used successfully in the past by HNS and copied by others are not working as well today and a lot of customers are unhappy with the speeds they get, especially during the "prime time" hours of 5 PM to 11 PM. Since 2005 almost every satellite internet provider has implemented some type of FAP or traffic management scheme for all shared bandwidth (which is what nearly all users are on).

Update: April 29th, 2007: HughesNet has announced a new Fair Access Policy! The new policy is still actually being "implemented" and is subject to some continued modification, but essentially works the same way as the previous policy allowing you to refill an imaginary bucket as you use the service; however, the new "rules", if you will, put you in a near zero upload/download penalty mode if you actually hit FAP levels. Sound confusing?....it's supposed to!

Update: June 1, 2007: As a possible response to the criticism from many long time HughesNet customers, HughesNet "opened up" a period of FAP Free usage each day in the middle of the night. Basically from 3-6 AM Eastern Time Zone, you can download as much as you are able.

In 2006 the buzzword in the satellite internet world was "traffic shaping"....a fancy term for blocking undesired activity or managing the data packet delivery by a internet provider. An internet provider can prevent certain high volume activity like streaming video, gaming, voip phone calls and point to point downloading by blocking the typical ports used by those activities at the gateway or Network Operations Center, where the network is managed. Alternatively, they can prioritize the handling of data packets so that your latency skyrockets, but the overall speed (once you are "slotted") remains good. All of this is a form of curtailing usage outside of the FAP policies and is considered a "black hat" policy by many critics.

Many users have raised a good deal of fuss........saying basically, "I paid for X amount of bandwidth and expect to be able to use it any way I want to." Internet providers have either refused to admit they were actually traffic shaping, or told customers to re-read their Terms Of Service agreements, which are very one-sided in favor of the provider, stating that almost anything could be considered undesirable download activity and could be restricted if the network operator wished! These tactics have just galvanized the distrust many satellite internet users already have for Internet providers. The outcry from users hit with this so called traffic shaping, has been so overwhelming that many providers (especially iDirect uplink carriers) have been scrambling to put together a stated FAP policy in lieu of the perceived back-door tactics used in most traffic shaping schemes.

We are entering a era in which the desires and needs of internet users are on a collision course with satellite owners and resellers of satellite bandwidth (terrestrial bandwidth as well). People are using the internet more and the available content is more graphical, meaning big increases in demand ....unfortunately the cost of satellites, the cost of launch and the ongoing costs to deliver it to customers has stayed the same or increased.

I predict that by the end of 2007 the most ethical satellite internet providers will have a simple to understand Fair Access Policy and virtually all of this behind the curtain traffic shaping activity will fall by the wayside. Providers who aren't making very good returns on investments won't continue to do business the way they have in the past.......investors won't stand for it any more. It all adds up to increased costs for those wanting to do all the "cool stuff" that is coming our way like IPTV, more video streaming, games, movies and so forth.

* * * * * *

So, here's my take on it:
He's saying that HughesNet enacted their FAP / traffic limits after there was a massive signup and that was causing them some problems. And then he adds that investors were looking for a better return. But, the strange part of this sudden FAP implementation is this: things were ok up until this year.

But, he completely ignores a few really important points.

First, he completely ignores the FUTURE. As I mentioned previously, the trend (one that won't be turned around) is that people will be using MORE bandwidth because of applications like streaming music, YouTube, videos, VOIP, and the like. You know, 21st century stuff; NOT LESS bandwidth. Here, he says HughesNet is charging more and providing less via their FAP policy...good enough for viewing STATIC WEB PAGES (sooo 20th century).

Second, a company that promises the moon & the stars, and then delivers something signifcantly less is in for a rude wakeup call. That's not how it works in the marketplace. People won't pay for a service that promises but doesn't deliver results. In the end, it will lose them existing customers, new customers, and potential customers (via word-of-mouth over the internet). People will view these shenanigans as deceptive and misleading tactics. And this opens them up to a potential lawsuit. OUCH!!!

Third, Hughes / HughesNet owns their own satellites; they don't rent them. Yes, they're THAT Hughes Corp. And once you get past all the nonsense of "cost centers" of same-company and wholly-owned subsidiary fog, it's just internal transfers on the books. Yes, I'm quite aware of all this from my corporate days.

Fourth, ONLY in the US is this a problem. It's strange that other countries, notably the fourteen industrialized countries ahead of the US in the broadband rankings, seem to have better infrastructure for delivery and lower prices. In other words, kickass internet. Except the US, where the norm is high prices, disappointment, and headaches. A case of squeezing the last dollar out of the customer for something that is a COMMODITY.

Last, if HughesNet does as poorly planning for increased business and excels at being customer-antagonistic, then they deserve to go out of business. I've run companies better than this.



FYI - In case you missed it, he mentions the 3-hour window for FAP-free downloading (3am - 6am Eastern time). Yeah, I know I'm always working in the middle of the night. Very conducive.


More to come later!