Starlink

[newbury]

I have yet to find anything I cant do on my 4G LTE with AT&T so 5G doesn't much matter to us. T Mobile touts their 5G Home Internet but in actuality rural folks will only be connecting at 4G. Most people don't need 100 MBS even though they think they do. I can stream anything without buffering over a Firestick and typically see download speeds of 25 meg and up so that is more than capable of streaming.

I'm trying to run security cams. Even the 2MP resolution sucks up 4Mb bandwidth. It even brings my "city" network to it's knees when I'm trying to display multiple cams from the outside.

 

[newbury]

My household of 5 with 3 kids seems to disagree. Get 3 kids all streaming or gaming at the same time and try to watch a netflix movie with the wife and 100+ MBS is appreciated. No more issues now with fiber.

Seems like we all want MORE BANDWIDTH.

Just ran across this (it's the county adjacent east of me) for Franklin County, Alabama (pop 32,113):
source

Kiel said it takes a lot of money, time and work to bring about this reality as a viable option for Franklin County residents.

“That’s why I am working to get our share of the $243 million in new funding through the American Rescue Plan Act to expand rural broadband access in our state,”

“I believe that, together, we can make this possible for our citizens,” Kiel added. “The Franklin County Commission has more than $5 million that can go toward making sure every citizen in the county has world-class internet speeds for work, education, healthcare and entertainment.”

Mugno and Schultz asked the commission to publicly commit, in a manner appropriate and binding, all the remaining COVID relief funds awarded to Franklin County for the purpose of building reliable, affordable, last-mile fiber optic broadband in the areas discussed and shown on the map presented during the meeting, explaining reasons for doing so.

“Freedom Fiber has committed to make Franklin County the first county in the state to have 10 gigabyte service available to our users,” explained Schultz, “and this would be a huge technological jump from one gigabyte – currently the highest speed generally offered by most providers.”

So the entire county may get 10GB service to their house or business simply because they can throw the Covid relief money at it.

How can Starlink compete with that?

 

[LouNY]

They can't compete against that. But, many places aren't even putting up 1 gigabyte service.
I can see the Cell towers from my kitchen windows on the mountain and I get decent 4G service.
If I hotspot my phone I'll be between 4 and 20 Megabyte, my now previous provider was a two way radio link
up to one of those towers which was supposed to be 25 megabyte service and was 50% of the time and less
the rest of the time.
So now my Starlink is sitting at between my worst was 79 megabytes to a best of 230 megabytes, usually well over 100.
The other day to give it a workout we had 3 phones, two TV's, and a kindle streaming video in HD at the same time
along with my Arlo camera system and nothing even blinked no pauses no buffering just smooth playing.

 

[Wakey]

Georgia is doing the same thing but I'm not optimistic that they're going to provide something that's going to compete with what starlink offers but we will find out

 

[jk96]

Seems like we all want MORE BANDWIDTH.

Just ran across this (it's the county adjacent east of me) for Franklin County, Alabama (pop 32,113):
source

So the entire county may get 10GB service to their house or business simply because they can throw the Covid relief money at it.

How can Starlink compete with that?

You have to remember they are also scaling up service globally, not just in the US.

 

[rekees4300]

Starlink launches a premium Internet plan with superior features. That's the good news. The bad news is it will cost $500/month!

https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/spacex-launches-starlink-premium-internet-plan-and-its-not-cheap/

 

[ponytug]

@rekees4300 Thanks for sharing, but,...Ouch! $2700 upfront and $500/month.

Private fiber is looking better and better...

 

[WM75Guy]

Going to be tough to compete with 5G home internet plans as they roll out. Here is an example of Verizon.

 

[kcflhrc]

5G is and will continue to be a big issue in Rural America for some time. Those plans are great if you live very close to a 5G Tower but the reach of the 5G Band is very limited. They tout those plans as 5G but more than likely as my neighbor found out with T-Mobile 5G the modem only connects to LTE because there is no 5G where we live. You would need to be in the range of 1000' to 1500' of a 5G Tower and in the rural areas that is just not practical. Yet. I'm connected to a 5G tower right now according to my phone with Verizon and the speed is roughly 30 up and down. Not really impressive

 

[John_Mc]

@rekees4300 Thanks for sharing, but,...Ouch! $2700 upfront and $500/month.

Private fiber is looking better and better...

Fiber has always looked better... to those who actually have that option.

Going to be tough to compete with 5G home internet plans as they roll out. Here is an example of Verizon.

View attachment 731996

It won't be tought to compete when you live in an area where cell phone coverage stinks. I can sometimes get a single bar signal strength for 4G/LTE in our home, but only if I stand in just the right place. On a really good day, it might occasionally creep up to 2 bars. We used to do better: we had reliable 3 bar coverage for 4G/LTE for years. Unfortunately, every 5 years or so, something breaks or gets knocked out of line on the tower that serves our area, taking us down to 1 bar or even intermittent no service. It usually takes organizing the whole neighborhood (which is only 7 homes here in the boondocks) to make repeated weekly calls over a period of several months to get Verizon to even admit there might be a problem and send someone out to check. It's been a year now that we've been down to one bar here, and I gave up calling a while ago.

We have Starlink. We are happy with it. Our only other options are a DSL line or geosynchronus satellite such as Hughs or Wildblue. The DSL is rated for 7mbps down / 1 up, but rarely actually achieves that and and goes out entirely at least a couple times per month. (We were on a fist-name basis with the repair guy for our area, and knew the names of all of his family members). We tried the geosynchronus satellite internet and hated it - it simply does not work for something like online classes or Zoom conferences.

