Starlink

[JESSE1]

The people at the T Mobil store said that the availability of 5G internet is very limited now, they're limiting the number of customers per cell tower. I actually have a T Mobil cell tower in my pasture, only about 1000 feet away from my house. They installed new antennas on the tower this summer. I've checked availability in the past but it's just recently become available to my address.

 

[TheMan419]

Don't forget 5G may require device upgrades.

Yeah the "Trash can" has ports for external antenna, but you need to get "creative" to get to them and use them. I have a friend who is an engineer and good at that kind of thing.... I am not so good at it

 

[TheMan419]

I'm also rethinking the Starlink plan.

I just got Verizon's Wireless Gateway Home Internet at $52/mo to replace my $67/mo DSL service. My speed went from 2 down, .5 up to 42 down, 8 up. Sure it's still slow compared to FIOS, cable and satellite systems but to my wife and I, it's a minor miracle. We can now stream 4K video, exchange Hi Def video with friends & family, surf the net at lightning speed (compared to DSL), all on multiple devices.

I really don't understand this "need for speed" when it comes to broadband. I suppose in large households with many users streaming video simultaneously or for data intensive home businesses, a faster connection may have value. For my wife and I though the 42/8 we're getting now is perfectly adequate.

Things could change in the future but right now, paying twice as much for Starlink may not be practical.

I totally get that. We have a WISP provider that is putting up a tower near us that we might be able to get line of sight to. They have a 30/mb plan and a 100/mb plan both with unlimited data. Hell the 30 would be a huge improvement for us.

We are getting like 15 down and 7 up right now. Just the two of us. It will work for streaming on two tvs, or whatever browsing we need to do.

If we need a huge download, like updating the phone OS or something, we just set it to run overnight, or i update mine at work.

The wife works from home, but the 15/7 we get is fine for what she needs to do. Especially when she has that pipe all to herself and I am at my physical office.

 

[newbury]

<snip>

I really don't understand this "need for speed" when it comes to broadband. I suppose in large households with many users streaming video simultaneously or for data intensive home businesses, a faster connection may have value. For my wife and I though the 42/8 we're getting now is perfectly adequate.
<snip>

Seems like you have speed.
Try 6 down. .6 up.

 

[bdhsfz6]

These wireless internet plans from Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile etc. do seem attractive now considering the price and the speeds they provide. This could change in the future though. Right now, these carriers are limiting the number of customers on a tower site to keep the speed up. I suspect this will change over time as the price of the service increases and speeds slow as more customers per tower are allowed.

I know this because I ditched Verizon's DSL and got their wireless Gateway Home Internet. When my neighbor saw the system performance, he tried to do the same thing. Even though he lives next door, he was told the service wasn't available. I was an engineer at Verizon before I retired and still know some of their tech folks. I called one I used to work with and he told me this candidly.

Starlink may do the same thing over time but with the speeds they offer now, some slowdown wouldn't be noticed, at least by me anyway.

We'll see what happens in the future.

 

[JESSE1]

I'm not giving up on Starlink, I probably will go with them when they are available. When I tested my T Mobil this morning I actually hit nearly 300 gbps but it will drop during the day although so far the slowest I've seen is 75 gbps. Up load is 50-75. The T Mobil store tech told me they were limiting the number of people on each cell tower, I was lucky to qualify.

 

[IXLR8]

We don't have T-mobile here, I just picked up Verizon LTE Home Internet. If I am in the same room with the unit I get 35Mb/s down and 12Mb/s up, if I go to the farthest point in the house from the unit, I get 0.8Mb/s down and 0.3Mb/s up. Works good enough for us in 80% of the house. If I could find a way to boost the signal throughout the house, I might just cancel my Starlink order. I am totally surrounded by 80-100 ft trees and the Starlink app keeps telling me to find a different place to mount the unit. When I suggested cutting some of the trees, SWMBO said no way. She said if they did come down I would have to hire a tree service considering how tall they are and how close to the house they are. I even tried on my roof and got the same result. I am having a dock built in July, I should have good coverage there but I can't wait that long to get decent internet access.

 

[ponytug]

Try a tp-link WiFi repeater to extend the signal. WiFi speed is highly dependent upon signal strength.

All the best,

Peter

 

[LittleBill21]

We don't have T-mobile here, I just picked up Verizon LTE Home Internet. If I am in the same room with the unit I get 35Mb/s down and 12Mb/s up, if I go to the farthest point in the house from the unit, I get 0.8Mb/s down and 0.3Mb/s up. Works good enough for us in 80% of the house. If I could find a way to boost the signal throughout the house, I might just cancel my Starlink order. I am totally surrounded by 80-100 ft trees and the Starlink app keeps telling me to find a different place to mount the unit. When I suggested cutting some of the trees, SWMBO said no way. She said if they did come down I would have to hire a tree service considering how tall they are and how close to the house they are. I even tried on my roof and got the same result. I am having a dock built in July, I should have good coverage there but I can't wait that long to get decent internet access.

try this.

place it about half way from the router

https://amzn.to/3oKP8Yd

 

[bdhsfz6]

We don't have T-mobile here, I just picked up Verizon LTE Home Internet. If I am in the same room with the unit I get 35Mb/s down and 12Mb/s up, if I go to the farthest point in the house from the unit, I get 0.8Mb/s down and 0.3Mb/s up. Works good enough for us in 80% of the house. If I could find a way to boost the signal throughout the house, I might just cancel my Starlink order. I am totally surrounded by 80-100 ft trees and the Starlink app keeps telling me to find a different place to mount the unit. When I suggested cutting some of the trees, SWMBO said no way. She said if they did come down I would have to hire a tree service considering how tall they are and how close to the house they are. I even tried on my roof and got the same result. I am having a dock built in July, I should have good coverage there but I can't wait that long to get decent internet access.

I had the same range problem with my Verizon LTE Home internet. I bought a fairly cheap Netgear router and connected it to one of the two Ethernet jacks on the Verizon router. I now get a strong signal throughout the house and even out to my garage.

Verizon tech support advises against doing this but it seems to work fine.