Starlink

[plowhog]

I remembered something. SL's "crackerjack" programmers don't seem to have considered that one iPhone might be used to setup more than one Starlink. A few weeks ago, I encountered much SL weirdness about this. I believe SL hard-sets some parameters in the controlling phone. Those parameters are then in conflict with any new or different SL you connect to.

Before rebooting my SL 3 times, I tried accessing SL using my wife's phone. Ahhh, more bugs. Her phone acted as if SL had never been set up. This is strange, as I used her phone to set up this exact SL system. (Since my phone seemed to be "contaminated" from having setup a different SL system before.)

Her phone offered a button to click to "Start Setup." Had no choice but to click on it. When I did, rather than running the setup process again, it immediately said: "Setup Complete!." Ain't life grand?

Then I was able to go into bypass mode on her phone .............

 

[RedNeckGeek]

@RedNeckGeek You might want to check that your access points aren't putting you on your presumably bandwidth throttled guest network. I.e. try deleting all of the WiFi authorizations except for Gunsmoke 5GHz on a single device, e.g. a tablet, and rerunning the speed test.

Here's a snap of the Statistics tab in Unifi Network for the iPhone:

Doesn't look like the WiFi link is the bottleneck, at least not from the Rx Rate and Tx Rate being reported for the iPhone:

Looking at the RF Environment of the iPhone on channel 36 shows a pretty narrow 5G band is being used. Would a wider band channel be faster? Or would it even matter, since the Rx/Tx rates are already much higher than what SL is reporting in the iPhone app speed test?


With the SL router running in bypass mode, the SL app on the iPhone reports 16 Mbps down and 6 Mbps up today. The readings are fairly consistent. FWIW, this area is currently wait listed for new SL residential.connections.

 

[plowhog]

With the SL router running in bypass mode, the SL app on the iPhone reports 16 Mbps down and 6 Mbps up today.

Just ran a test, also in a waitlist restricted area. From a wired PC-- 29mbps down, just under 3mbps up.

Shortly after that, one iPhone reports 116mbps down. A 2nd iPhone reported 36mbps down. All within probably less than 2 minutes.

Just noticed on the Starlink app, at least on mine, it no longer breaks out phone to internet vs router to internet. So I'm not sure which of those the phone is measuring?

 

[RedNeckGeek]

You may have encountered a bug in the SL implementation. I suspect it thinks you are not "logged in" to your account with an appropriate name and password. It's also now happening to me, but I don't know why.

I was having problems logging in to the SL app on an iPhone when I let a password manager automagically populate the username and password fields. When I manually typed in the username/password, I was able to login. Not sure if that's the same problem you're seeing, but it's an easy fix to try.

 

[plowhog]

Here is another oddity:

"My" iphone set up a Starlink (in Nevada) that is dedicated to a residential address.

"My wife's" iphone set up a Starlink RV system (now in California) that is subject to speed reductions.

Using both phones, simultaneously, connected to the "Starlink RV" system in California, they report different speeds. Wife's speeds always seem to be slower, sometimes by a lot. Plus that phone includes a message below the speed about using the "RV system" that is subject to slowdowns.

My phone always report faster speeds. And although it's connected to the "RV" system, it never shows the message about that.

Hmmmmmmmmmm.

 

[plowhog]

When I manually typed in the username/password

When mine was hung up the fields were dimmed and nothing could be entered.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Found an email from StarLink this morning, asking me to sign a petition to encourage the FCC to not let Dish Network re-purpose the 12 gHz band. Doing so would likely ruin SL use, even for rural users like me. You can use the link above to directly access the petition even if you're not a SL user or didn't get the SL email.

 

[sodamo]

Dare I dream of the day, my SL is good enough I can fully cancel my Dish? Ahhhh, the hope.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

Just noticed on the Starlink app, at least on mine, it no longer breaks out phone to internet vs router to internet. So I'm not sure which of those the phone is measuring?

My setup stopped reporting two speeds when I put the router into bypass mode. My guess is because the phone to router part is now handled by the Unifi network hardware, not the SL router.

 

[metalheart]

I have Dishy2 and have had the ethernet adapter installed about a month. The SL router is in a basement location that does not provide enough coverage for the entire house so I connect the ethernet adapter to an Asus mesh via the ethernet adapter/cable that is in a more central location. I did not put the router in bypass mode. Smart TYV's, some Alexa devices, computers, phones, and tablets connect to the Asus router. We do not seem to be having any issues by not using bypass mode.

Despite reasonable speed tests, I get some buffering while watching YouTube TV and when making cell phone calls using wifi calling, I get dropouts. I believe the buffering and dropouts relate to a tree that has leafed out since winter and obstructs Dishy. I'm working on moving Dishy to a better location to see if that helps.