Starlink

[ponytug]

TL;DR It is fast, low latency, and has variable amounts of interruptions during the day. Having a clear view of the sky in all directions is critical to reduce interruptions. I.e. you may need an antenna tower or a roof mount.

If you plan on critical Zoom calls, have a router that can load balance over multiple WANS (not failover, load balancing).

More on this thread, and over on Reddit.

If you have doubts, don't do it. Let someone else use it who is willing to put up with the "Better than Nothing Beta".

All the best,

Peter

 

[BigBlue1]

I have it. Had it since March. For the first month it was noticeably in beta. Since mid April stability has improved dramatically. I use it for my main internet connection now, including full time work-from home IT job with WebEx/Teams/Zoom meetings with VOIP and video. I get fewer than 2-3 noticed blips a week and they are only momentary. Speeds vary but are typically 40-200Mb/s. Latency is about the same as the LTE hotspot I've used as primary Internet for the past couple of years. Never an issue.

Go back through the thread and learn. Bear in mind that service is much better in the last 2 months. Also check out the Starlink section on Reddit which is very busy with users and potential users: r/Starlink

In short, I'd definitely give it a try with the mindset that it is about production-ready. Might want to keep your other ISP for a couple months but I think by fall they will declare it out of beta.

Rob

 

[Bullwinkle123]

Thanks. Sounds like it isn't quite ready for prime time and I should check again after they announce non-beta launch as it also sounds hopeful.

re: LTE hotspot, I hear you, for my first 5 years in this place cellular internet was all I had. Even DSL is a step up, until the kids visit with all their apple watches, ipods, ipads, and mac computers, all of which are trying to share cat and baby videos, pictures, and songs with the icloud. At that point my internet is dead in the water, it can't handle that kind of abuse. I secretly retreat to the cellular network most of the time when they visit

re: AWS SSH, depends on what you do. If your remote session is interactive, such as editing files remotely, a 1+ second packet delay makes it unusable.

 

[BigBlue1]

Thanks. Sounds like it isn't quite ready for prime time and I should check again after they announce non-beta launch as it also sounds hopeful.

That's not the takeaway I was presenting. I'm using it for full time WFH and it is working great. At this point it is nearly as my LTE hotspot which would have short dropouts once a week or once every other week. Starlink has maybe 2 a week. And by dropout I'm talking just enough to blip a VPN to cause a reconnect and things are back in 20 seconds. It's not cable modem ISP solid but on part with LTE, DSL, etc. I simply suggested keeping your other ISP for a bit in case they have an occasional longer outage of a few minutes, which is still a potential during the beta. But it is a solid service now.

If you pass on your chance to sign up when it is open in your cell you may not have another opportunity until towards the end of the year. Bear that in mind in your decision.

Rob

 

[BigBlue1]

re: AWS SSH, depends on what you do. If your remote session is interactive, such as editing files remotely, a 1+ second packet delay makes it unusable.

I'm SSH'd into servers much of each day. Even when the VPN has to reconnect those sessions stay fine. I've never lost a thing or had to do anything except wait 15-20 sec for the VPN to re-establish itself. And again, that is something like 1 or 2 times in a 50 hour work week. Given what I'm used to with LTE, Starlink is no different.

 

[Bullwinkle123]

I'm SSH'd into servers much of each day. Even when the VPN has to reconnect those sessions stay fine. I've never lost a thing or had to do anything except wait 15-20 sec for the VPN to re-establish itself. And again, that is something like 1 or 2 times in a 50 hour work week. Given what I'm used to with LTE, Starlink is no different.

I think you missed my context on the latency w.r.t. remote machine access. Starlink's claims of 20ms sound _great_, if that's what you're getting. It was the old school satellite internet setups of 10 years ago that had unworkable latency for remote work (or games).

 

[BigBlue1]

I think you missed my context on the latency w.r.t. remote machine access. Starlink's claims of 20ms sound _great_, if that's what you're getting. It was the old school satellite internet setups of 10 years ago that had unworkable latency for remote work (or games).