If fiber ever does come to our area, or even reliable cellphone-based internet, we will probably switch and see if someone else wants our Starlink dish. Until then, we are happy that we can at least fullfil our work obligations, the kids can do remote schooling when needed, and we can occasionally stream programs we are intersted in.

 

[JethroB]

I got the email today that my StarLink wait is over. Yea! It was interesting that the email said to confirm today within my StarLink account to expedite processing & shipping (and the immediate $493 CC charge) or to cancel for a $99 refund, otherwise my order would automatically be processed in 3 days.

 

[ponytug]

@John_Mc Just to be clear, we don't have fiber, nor acccess to it. AT&T offered us "business class" fiber for $584/mo for 50Mbit, two year minimum contract. That was a little pricey for us... They have consistently refused to quote a price for running residential fiber out here, even after I pointed out that the business offer effectively priced the running of the fiber at about $10k.

@JethroB Well, that is a relief to know that the order will automatically go through if nothing is done.

All the best,

Peter

 

[grsthegreat]

I ended up signing up for starlink, sending a deposit, 2 months ago, as my wireless internet sucked (between 0.7 - 2.0 mbps speeds and constant clocking). Starlink says my area is loaded, probibly wont get starlink until 2023 or later.

Ziply fiber has been promising fiber for months……i dont know if they will ever bring it out.

i just dont trust musk. I know hell get everyone signed up then bump price like crazy. Its how he works. Ziply fiber offers unbelievable speeds real cheap on fiber, but i just dont know if they will ever hook us up. Everytime you call them it “about a month out”……for the last year.

i called my wireless provider yesterday to complain about crappy service, and they told me they just upgraded their equipment and offered me a new antenna and upgrade for free as weve been with them for 10 years. I am now gitting constant 10.0 - 14.0 mbpd down and 3.5 up.
i can actually now stream on 2 HD tvs at same time and no clocking. Its been years.

 

[kcflhrc]

I install Fiber for a living and trust me, there is no such thing as cheap fiber. We have all buried fiber, we don't do any aerial. Yet. In rural area's it is just cost prohibitive to get your money back in a decent amount of time. I have approximately 20 subdivisions I work in constantly. We sell our 1GB with free gateway and free installation for $65 a month all in. No contract. You can't beat that price. But the return on your money is very quick when you have a concentration of 100 homes within a 1/2 mile radius. Lots of local rural COOP's doing fiber but the up front cost for the consumer is pretty pricey. It costs a lot of money to put fiber in the ground and do the build out. So in rural areas it just doesn't make sense to plow fiber to homes 1/2 mile or further apart unless you can pass that along to the consumer and most folks wont pay for it. But they will ***** about it, that's for sure.

 

[jk96]

I install Fiber for a living and trust me, there is no such thing as cheap fiber. We have all buried fiber, we don't do any aerial. Yet. In rural area's it is just cost prohibitive to get your money back in a decent amount of time. I have approximately 20 subdivisions I work in constantly. We sell our 1GB with free gateway and free installation for $65 a month all in. No contract. You can't beat that price. But the return on your money is very quick when you have a concentration of 100 homes within a 1/2 mile radius. Lots of local rural COOP's doing fiber but the up front cost for the consumer is pretty pricey. It costs a lot of money to put fiber in the ground and do the build out. So in rural areas it just doesn't make sense to plow fiber to homes 1/2 mile or further apart unless you can pass that along to the consumer and most folks wont pay for it. But they will ***** about it, that's for sure.

When we built our home fiber was already at the road but our house was a full mile off the hwy. When I inquired about getting it ran to the house our coop told us their cost to run the line back to us was around $35,000-$38,000. Luckily a few years later we had a radiologist build about 3/4 mile back and needed high speed to work from home. He ended up paying to run the line back.

 

[grsthegreat]

when the govt is subsidizing alot of the cost, they can get fiber out to a hub in rural areas and finish runs to houses over old copper phone wire. they are doing that out my way. you dont get the full benefits of solid fiber, but its alot better, and cheaper, than cable.

 

[LouNY]

Our copper was buried back in the 60's it is pure D garbage now, just about worthless even for voice and data forget it.

 

[grsthegreat]

ours is 2000's burial. that would make a big difference

 

[kcflhrc]

when the govt is subsidizing alot of the cost, they can get fiber out to a hub in rural areas and finish runs to houses over old copper phone wire. they are doing that out my way. you dont get the full benefits of solid fiber, but its alot better, and cheaper, than cable.

We do that here. They call it fiber to the node. Problem is the last mile or whatever the distance is still on old phone cable and speeds are very limited. And just so everyone knows, when the government subsidizes this, they tell us where to put the nodes and what addresses to serve. You never back feed from these devices in the serving cable. So if the cables runs for example North to south you would never serve a customer from the south node back to the north even though it may be closer. Back when this started it was called the Connect America Fund, so we call our devices CAF's. Speeds were mandated at a minimum of 10 meg, not sure what it is now. Thankfully all I have to do is Fiber to the home because no one else wants to do it. Not sure why. So much easier and not all the issues you can have with copper cable.

 

[JasperFrank]

Great... so this topic made me lookup how secure we are in future support for DSL in my area. Which from the articles I'm reading, is tenuous in the near future......