Elon Musk's Starlink Satellite Internet

[Sittinginthesun]

Sadly we have too many trees. They're getting really good numbers and are predicting much faster as they add more capacity.

We have a ton of trees but the dish points north and at a steep angle so zero obstruction. We have too many trees for other services that use towers to broadcast but for Starlink zero issues.

 

[homestead]

We have a ton of trees but the dish points north and at a steep angle so zero obstruction. We have too many trees for other services that use towers to broadcast but for Starlink zero issues.

Does it work well during heavy rains?

 

[MRG]

We have a ton of trees but the dish points north and at a steep angle so zero obstruction. We have too many trees for other services that use towers to broadcast but for Starlink zero issues.

Thanks for posting your experience.

I signed up for the beta and ordered the dish, but the test app was challenging for me to understand. Of course it was winter and I was stumbling around the yard with 4 feet of snow in it trying to stand upright.

Our handyman said he ordered one. I may call and ask for his expertise in a while after he's done his. If it's just needing a northern view that should easily work.

 

[LRDave]

I have a cousin that has been using it for about 3 months and is absolutely in love with it. There is a Reddit page that has a lot of good information about it and the reports are about as real time as they come. I signed up (and was selected) for the beta roll out in our neck of the woods but they have put in fiber optic, so I "disenrolled" in the beta program. This will be a game changer when it comes to high speed internet in the rural areas of the world.

Latest posts on Reddit show that it works well even when the dish is covered with ice.

Thanks for the heads up on this Reddit group. None in my state as of now - not yet that far south. As Dusty Springfield famously sang: "Wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin'..."

 

[skyking1]

In a beta project that would be more likely.

Here is a link with some useful info:
https://camperreport.com/starlink-internet/#:~:text=The%20Starlink%20team%20is%20bringing,Stations%20in%20Motion%20or%20ESIM.

it is hopefully coming soon, but I will wait until Starlink itself offers on the road services.

 

[harley]

For years (decades?) we've talked about moving out to the country, but between my business and my personal addiction I refuse to live with slow internet access, whether it be satellite or DSL. I'd as soon give up a kidney. If this works it might be time to buy a chunk of land before everybody else jumps on the bandwagon.

 

[Sittinginthesun]

Does it work well during heavy rains?

We’ve just moved from snow season to rain and actually had some light snow yesterday but no issues in very heavy snow and the dish melts all the snow off itself. We have satellite tv and only lose that signal in the heaviest of thunderstorms and usually for a few minutes max.

 

[Sittinginthesun]

For years (decades?) we've talked about moving out to the country, but between my business and my personal addiction I refuse to live with slow internet access, whether it be satellite or DSL. I'd as soon give up a kidney. If this works it might be time to buy a chunk of land before everybody else jumps on the bandwagon.

We feel like Starlink just added $100k of value to our (already seven figure) home as everyone wants/needs excellent internet and it’s one of the main questions ever realtor gets about rural properties, “what internet do they have out there?”. We just bought another >100 acre property and going to build there next year and Starlink will be ordered at least six months before the house is finished to make sure we get a dish on time.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

For years (decades?) we've talked about moving out to the country, but between my business and my personal addiction I refuse to live with slow internet access, whether it be satellite or DSL. I'd as soon give up a kidney. If this works it might be time to buy a chunk of land before everybody else jumps on the bandwagon.

You might be surprised. My SIL lives WAY out in the sticks on 15 acres and has fiber available. It's a bit odd to have well/septic and the fire department would have to bring pumper trucks but there is gig internet available. I think it's because many of the electric co-ops have figured out it's a good money maker and it's not too hard to get the lines run. So, country living could very well be in your future!

 

[OldShooter]

You might be surprised. My SIL lives WAY out in the sticks on 15 acres and has fiber available. It's a bit odd to have well/septic and the fire department would have to bring pumper trucks but there is gig internet available. I think it's because many of the electric co-ops have figured out it's a good money maker and it's not too hard to get the lines run. So, country living could very well be in your future!

Good point. We have had fiber to our lake home for more than five years, maybe closer to 10. The cheapest service I can get is 50mps up and down and I could have 100/100 if I wanted it. It's the electric co-op and they also are offering gigabit fiber to much of their system. Not sure we can get that but we have no need. Our city home, in contrast was limited to 5 down and .75 up from our wireline carrier. We finally switched to Comcast, which has more competitive speeds. More money, of course. So in our case the city mouse was the poor mouse.

 

[meierlde]

Good point. We have had fiber to our lake home for more than five years, maybe closer to 10. The cheapest service I can get is 50mps up and down and I could have 100/100 if I wanted it. It's the electric co-op and they also are offering gigabit fiber to much of their system. Not sure we can get that but we have no need. Our city home, in contrast was limited to 5 down and .75 up from our wireline carrier. We finally switched to Comcast, which has more competitive speeds. More money, of course. So in our case the city mouse was the poor mouse.

