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HughesNet Pushes Satellite For Broadband Backup

If you operate a business, how will you respond if your wireline broadband service fails? Do you have an adequate backup?

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This is a question many business owners are asking since last month’s massive outage of Comcast services. Millions of residential customers were effected, and thousands of businesses were crippled by the outage. It affected a large portion of the U.S., from east coast to west, and all Comcast services suffered: phone, TV, internet, and business services. Ironically, even the Down Detector failed.

(The Down Detector is an online service that tracks cable and satellite service outages. It tracks dozens of internet, video, phone, gaming, and social media services. It even monitors access to individual TV channels.)

Comcast blamed the outage on a fiber cut in a Manhattan system owned by one of its backbone ‘partners’. The incident affected both business and residential customers.

Can anything insure against lost connections?

HughesNet cited the Comcast outage as the type of catastrophic surprise businesses need to insure themselves against. And HughesNet says it has the solution.

HughesNet Network Solutions now offers a backup high-speed broadband service for such events. It will automatically switch users to satellite broadband when their terrestrial web connections fail. The backup service is under the name of HughesNet Internet Continuity. For a mere $39.99 per month, it insures against losses due to DSL, cable, or telecom down time.

With the backup system, the customer gets a WiFi modem, an antenna, a router, and a radio. Once the terrestrial network is restored, the HughesNet Continuity system switches back to it automatically.

The backup system operates at speeds of up to 25 MB/S for uploads, and 3 MB/S for downloads. These speeds meet the FCC definition of broadband.

The need for some sort of internet insurance has long been evident. As many as 90% of businesses have suffered at least one web service interruption. A third report facing an outage every month. Such outages can block access to critical systems.

At minimum, the service interruptions bring loss of revenue. In extreme cases, they can alienate customers and even force business closure.

 

(For the most reliable web connection, talk to Satellite Country. We can help.)

 

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‘Net Neutrality’: Is It Doomed?

For the internet industry, the regulatory climate may be facing a dramatic shakeup. The Federal Communications Commission has scheduled a December 14 vote on possible repeal of Title II web regulations. These rules are meant to promote what is known as ‘net neutrality’.

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‘Net neutrality’ is the concept that all data on the web should be treated alike. Internet service providers (ISP) should not discriminate by platform, content, website, application, or user. An ISP would not be allowed to block, throttle (slow down), or charge extra for access to specific websites or online content.

What fed the demand for ‘net neutrality’?

The matter became a live political issue in 2004, when Comcast throttled uploads of peer-to-peer file sharing apps such as BitTorrent. Despite public protest, Comcast did not stop the throttling until the FCC ordered it to do so. AT&T, Verizon, and other ISPs were also accused of blocking or throttling specific content. Some were accused of giving favorable treatment to data from corporate partners, including TV networks.

In 2014, the FCC received more than 3.7 million complaints about blocking, throttling, and paid prioritization. The following year, the commission ruled that the internet is a telecommunications service. An ISP, then, is a ‘common carrier’ subject to regulation under Title II of the 1934 Telecommunications Act. The web would be regulated like any public utility.

Resistance to the New Rules

The Title II rules faced fierce criticism from the cable and telecom industries. Some claimed the rules would inhibit investment in internet systems. This would delay or prevent improvement in equipment or networks. In any case, the leading ISPs said, the rules went far beyond the FCC’s legal mandate.

Ajit Pai, the current FCC chairman, said that the current ‘net neutrality’ rules discourage innovation. Less innovation, he said, means less competition. This in in turn, he said, keeps prices high.

Pai says repeal of the Title II internet rules will foster competition, make broadband more widely available, and bring prices down. His critics say the move would only make the larger ISPs more dominant. The largest cable and telecom systems would enjoy near-monopolies on the flow of information.

Who’s right? We may find out after December 14.

 

(For the strongest internet connection, talk to us. We can help.)

 

 

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HURRICANE HARVEY HAMMERS CABLE SYSTEMS

Severe storms are no fun for any of us. In addition to the obvious hardships they bring, they can knock cable, telecom, and wireless communication systems out of service for weeks or even months on end.

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How has the Houston area fared?

Hurricane Harvey was especially brutal. Though other hurricanes have packed higher wind speeds, Harvey caused more damage because it parked over southeast Texas for several days. While stalled, it dumped more than fifty inches of rain on the area in only four days. This is a new record. It’s even more than famously-wet Seattle got in all of 2016.

Harvey’s effect on cable systems has been catastrophic.

On August 28, two days after Hurricane Harvey made landfall, Comcast said it would suspend operations in the affected area. Comcast is the largest cable firm in the U.S.

On September 6, the FCC reported that on Friday, September 1, six days after Harvey’s landfall, more than 270,000 cable TV and internet in the affected area subscribers still lacked service. In addition, two TV stations and nine radio stations were still off the air.

It’s possible that the FCC understated the service outages. Some subscribers have yet to report service loss, since they face more pressing concerns.

What does the future hold?

John Stankey, CEO of the AT&T Entertainment Group, ratified the FCC’s grim assessment. Speaking at a media conference in Las Vegas, he said his company expects a spike in ‘cord-cutting’ figures for the third quarter. Much of this- though not all- he attributes to Hurricane Harvey. Comparing it to Hurricane Katrina (2005), Stankey said that full restoration of all communication networks will be expensive, requiring a “multi-year commitment”.

At the same media conference, a Comcast spokesman said his company expects to lose 100,000 to 150,000 subscribers in the third quarter. Much of this loss he attributes to Hurricane Harvey.

Expect several months to pass, then, before all cable services in the Houston area are fully restored.

What can you do?

Wherever you live, you have no guarantee that you won’t suffer extreme weather or other natural disasters. But there are a few steps by which you can protect yourself.

For reliable TV and internet service, consider a satellite system. Severe weather can affect it, but is unlikely to cause outages lasting days, weeks, or months. Usually, your service will return once the storm passes.

 

(For the HughesNet service that’s meets your needs, contact Satellite Country. Talk to us. We can help.)