I've heard that claim for years about old school sat ISPs. I avoided them for that reason. I believe they truly were issues. I think their latencies were often measured in tenths of a second, not ms.

My internet options are slim in my rural area though, and when I got a cheap $20/mo LTE plan to supplement the (barely) 5 Mb/s DSL I signed up immediately. The LTE hotspot gets latency numbers very much in line with what I see on Starlink. 30-50ms. I used that as my primary ISP for 3 years before Starlink and latency for VPN/WebEx/SSH/streaming/etc has never been a problem. It wasn't with LTE and it isn't with Starlink. The HS kids even game with their Playstation and Xbox (online) without issues. I'm pretty sure I exercise my Internet connection as hard as pretty much anyone, with the exception of content creators uploading monster video files, so I am telling you the issues you are worrying about are not affecting me.

Rob

 

[buckeyefarmer]

I’m currently running 29ms over LTE, and I keep ssh sessions open all day and work in them.

 

[JESSE1]

I pre-ordered back in February, in the confirmation e-mail it said to expect service in mid-to-late '21. Hughesnet Gen 5 is all I can get, worked pretty good until the covid hit and now I'm lucky to get 2 mbps down and almost no upload.

 

[Doughknob]

Glad to see all the "hope" for starlink. I am waiting for the stock ipo!

 

[Zippo1]

Dishy shuts down at 122 degrees F.

Starlink dishes go into “thermal shutdown” once they hit 122° Fahrenheit

Man watered dish to cool it down but overheating knocked it offline for 7 hours.

arstechnica.com

 

[John_Mc]

Finally got around to relocating my dish from the picnic table in the side yard to our roof. From the table I had a slight obstruction to the north (a critical area for our location).

The obstruction analyzer said the picnic table was causing a gap in coverage every 45 minutes or so (which was pretty much what we were seeing: they typically lasted only for seconds, but on rare occasions as long as 20 seconds).

After moving to the rooftop, I was on a zoom meeting for 2.5 hours. ("Live" video conferences are a tough test, since you can't buffer those.) The only problem was a single stutter in the video feed which lasted about 2 seconds. (Hard to say whether that came from my end or the folks on the other end.)

 

[Avenger]

I'm not sure if it has been mentioned here yet, or not. But a friend of mine just told me about his site:

Starlink Status

Starlink Speedtest and Ping Analytics - Contribute now with a quick Speedtest or even a Autoamtic Speedtest Station.s

starlinkstatus.space

Maybe some useful info there on the actual status of Starlink.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Elon Musk's Starlink satelllite service gets federal approval

Elon Musk has a lot of plates to keep spinning yet so how he marches on.

 

[Fallon]

Elon Musk's Starlink satelllite service gets federal approval

Elon Musk has a lot of plates to keep spinning yet so how he marches on.

Setting up an ISP in a foreign country (Mexico in this case) is trivial & mostly politics if you have a couple hundred (or is it a couple thousand now) satellites swarming the whole planet already. I'm assuming they are playing nice & putting a downlink in country. They could put one anywhere on the planet & provide service across borders.

 

[rekees4300]

Update from Elon Musk "SpaceX expects to service more than 500,000 customers within a year".

Elon Musk says Starlink will be available worldwide in August

 

[Alan W.]

Update from Elon Musk "SpaceX expects to service more than 500,000 customers within a year".

Elon Musk says Starlink will be available worldwide in August

Of what year. I think hes being a bit optimistic.

 

[cqaigy2]

Starlink is currently at capacity in your area through 2021, your order might not be fulfilled until late 2022. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship.

 

[BigBlue1]

Bummer!

 

[Alan W.]

Starlink is currently at capacity in your area through 2021, your order might not be fulfilled until late 2022. You will receive a notification once your Starlink is ready to ship.

Starlink is still taking orders for my area and stating service will be mid to late 21. Thats the same they told me when I preordered earlier this year.
Where did you get the at capacity information.