Frequently Asked Questions

Q: What is Broadband Satellite Internet for the Home?

A: With HughesNet^® you can have broadband satellite Internet access in your home regardless of where you live and without tying up your phone lines. Order HughesNet and a certified HughesNet installer will visit your home to install a satellite dish and modem. This will give you broadband satellite Internet access from your home computer.

What Does Broadband Mean?

Simply put, broadband means high-speed Internet access. To understand it more specifically, you have to think in terms of data transmission or the amount of time it takes to send messages from your computer to another computer. In other words, how long does it take for you to download information from a Website?

A typical dial-up Internet connection allows for data transfer of 56 kilobits a second. This is a slow data transfer rate. A broadband satellite Internet connection provides a data transfer rate of up to five times that much.

With download speeds from 1 megabit per second to 5 megabits per second , a broadband satellite Internet connection from HughesNet provides faster download times of images and documents, and the capability of viewing more online information at one time without frustration or interruptions in service.

With a high rate of data transmission, broadband satellite Internet users are able to receive information and post information online at high speed. All of this can be done with increased download speeds with HughesNet.

Understanding Broadband Satellite Internet

Broadband satellite Internet has several parts. When you make a request using your computer (let's say you want to read the news on your favorite news Website), your computer sends that message through your satellite modem to the satellite dish attached to your home. Next, the message is sent to the satellite and back down to the HughesNet Network Operations Center (NOC). The NOC then contacts the Website (news site) and sends all that information back to your home computer following exactly the same path it used to send the data in the first place.

It's a pretty amazing technological feat, and it’s all made possible at the speed of light.

All data transmission is sent at the speed of light—186,000 miles per second. Even though the satellites could be as far away as 22,000 miles, transmission usually takes only 500 to 900 milliseconds to travel back and forth.

That's not even a blink of the eye.

Understanding broadband satellite Internet access isn’t easy, but using it in your home is made easy through HughesNet, your broadband satellite Internet service. Are you ready to free up your phone lines and finally have the broadband satellite Internet access you deserve? Select your satellite Internet plan today.