Hughesnet boasts of their satellite internet service as being an ‘unlimited data’ service provider but that is not entirely true because if you dig deeper into their service, you will find out that their ‘unlimited data’ service comes with some fundamental limitations. In conclusion, is Hughesnet’s data unlimited? It’s time to focus on reality and consider specific information.
When there is a limit to the amount of data that can be used, it is referred to as a data cap while a soft cap is an option that is much more flexible.
Hughesnet is not under the category of providers that possess hard data caps that stop your internet instantly once you use that particular amount of data and nothing more but they possess soft data caps that reduce your internet speed significantly once you exceed their set data usage for a month.
For internet service, Hughesnet has a promotion of “unlimited data” provided at $99. 95 per month with the following provisions; 50GB, 100GB, or 150GB of high-speed data usage every month. When you go past your high-speed limit, your speeds are slowed down to 1-3Mbps for the rest of your monthly usage. This very slow speed makes most online activities extremely hard.
To help you understand how those data allowances work, it’s possible to go through 50GB to 150GB per month quite easily if you are using streaming options such as listening to music or watching videos. HD video streaming can consume as much as 3GB per hour and above. Thus, while Hughesnet touts that it offers ‘unlimited’ plans, it provides only 50-150GB of high-speed data to use before your speeds plummet significantly.
The Illusion of Unlimited
Why is it that Hughesnet can promote “unmetered access” at the same time limit usage by throttling data speeds once users have exceeded certain levels? This brings me to the question of what is considered ‘unlimited’ when it comes to usage.
Unlike other ISPs that will just limit your data usage to a certain amount of Gigabytes as what is indicated in the hard data caps, Hughesnet slows down the service to a point where is almost unusable once you exceed the high-speed data usage. Thus, even though the data is theoretically infinite, high speeds that allow unrestricted surfing, watching videos and more quickly become unavailable.
This play on words enables Hughesnet to lure customers in with the promise of unlimited data, yet still restrict how much high-speed data a client is allowed to consume in a month. It provides a consumer-only phenomenon of nearly infinite data but does not give a real sense of unlimited use.
The fact that you have to pay more for more data doesn’t mean it goes towards your line being truly unlimited.
There are certainly ways for a Hughesnet customer to purchase additional high-speed data if a subscriber has used more than their 50GB, 100GB, or 150 GB allowance. The data tokens can be purchased in quarters of 50 GB at $9. 99 for each quarter.
However, it is important to note that even if you are willing to spend more money for extra buckets of 4G LTE data, there are still restrictive measures implemented. The maximum high-speed data that you can buy may vary on each plan, which can go as low as 300GB on the lower end but can go as high as 600GB on the higher-end plans.
Therefore, in practice, the ‘unlimited’ Hughesnet service limits how much of the high-speed data bucket a customer can use every month, regardless of what they are willing to spend. That implies that once you hit those ceilings, you have to continue using extremely slow internet speeds for the remainder of the billing cycle even if you purchase the 50GB data tokens.
Hughesnet's Fine Print
On the bright side, if one is eager enough to search through the Hughesnet website, they can find information stating that the offered ‘unlimited’ data plans are accompanied by slower internet speeds after a customer has consumed a specific amount of data.
Nevertheless, this important information is concealed in large legal print that most customers do not bother to read or comprehend. The open declarations of ‘unlimited data’ stated in large clear print on their homepage and their TV ads belie the truth known when one takes the time to read the fine print. This makes it possible for Hughesnet to take advantage of its customers who have been given a misleading impression by unlimited data promotions.
The Bottom Line
Taking into consideration the speed and usage limits being applied after the customer has used 50GB to 150GB a month, Hughesnet’s so-called ‘unlimited’ data is not very unlimited in terms of how most families use the internet nowadays. Here, although Hughesnet plans promise data access without explicitly kicking you out after a certain gigabyte limit, the throttling of speeds is an indirect way of limiting your high-speed data usage to an extent.
Thus it is advisable to read Hughesnet’s promotional claims regarding unlimited data alongside a pinch of salt. Be sure to look deeper into what that entails and how much actual high-speed data you get before these so-called ‘unlimited’ plans become practically unusable because the remaining data comes with slow speeds for the rest of the month. The above offers very much fall short of being true unlimited high-speed data for today’s internet usage.
