Starlink

[LouNY]

Well had another half hour interruption in service from weather again last night.
Speed test has good numbers for me, 108 Mbps down and 23 up.

 

[scootr]

No complaints here 128 down and 15 up at 6 am. Service has been solid lately. Too bad about the price increases.

 

[3Ts]

I just spent a month working on the Eastern shore. Rented an air bnb house and it had Hughes net. Lol what a joke that service is, was so happy to get back home to starlink! The two aren't even comparable.

I second this.

I had Hughes net for several years because that was the only internet service available. I signed up for SL when it first came out and waited over a year to get it. After a while they gave me an offer for "best effort" and I took it. I ran SL and Hughes net in parallel for 2 months and SL "best effort" was better than Hughes net service so I cancelled Hughes net. SL has continued to improve and I'm now on the residential plan. Although I do lose the SL signal occasionally due to weather (it has to be pretty severe), it's a lot less than Hughes net. I could not stream a movie with Hughes net but with SL I can now stream movies and do other things at the same time.

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I've had Starlink residential service since May of last year, and my HughesNet experience was pretty much as you describe. Initially, Starlink was fast enough that I could enjoy streaming media on an AppleTV or laptop computer with almost no interruptions for buffering. In the last few months, though, it's gotten almost impossible to enjoy a movie without buffering interruptions a handful of times during viewing session. Often I have to back out of the movie and use the resume feature (this is with the Netfilx app) to get the movie going again, and even then, sometimes I get a message to try again later and further viewing is impossible. Same thing happens using Facebook on the laptop, and with the Amazon Prime service on the ATV. Needless to say, I'm not at all pleased about the performance, and my queries to Starlink support have been ignored. I'm in the process of finding a new home for this and many other reasons, and you can bet I won't be buying one with either HughesNet or Starlink as the only Internet options.

 

[scootr]

My Friend and I had HughesNet, it was a pathetic service. Dishes failed, they charged to replace them. Finally I switched to a much better cell phone hotspot and then SL.
HN still sending me mail after 10 yrs of no subscription - talk about junk mail!

 

[sd455dan]

My Friend and I had HughesNet, it was a pathetic service. Dishes failed, they charged to replace them. Finally I switched to a much better cell phone hotspot and then SL.
HN still sending me mail after 10 yrs of no subscription - talk about junk mail!

Same here HN was the worst. When the little ATT Mobley became available it was a complete Game changer and dropped the Hughesnet.

Finally was allowed to order the Starlink and it has been better than the Mobley with far fewer drop outs and faster speeds. -then again the Mobley is $23 a month and Starlink is $120 that still makes the Mobley the best bargain so we will keep it as a backup and trip internet provider for the vehicles

The most irritating thing about HughesNet was their initial service- when people are being wined and dined and the speeds service are OK, then a few months in when subscribers are Locked in the speeds drop and well it goes down hill from there.

 

[Alan W.]

When I was a younger man I signed up for Starlink. Now in my golden years I got an email saying they are prepared to grant me the privilege of sending them more money.
We have a cellular internet service that allows me to stream easily but it fails miserably when my wife tries zoom meetings. That is the main reason I am even contemplating SL.
I have a question about using it in a wooded area. The app says I will have lots of outages even though it is at 93%. Is anyone using it under these circumstances and how good is the service at 93%.

 

[ponytug]

When I was a younger man I signed up for Starlink. Now in my golden years I got an email saying they are prepared to grant me the privilege of sending them more money.
We have a cellular internet service that allows me to stream easily but it fails miserably when my wife tries zoom meetings. That is the main reason I am even contemplating SL.
I have a question about using it in a wooded area. The app says I will have lots of outages even though it is at 93%. Is anyone using it under these circumstances and how good is the service at 93%.

One thing about the app is that it really needs the phone to be at the exact location and height to give an actionable estimate.

Trees near the horizon tend to cause intermittent outages, and 7% is going to be a lot because after it loses a satellite, there's a reacquistion time as well.

I would give it a try and see, especially if you can see a path to improving the antenna's height or orientation, or location. Mine is about 300' away from the house because we are tucked into a hollow that has a pathetic sky view for Starlink. As they say, necessity is the mother of invention, and my wife really needed something better for video calls. So, I put in a wireless link from the house to a better location, where Dishy has no obstructions. Works great!

All the best,

Peter

 

[BigBlue1]

When I was a younger man I signed up for Starlink. Now in my golden years I got an email saying they are prepared to grant me the privilege of sending them more money.
We have a cellular internet service that allows me to stream easily but it fails miserably when my wife tries zoom meetings. That is the main reason I am even contemplating SL.
I have a question about using it in a wooded area. The app says I will have lots of outages even though it is at 93%. Is anyone using it under these circumstances and how good is the service at 93%.

You will have issues. Especially with live streaming things that cannot be buffered, like Zoom/WebEx/Teams meetings. As noted above, make sure you're checking for obstructions with the phone in the exact spot you plan to locate the dish, in all 3 planes. You can always go higher to get the dish up over obstructions in the field of view but as height increases so does complexity of the stand.

With no obstructions Starlink operates exceptionally well. I've been using it for over 2 years and since it left beta it has been rock solid for our needs, which include two people full time WFH with a lot of Zoom-type meetings every day.

Rob

 

[LouNY]

Heavy rain storms will also take out Starlink. I loose it quite often on severe thunderstorms.