Satellite Internet Service

The Hughes GEN4 satellite Internet system (also marketed as DishNet) is a spot beamed service that requires a separate dish and very precise aiming. It is not compatible with any TV satellite service dishes. Also, since it is regionally spot beamed, and neither Hughes nor Dish support frequent beam area changes, as we can do with the Dish local TV channel spot beams, the Internet service is not practical for most RV'ers. The service is expensive for the bandwidth allowed, and the high latency makes it impractical for many online games, if that's of interest. The high latency also makes it a poor choice for audio/video streaming and VOIP phone service use.

Dick, there are 2 distinct systems. Hughes is owned by Echo Star, the parent company of Dish, which is why you see the Dish Net system advertised as a package with Dish. The RV system is great, in that it gives you internet almost anywhere in North America, with the proper satellite. HOWEVER, the RV system and the home system are NOT compatible, in that the home system uses a very narrow spot beam, while the mobile system uses a broad beam. The Gen 4 home system is relatively fast, while the mobile system has a very long latent time lag and can be relatively slow. We have a motosat system on our RV and use it when we are working the patch or traveling in Mexico. Otherwise we use a hotspot, as it is much faster.

Internet and TV can be received on the same "internet" dish, if you are assigned to the correct satellite. Our system uses the same dish, as we are assigned to a Satmex satellite and use the BOW for the TV channels.

We live in a remote area and tried Sat internet as there is no cable or DSL here. We paid $80 for the highest speed and to put it bluntly, it was awful. The speed was sporadic and the latency was very irritating. I was So happy when 4g was available here. Sat is expensive and not as reliable or fast as 4g, and requires line of sight (no trees or cloud cover) in my experience. Also, on a MH I imagine unless you full time and are sitting in the same spot it will be very difficult. It does not use your dish for TV. It requires a dedicated dish as it aims to a different position in the sky. The variance on the target is also smaller so it has to be perfectly aimed as opposed to tv Sat which can be close and still get your signal. It also requires a dedicated set of cables (2 - one for sending and one for receiving) that would have to be run. I would advise strongly against it and look at 3 or 4g options (wifi etc). More reliable and much easier to work with.