Starlink

[lawman]

Does anyone here use Starlink for their internet service provider? Does it work well?

 

[njhowie]

It's a nice concept for those in rural areas without access to high quality internet service. We were in this camp 20 years ago and opted for HughesNet. Over time, as technology advanced, and legacy providers expanded their reach, we dropped the service as the need had gone away.

Keep in mind, you'll never be able to get service as fast or reliable as can be provided by wired cable, and the Starlink service is expensive for what they deliver.

There are plenty of Youtube videos with folks who have Starlink and provide in-depth information.

 

[lawman]

It's a nice concept for those in rural areas without access to high quality internet service. We were in this camp 20 years ago and opted for HughesNet. Over time, as technology advanced, and legacy providers expanded their reach, we dropped the service as the need had gone away.

Keep in mind, you'll never be able to get service as fast or reliable as can be provided by wired cable, and the Starlink service is expensive for what they deliver.

There are plenty of Youtube videos with folks who have Starlink and provide in-depth information.

Thanks..I'll check You Tube

 

[rk911]

saw this the other day. i'm not a StarLink use but SL users should be aware.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/06/23/tech/spacex-dish-fcc-spectrum-scn/index.html

 

[Blooming Late]

It's worked very well for my son and family. Much better than HughesNet that they had previously.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

FWIW, one thing I've heard about satellite internet service in general is that the download speeds are probably adequate, but upload speeds are very limited and there can be a fraction of a second more lag than with cable or phone line internet. This might matter if anyone in the house does online gaming, in which millisecond lags are much more noticeable, or peer-to-peer file sharing for any reason.

 

[COcheesehead]

We looked at it. The equipment isn’t cheap and if you read the reviews, it’s less than stellar. We stayed with boring old internet provider for now. The one that has me excited is T Mobile. They are building the infrastructure for their new high speed internet down the road. Hopefully should have it within a year.

 

[REWahoo]

FWIW, one thing I've heard about satellite internet service in general is that the download speeds are probably adequate, but upload speeds are very limited and there can be a fraction of a second more lag than with cable or phone line internet. This might matter if anyone in the house does online gaming, in which millisecond lags are much more noticeable, or peer-to-peer file sharing for any reason.

I thought Starlink avoided this upload lag by having near earth orbit satellites a few hundred miles up vs. geosynchronous satellites 22,000 or so miles overhead?

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I thought Starlink avoided this upload lag by having near earth orbit satellites a few hundred miles up vs. geosynchronous satellites 22,000 or so miles overhead?

I don't know anything about Starlink in particular, but if that's the case, my WASG is that it has less lag than other satellite providers but still more than fiber, cable, or DSL.

EDIT: Here's an article about the technology, and it's closer than I thought, but the parity seems to still be only theoretical, not implemented: https://wapo.st/3IADLeQ

 

[HawkeyeNFO]

Their cost is so low, the satellites are essentially disposable, and the bandwidth they offer is far cheaper than just about any other provider. They've changed the game for SATCOM.

 

[Midpack]

Some real data vs advertised.

 

[njhowie]

Their cost is so low, the satellites are essentially disposable, and the bandwidth they offer is far cheaper than just about any other provider. They've changed the game for SATCOM.

I assume you mean to say far cheaper than just about any other satellite internet provider. Starlink is charging $110/month plus the $599 one-time equipment fee. For that, you get under 100Mb/s at this time. I'm currently paying Xfinity $49.99/month and for that I'm getting 600Mb/s.

What is the draw for a non-rural residential customer who has wired internet as an option?

 

[mpeirce]

What is the draw for a non-rural residential customer who has wired internet as an option?

None at this point really. Unless you want a backup internet service. I use cellular for that here and it’s fine and is cheaper for now.

Today Starlink is selling to people who don’t have great (or any) alternatives.

Eventually though, I expect they will take on “regular” urban/suburban service. This will be using much smaller/cheaper base stations and by then they will have deployed a much denser constellation of satellites with higher bandwidth than the current ones.

The plan is for Starlink to be SpaceX’s cash cow and they have a number of interesting ideas on how to make it so.

 

[NW-Bound]

Starlink's appeal is for people outside of areas served by existing links.

It's godsend for RV nomads in boondocks areas, for cruise ships, airplanes, for example.

For the metropolitan areas, sure they can provide services, but the satellites would not have enough bandwidth to match the fiber optics that land-based Internet providers have.

It is interesting to see how the economics of Starlink will work out. Where there is a large potential customer base, they may not be able to have capacity to serve.

Where they are the only choice, there may be too few customers, and how much these customers can afford to pay may not be enough for Starlink to be profitable.

 

[ncbill]

Put the $99 deposit down years ago so we could finally have internet up at our extended family's cabin in the mountains.

But just this month the local membership telephone co-operative converted the copper line up there to fiber (removing the copper line) so I added 50 MBps (symmetrical) internet service.

Shortly afterwards we got the notification that Starlink was available...got my $99 deposit back.

 

[TriumphTR3fan]

We live in a borderline rural area & had Ziply ( now Astound). Download speed was 2-3 MBPS. The service technicians were good but they couldn’t do much with antiquated copper line equipment & Ziply refused to tell us when they would upgrade to fiber. We were frustrated & when Starlink opened up reservations we put down $99. The race was on. Two months after Starlink sent the equipment Ziply announced they were upgrading to fiber. They wouldn’t take no for an answer for a few months & kept calling.
We’re happy with Starlink. We had the dish professionally installed & they did a better job than I would have done. The installer put it in a location that I could easily reach. Few outages & none that seriously impacted our reception. It snowed once & I brushed it off easily before the heater could melt it. I’m going to switch from Dish to YouTube streaming next month. No issues yet with recently announced data caps.
It’s nice not to have to be reliant on installed lines.
My biggest complaint about Starlink is that it’s difficult to contact service. There’s no contacting them via phone, only online. I’ve only had to contact them to request a return authorization for unused installation equipment but it was awkward. Their service is similar to Tesla as everything goes through the app.

 

[Ready]

I have two friends who use Starlink on their boats and have been very happy with the service. Where we live we have good cable/FIOS options so it’s not something we see in people’s homes, but for boats and RVs it’s a great option.

 

[MRG]

We got ours last summer. Our house is in a grove of pine trees, so I was pretty skeptical.
Went from 2.5MbS to 100+[emoji4]. So far, I've had one outage that was noticed, and so did everyone in our town, about 10 minutes. First snowstorm, and there was an issue heating. Since then, I have left it on automatic heating and enjoying it.

 

[TriumphTR3fan]

It’s good for our needs. We don’t game or watch a lot of 4K movies. As the network of satellites builds out capacity should increase. We have much better viewing of videos which often struggled with 720P.

 

[Sunset]

I just checked for my cabin out in the woods.
It will cover it next year, so that is good.
The price is a bit steep at $100/mo plus equipment, plus I think I'd need electricity....

 

[MRG]

I just checked for my cabin out in the woods.
It will cover it next year, so that is good.
The price is a bit steep at $100/mo plus equipment, plus I think I'd need electricity....

There's people around me who use Starlink off grid. They don't have it preheating for snowy conditions. That is all I know about their installation.