Starlink

[bdhsfz6]

We've had a number of thunderstorms come through lately. Quite often the Dish TV receiver loses connection & switches to internet streaming to prevent program interruption. Starlink is our only ISP and has never failed to provide an uninterrupted continuation of the program. No buffering delays or glitches. It may well be impacted, but not enough to be noticeable in this case.

This may be the case in some areas, but not all. Here in Northeastern PA, my gen2 Starlink dish has an unobstructed view of the sky, as does my Dish Network TV. During heavy rain or snowstorms, we sometimes loose reception on both. To use the Dish streaming service, I have to switch from Starlink to the Verizon cellular based internet we keep as a backup.

The outages have been getting less frequent though, as more Starlink satellites come on line.

 

[LouNY]

Same up here, any even moderate storm we will lose signal quite often. Heavy rain or snow we are guarantied to lose signal.
Just finished relocating our Gen 2 Starlink from a pole mount off the deck to a roof mount about 40 feet north of the last location. Per the Starlink app I went from just a tiny obstruction on the far East range to none.
We shall see, even with such a minimal obstruction that Starlink said it wouldn't affect the reception some days we would get numerous 15 sec or longer service losses.
We will see how this does.

 

[Oaktree]

Not with Spectrum fiber.

View attachment 3713353

Is your Spectrum fiber right to your house? When we had them, it was fiber on the road, but "last mile" distribution was coax cable. Never got a straight answer from them as to why.
Here's what I got just now:

The company can make it symmetrical, but it's something like 2.5g down and 1g up. Very few people need 500 up.

Very few need 1G down either.
An internet connection is only as fast as the slowest link.

 

[gsganzer]

My Starlink current speed is 260 down, 18 up. Still better than any of my other options.

 

[WM75Guy]

Is your Spectrum fiber right to your house? When we had them, it was fiber on the road, but "last mile" distribution was coax cable. Never got a straight answer from them as to why.
Here's what I got just now:
View attachment 3715713

Very few need 1G down either.

Fiber all the way to the modems. I have 2 systems, one 400 Mbps for the house and one at 100 Mbps for the shop. Both have the slower upload speed.

 

[Drstrangeglove]

Is your Spectrum fiber right to your house? When we had them, it was fiber on the road, but "last mile" distribution was coax cable. Never got a straight answer from them as to why.
Here's what I got just now:
View attachment 3715713

Very few need 1G down either.
An internet connection is only as fast as the slowest link.

True. My wire less system can only do 600 mbits. If wired, I have seen 1.9 gig. My router has a 25gig to the isp. It averages 35meg. And we stream everything.

 

[Tinhack]

Wow. You guys live in another dimension. I just ran mine and here's life in the country. I have Rise Broadband over the air. The antenna is about 3 miles away on a water tower. On top of that, I have 150Gb limit per month. They add $5 for every bit over that it seems.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Wow. You guys live in another dimension. I just ran mine and here's life in the country. I have Rise Broadband over the air. The antenna is about 3 miles away on a water tower. On top of that, I have 150Gb limit per month. They add $5 for every bit over that it seems.

View attachment 3715807

I'm sure we go over 300Gb with Starlink some months when we update 3 gaming consoles and watch streaming video.

 

[WM75Guy]

Wow. You guys live in another dimension. I just ran mine and here's life in the country. I have Rise Broadband over the air. The antenna is about 3 miles away on a water tower. On top of that, I have 150Gb limit per month. They add $5 for every bit over that it seems.

View attachment 3715807

I understand your situation. I had CenturyLink DSL at 4 Mbps before Spectrum came in with fiber. OneRing over the air was expensive at $150/mo for not much better speed, 10 Mbps. When Spectrum came in, I jumped at it.

 

[walnutman]

I have Spectrum fiber all the way into the house.
Gigabit plan.
Symetrical ...... downloads same as uploads.

Also have Starlink.. first gen antenna.
Only use it in an emergency if fiber goes down.
Wife brings home the bacon out of her home office so my job is to keep her working LOL.
Actually she has three ways to connect. Fiber, Starlink or cell.

What I really love about Starlink is everything is done on the app.
You can simply turn it off and it stops billing you at that exact moment.

 

[Tinhack]

I was all set to pull the trigger on Starlink. According to their low-res map, I qualified for the free equipment. But when I put my address in, the equipment charge was over $300. I said not today.

Edit: Fiber isn't even an option out here. Even though AT&T has a fiber cable just outside my eastern fence line. I watched them put it in about 6-7 years ago. I keep checking but they say it's not available. So, I just run my network off of their 5G with a phone hot spot when I get close to the 150Gb limit.

