I know Elon Musk is a highly controvertible personality that is very divisive within certain groups. I can't say I "like" or "dislike" the guy- I never met him. I can say that I seem to align in many of the opinions he has. One of them is Starlink. When I first heard of the concept, I thought it would be a revolutionary way of connecting to the internet that bypasses all of the other monopolies- DSL, cable, fiber, and geosynchronous satellite systems. I really liked the idea because all I had available to me at my location is either DSL (download .75 Mbps, Upload .30 Mbps) or cable modem through the local monopolistic cable system. I could not get fiber to my location, as the cable company will not rent it's power pole locations to them, and was able to successfully bribe the city to not let them dig for underground fiber networks. I am not a fan of the local cable company, as you can tell, as they do not seem to have any pride in their work. When I first moved into my house, the cable was just strung on the outside of the house, sagging on the brickwork, entering the house via a hole drilled into the window sash. Nah, I ripped it off the first day after I moved in. Moving ahead to last year, I put myself on the waiting list to get into the beta test going on with Starlink. I've been watching the SpaceX launches of the Falcon 9 rocket booster for a while now, cheering them on as they make milestone after milestone. On a random day, I happened to be home because I was laid off from a job I had because I refused to be tested for Covid. I received an email from Starlink saying they have a few spots open in my area for Beta testing. If I wanted a dishey, I had to buy in before the slots were taken up first come first served. I bought in immediately, because I knew DSL and a lousy 4G hotspot I paid through the nose for and only got the same performance as my 15 year old DSL system, was not enough for my entire family. Zoom meetings, distance learning, etc took a toll on the monthly 15 GB limit on the hot spot. A week later the box from Starlink arrived and I eagerly had everything ready to go on my roof for the installation. I didn't use the supplied base, as the support for the dish array is the same as 1 1/4" conduit- and just used an EMT connector to attach it snugly. So far it's held steady through 40 mph winds. Okay, what everyone's been waiting for, the specs. I've had the system for almost a year, and the averages have been slowly going up, not down like all the news articles say it has. I'm getting a 23ms Ping, 93.73Mbps Download, and a 14.82Mbps Upload. I have not experienced any outages for the last six months or better, as the service had one or two dropouts a day for about ten seconds each when I first started receiving signals. Realistically, I can say that this has been the best, most trouble free, and fastest internet service I've ever experienced. I never streamed HD before the day I attached the array to my roof; now my kids play games online while I cruise the internet and my wife streams video. I hope Starlink continues to grow and outshines all the other systems, as they do not want to innovate and grow, only charge more for receiving less.
Thanks for the great write up @gunbunny I've been wondering about cutting the cable myself. Might have to make the jump.
I'd get on the waiting list asap, as it seems the microchip shortage is making wait times longer and longer.
Good review, and similar to my experience. I started with one dish at my place in the UP. It has allowed me to work from there as effectively as from home as a software developer. Zero problems. It is so good, I added a second one at another property up there. I’m glad to hear that your experience has been as good as mine.
and all this BS coming from China about the StarLink SATs being detrimental to the Chinese Space Station is PURE BUNK... The Chinese put their Station in orbit without coordinating with the UN Outfit that sets and Logs Orbital Parameters for this Planet, and put their Stupid Station to near the Orbits that Musk got certified for StarLink... Those dufuses did it to themselves, and then whine about it... Tough Crap for them, is what I say... My Opinion, YMMV...
Darn tootin' BPost! If they are complaining about something, it has to be a thorn in their side, and I like that. It probably means it's not under their control like the cable and phone systems are. If you have Starlink and stay away from google, how can they pipe their CCP BS into your head?
Good to hear from a fellow stargazer, there aren't too many of us... Yet. How did you attach your array? We just got a few inches of snow, and there were absolutely no problems. Actually, the only times we had cutouts in the last few months were the brief periods of time where thunderstorms rolled over us. The physical water column pouring down was just too much to get a signal through. As they passed over the signal returned, maybe five to ten minutes later. Other than that, smooth sailing. As for the cost, it is great- I was paying more than twice to keep the DSL and the G4 mobile hotspot up and running monthly. Starlink was a Godsend! I'm sure cable would have cost me less, but I wasn't going to succumb to their will. I detest paying people that are actively working against my own best interests.
I put my deposit down in June guesstimating availability around late summer/fall for the BOL. That has come and gone. Did get an e-mail explaining that they have been impacted by the chip shortage and it's delaying the production of the receivers. Well, that's credible I guess. Now they're saying summer '22. @gunbunny if your upload / download speeds are accurate (no reason to believe they aren't) then it'll be well worth the wait. Like you were I'm now running on Verizon 4G LTE and a mobile hotspot for data with a 15 GB limit per 30 days. It's not nearly fast enough for any kind of streaming, and I regularly burn through the limit. Guess I'll put up with it for awhile longer. Good info on the mount.
PING ms 23 DOWNLOAD Mbps 94.77 UPLOAD Mbps 19.20 Just taken from Speed Test Ookla- speedtest.net 11:51:15 If you guys have any other sights you would like me to use to test, just give me an address. I'll post it as long as I don't dox myself.
I am signed up and waiting. North Idaho is in the Beta area but is maxed out current so - waiting. We're using HughesNet which is better than nothing but, as of later, I've thought to simply using the phone's hotspots and canceling them.
I test mine periodically for kicks using the ookla app as well. Looking at the results of about 30-40 tests, my lowest was 65 mbps down, highest was 290 mbps. Average is probably 160 mbps down. Upload averages 20-25 mbps. Ping is low as well, about 18-23. All in all, it compares favorably to my cable internet at home. I have gotten maybe one or two outages longer than 1 minute. Heavy rain and snow don’t seem to bother it. There was an update a while ago that heats the dish to melt any snow off.
Obviously, the performance is due to the satellite proximity to earth. I don't know the exact distance but we're talking only a 100 hundred miles or so (I think less), consider that against a satellite like what HughesNet uses, a Geo-stationary which can be 18,000 miles away. I worked satellite communication for about the last 15 years of my career, mostly those that are about 5-meter in diameter (VSAT: Very Small Aperture Terminal) for the Ku and Ka band. Satellite comms is very reliable even with bad weather if one has the equipment to keep the dish and the feedhorn clean. I used to even have a blower for my feedhorn that kicked on using a moisture sensor when rained or snow. Yes, we would still have to increase power sometimes to burn through the weather but only by a dB or so. Automated Tracking really helps but I cannot find anyone to tell me is the receiver on the Starlink dish actually tracks the satellite. Tracking for Starlink would be good because it optimizes the receive signal and bad because tracking means wear parts, probably needs maintenance (lube), and is another point of failure. I would think that if there is enough sateliites in the orbit and given their speed of orbit that tracking wouldn't even matter if the data sharing between them is fast enough to transfer connections, etc. Anyway, I am rambling...Given the location of Starlink satellites they definitely will be even more reliable then my old VSATs but we'll see.
I was one of the first beta sign ons just after they left alpha. The speed has been getting faster and faster. Currently. From OOKLA PING 38ms DL 205Mbps UP 6Mbps Fast.com PING 36ms DL 320Mbps UL 17Mbps Only problem I have with it is that some games experience lag due to the trees blocking its view of the sky. Yeah I could cut them down but... you know. Lazy. The cool thing about StarLink is that you can take it with you. They have applied for a license to use it while moving. For example, on a boat. In a car. etc.
