There is no doubt that online gaming is one of the most popular trends in the world that has emerged in the last decade with millions of users who play games such as Fortnite, Call of Duty, and League of Legends. A stable connection is fundamental to good online gaming, but for rural Americans who cannot access cable or fiber optic connections from providers like HughesNet, satellite internet is almost the only available solution.
The new satellite internet service called Gen 5 has been offered by HughesNet since 2020, providing more speed and data than before. Is the Gen 5 finally fast enough for online gaming as it offers downloading at the maximum speed of 25 Mbps?
HughesNet Gen 5 is a type of internet service that offers faster download speeds than standard broadband internet services.
HughesNet Gen 5 is backed by EchoStar XIX, the newest high-bandwidth broadband satellite from HughesNet Company which was launched in 2016. Key upgrades over previous generations include:
- Faster speeds: Download speed is at 25 Mbps and uploads at 3 Mbps while earlier generation offers 10-15 Mbps download speed.
- More data: Gen 5 plans have had their high-speed data caps raised: the two highest tiers are 50 GB and 100 GB before speed drops, more than the previous 15-30 GB offerings.
- Built-in WiFi: Gen 5 lets you choose your home WiFi router free of charge to help you avoid rental costs for the equipment.
To answer this question, we must look into the enhancements made on Gen 5 and if they correlate to a good gaming experience. Alright, here are the numbers applied to the key factors.
Ping and Latency
Satellite internet gamers’ main struggle, or what they refer to as ‘lag’ or ‘high latency’, is their main problem. Latency, sometimes called ping, refers to the time it takes for data packets to travel from the gamer’s computer through the network to the game servers and back. Delays as small as these are immense enough to make these otherwise highly responsive multiplayer games lag.
When we attempt to make an internet connection through satellite instead of a physical cable, we immediately realize that such a connection will be slow and vulnerable to considerable latency of about 600ms or more. HughesNet Gen 5 has not had any enhancements in this area and customers continue to experience latency of 600-900ms. Cable and fiber ping times are 10-60ms in comparison to WiFi networks that have higher ping rates. Latency at this level severely hinders real-time gaming where the game has to respond to the user immediately.
Data Caps
However, Gen 5 comes with more high-speed data than the previous HughesNet plans, with a 50GB or 100GB cap which brings down the speed to 1-3 Mbps after usage. The majority of the modern games are around 50GB in downloads and updates. As it often goes with online gaming, data consumption is fast and for most games, they will use 3-8GB an hour. It is evident that under data limits, heavy gaming is unfeasible when one is aiming to do it for a whole month. This also leads to congestion charges which makes the service very costly especially when you exceed the set limit of your cap.
Consistency
In online gaming, there cannot be any delays and hence constant and steady speeds and performance are paramount. Satellites may suffer here because of disturbances from adverse weather conditions, competition for bandwidth since they share the air space, constraints from trees/buildings that may obstruct its signal, and strict regulatory measures to control downloads/uploads. Some of the HughesNet users have complained of very high and unpredictable speeds even when they are gaming at off-peak hours when there is no congestion. An inability to deliver high speeds and full bandwidth remains consistent in different generations of HughesNet implying that the core network still has a lot of room for improvement.
Alternative Options
For rural Americans without a good terrestrial internet option at this speed, going with a 4G LTE home internet provider can be a much better choice for gaming. Services such as T-Mobile Home Internet, Verizon Wireless Home Internet, or AT&T Fixed Wireless rely on mobile networks to offer an internet connection to homes without data limits or extremely low latency. Even when speeds are only 50-100 Mbps, latency under 50ms on often mobile networks allows much higher quality gaming than over satellite with 600ms+ ping. However, the internet on mobile homes can make gaming possible if their service providers are available in your region.
Even with improvements in HughesNet Gen 5, it is clear that the service still cannot surpass the inherent limitations of satellite technology for serious online games. They can only play for short bursts rather than long days due to restrictive daily data allowances as well as high latency leading to lag. Even simple activities such as streaming video or web browsing are still understandable under Gen 5 but competitive or real-time gaming, as much as we wish for it, is still mostly unplayable. Players need to seek other options in their areas such as rural LTE home internet, if available, rather than subscribing to satellite internet because of the high speeds.