 

[LouNY]

My Starlink current speed is 260 down, 18 up. Still better than any of my other options.

I just ran the speed test on mine after the relocation;
333 Mbps down, 28 Mbps up with a latency of 26 ms.

 

[walnutman]

I was all set to pull the trigger on Starlink. According to their low-res map, I qualified for the free equipment. But when I put my address in, the equipment charge was over $300. I said not today.

Edit: Fiber isn't even an option out here. Even though AT&T has a fiber cable just outside my eastern fence line. I watched them put it in about 6-7 years ago. I keep checking but they say it's not available. So, I just run my network off of their 5G with a phone hot spot when I get close to the 150Gb limit.

I paid $500 for my antenna three years ago. I own it. No rent.

 

[ponytug]

Is your Spectrum fiber right to your house? When we had them, it was fiber on the road, but "last mile" distribution was coax cable. Never got a straight answer from them as to why.
Here's what I got just now:
View attachment 3715713

Very few need 1G down either.
An internet connection is only as fast as the slowest link.

Often a reluctance to run fiber to the house is caused by a lack of skilled labor to do the fiber splicing, though sometimes as a cost saving as coax is more forgiving in the installation (bend radius, depth of burial, etc.).

Symmetric vs asymmetric speeds is at the choice of the ISP. Non-commercial users rarely need much for upload speeds, as they are consumers, not generators of data. For most residential users, a low latency (ping) time is often what drives a perception of speed as the usage is often websites that may ask for tens to hundreds of requests of the end device configuration and user information, resulting in slow page loading. It is all about selling user information to advertisers.

All the best,

Peter

 

[walnutman]

Often a reluctance to run fiber to the house is caused by a lack of skilled labor to do the fiber splicing, though sometimes as a cost saving as coax is more forgiving in the installation (bend radius, depth of burial, etc.).

Symmetric vs asymmetric speeds is at the choice of the ISP. Non-commercial users rarely need much for upload speeds, as they are consumers, not generators of data. For most residential users, a low latency (ping) time is often what drives a perception of speed as the usage is often websites that may ask for tens to hundreds of requests of the end device configuration and user information, resulting in slow page loading. It is all about selling user information to advertisers.

All the best,

Peter

They used a machine to run the final fiber line to the corner of our house. Basicall a mini version of the big one they use to pull the orange plastic conduit for the main lines.

I cuts about 6" deep and buries the line at the same time. The lines rae re-enforced with wire inside to be able to handle the abuse.

Video I took of them pulling the big stuff.

 

[Blue Mule]

Unrelated side note: On July 23rd, T-Mobile is going live with a Starlink connection to phones on their network. Their "Experience Beyond" plan includes access to Starlink, some other plans will offer it for $10/month. The Experience Beyond plan also has unlimited hotspot. So.... in theory there will be no dead spots for phones on their network anymore AND a guy could use it as an internet modem while camping/hunting in remote areas. This has the potential to be a complete game-changer in the cell phone industry.

 

[deserteagle71]

Unrelated side note: On July 23rd, T-Mobile is going live with a Starlink connection to phones on their network. Their "Experience Beyond" plan includes access to Starlink, some other plans will offer it for $10/month. The Experience Beyond plan also has unlimited hotspot. So.... in theory there will be no dead spots for phones on their network anymore AND a guy could use it as an internet modem while camping/hunting in remote areas. This has the potential to be a complete game-changer in the cell phone industry.

I'd sure like to know how this works. As someone who has used a satellite phone and an InReach satellite communicator for years I know that to get a satellite signal the device has to have a satellite-capable antenna AND have a clear view of the sky. They don't work from inside a vehicle or camper with a metal roof!

 

[walnutman]

I have it. When it connects to a satellite I get a message. Only works with texting currently. Beta is shutting down soon. I get it free. But not after Beta shuts down.

 

[Oaktree]

Often a reluctance to run fiber to the house is caused by a lack of skilled labor to do the fiber splicing, though sometimes as a cost saving as coax is more forgiving in the installation (bend radius, depth of burial, etc.).

No burial here, both my (former) cable and current fiber are run from the pole to the house. Well, the junction/tap point for the fiber was a few hundred yards down the road in front of a neighbor's house, the tech just apparently ziptied the individual strand along the trunk line from the tap point to where it goes across my lawn to the house. The house is 60 or so feet from the road. The fiber cable droops down a bit, but not much more than the electric cables.

 

[grsthegreat]

There finally getting close to my place with the fiber. Supposed to have it i stalled all the way to the house by September…. Well see. Im going to keep my starlink setup for awhile until i see how their guaranteed 400 up 400 down works out.