In the texas hill country there are a couple of telephone coops that are offering wide internet one one offering up to gig bandwidth. (over fiber)

 

[ncbill]

In the texas hill country there are a couple of telephone coops that are offering wide internet one one offering up to gig bandwidth. (over fiber)

Same here but they aren't cheap...lowest price is $20/month for 5 MBps, $65/month for 100 MBps, $150/month for 1GB.

 

[REWahoo]

In the texas hill country there are a couple of telephone coops that are offering wide internet one one offering up to gig bandwidth. (over fiber)

Same here but they aren't cheap...lowest price is $20/month for 5 MBps, $65/month for 100 MBps, $150/month for 1GB.

I get fiber internet from one of those Hill Country co-ops and don't consider the pricing to be all that bad. That's because before they showed up we were paying more for far slower and less reliable service. Free installation, free modem, no caps, and the price includes all fees and taxes.

 

[ncbill]

Are there any fees/taxes in your state...here those are $0 on broadband.

 

[REWahoo]

Not sure about taxes. Our last two providers charged tax and fees, the co-op doesn’t.

 

[bjorn2bwild]

According to Musk, Starlink should be fully mobile later this year.

If they can deliver usable speed and reliability, I'm in on that deal. I visit many back country locations with little to no service.

 

[skyking1]

We would be down for it too. DW can work from the road any time she can have a decent connection. It would make our two year exit plan more palatable.

 

[folivier]

At our mountain summer place we have DSL at 10Mb/s and happy to have that. ATT is threatening to add a tower nearby but not counting on that. I'll consider Starlink when we get there this summer but afraid with all of the trees there won't be a clear enough area. And I'm not cutting down trees just for faster internet.

 

[LRDave]

Per the Starlink Reddit site, there is now an installed beta tester in my backwoods state (AL) - at a slightly more northern latitude (just a few minutes). Yay! I feel like I am waiting on the Wells-Fargo wagon.

 

[Hermit]

I'm patiently waiting for all the glowing reports of beta users on this thread....

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

Our fiber is pretty reasonable as well. No equipment fees or contracts. Beats the hell out off the cable company...oh and all taxes and fees are included in this price.

 

[RunningBum]

Ours is similar to that, another rural electrical co-op thing that got a govt grant to help with installation. $50 for 100Mbps, would be $80 for 1G, which I can't justify. Instead I kept my cable internet as a backup, downgraded to $35 for 50Mbps. I'll probably dump that soon since fiber has been rock solid. So I went from dial up when I first moved here 20 years ago, then unreliable DSL 13 years ago (we were at the physical distance limit), then cable with increasing bandwidth a few years ago, now I have my choice of 100Mbps or more carriers in a mountain rural setting.

 

[troutnut1]

I’m on the waiting list here in rural Montana. A giant wildfire in 2006 cleared enough trees that I can probably make it work. We have been here 30 years and it has always been somewhat of a struggle to get TV and internet. In the 90’s we paid $3,500 for a 10’ diameter big dish(C-band) just to get TV. We thought that was a real miracle back then. When the promised us we would later be able to get a small dish for a few hundred we were thrilled. Sure enough, many small dish systems came and went. I got tired of putting more holes in the side of our log home.

What normally happens is that the speeds and signals are fast at first. It really gets our hopes up that we have finally arrived. But then the empty bus fills up to look like a train in India. And our speeds return to dismal. The last one to do this to us was Hughesnet Gen 5. Great at first. A real joke during the pandemic when we really needed it. I hope Elon is good for it and really solves this problem. But I’m hoping other people are designing things behind him for when he sells too many seats on the bus. Best I can hope for is that he raises the prices a lot so all the city folk don’t jump on with us.

 

[bizlady]

We used to have DIRECTV. Does anybody know if I could mount the dish in that old location and then with the wiring which is coax work with Starlink?

 

[alsakahill]

Starlink has been a game changer for us in the foothills west of Boulder. The only options we had available were DSL and traditional satellite internet (which just sounded like horror shows) Our DSL speeds were in the 4 to 6 Mbs range and about .8mbs upload with pings in the 30ms range. and now our ranges go from 80ish to 200ish for download and 8 to 20ish for upload. Pings are about the same.. It is still beta so there are occasional drops for 60 seconds or so a couple times a day. This affects my work WEBEX calls mostly in that I don’t get kicked out but will have to repeat what I said or ask the others to repeat what they said. On the flip side with my DSL connection I could never turn on my video without killing the Webex and drops were common too... As far as streaming goes, the drops occasionally cause a couple seconds of buffering ever other day or so.. But now the quality is 4K, vs what looked like an 80s level splotchy VGA stream before. That part has most definitely been an “eye opening” experience All in all I am ecstatic with what I get with Starlink compared to where I was before.