Starlink

[lman]

We had fiber buried down our road by our rural electric co-op last year and I recently got connected to it. They buried it to our house(about 600 ft) at no charge. We pay $79 for 120/30 with 5 ping. The connection is much more reliable than our previous slow dsl. Our cell service is also not reliable(too far from the tower).

 

[shooterdon]

It is frustrating to see people who have no clue about the reality of living in remote rural areas, criticizing StarLink as being too expensive.

It is like saying a FEL on a tractor is too expensive. Just use a wheelbarrow and a shovel.

 

[BigBlue1]

Starlink isn't for everybody. If somebody doesn't like it they don't have to buy it. Their comments don't change the benefit to the folks who want it. And we can just ignore them. So not really worth paying much attention to or getting frustrated over... Sort like some folks don't like Ram trucks. That's OK, doesn't change the fact mine have been wonderful and reliable. Or weird people who don't like bacon.

 

[downsizingnow48]

Using starlink I can reduce my monthly Verizon bill by $80 (less data, fewer devices) and eliminate the Dish bill for $115. With the $99 starlink bill that is nearly $100 month less expensive.

This morning I am getting 2 mbps down on the LTE connection vs 130 down on starlink. And no data cap.

I am sure a lot of folks are in similar circumstances.

 

[Hilbilly]

I wouldn't concern myself with others opinions either. What matters is that you have a choice to use the service or not and if you choose to use it then YOU must have a desire or need for it. That is all that matters! I thought it was pricey too but went ahead and ordered it (still waiting) and will be glad to get it. The only option for me is one satellite internet provider with slow and unreliable service. No cellular service in our area. Our satellite tv service is very expensive too but with a higher feed from Starlink, I will be able to downsize the tv plan and use more streaming. So at the end of the day my total bill for the 2 services will likely be around the same as I'm paying now.

Living in the country has it's downsides but I would never go back to living in the City. My wife's family thinks we are crazy for living in the boondocks with wild animals, waiting to harm us, behind every tree. But I think there are more dangerous human animals living in the City and far more of them too. Just my opinion though and you don't have to agree,

 

[RUSTBUCKET BRONCO]

Anybody in the Pacific NW get this yet?

I have it in Deer Island area. I love it and it just keeps getting faster it seems. last wifi speed test I got 321 down and 19 up

 

[dmccarty]

...

If you want local news/network programing, you will have to pay for it through the streaming service. This made the savings much less than anticipated.

...For example, my wife likes Food Network. One of the streaming services had Food Network, but none of the programming was current. Really made my wife mad to read about something coming up on Food only to find it was not available on streaming services.
...

We got the cord a decade or so ago and should have done it sooner. Don't miss a thing from pay TV. We have been on vacation where pay for TV was included in the room and it was even worse than what we used to buy. Could not find a thing to watch on 100+ channels. Seriously. The first two trips we got lucky in that they were playing Harry Potter movies. Dug out our old Kindle Fire TV and started taking it so we could stream the content we wanted.

I have not seen Food Network in years. Used to like the channel but then it became reality TV with Kitchen Stadium nonsense. There are some great channels on YouTube. Alton Brown has one, without the Kitchen Stadium circus, and there are some other channels that are far better than the best of what used to be good programming on the Food Network. At least if one is looking for how to cook, technique, etc. Heck, I think if one limited themselves to ONLY watching cooking related shows on YouTube, you could spend the rest of your life watching the content and never repeating a show. And that is for the good shows.

Last weekend I was up until 0230 in the morning watching YouTube. YouTube can be drug like. Just one more show. It is only 20 minutes, or 10 minutes, or five minutes... Next thing you know it is 0230. At least it was not 0330.... I would like to say that has not happened....

We get "news" from and over the air antennae but we almost never watch the "news."

Later,
Dan

 

[John_Mc]

Starlink isn't for everybody. If somebody doesn't like it they don't have to buy it. Their comments don't change the benefit to the folks who want it. And we can just ignore them. So not really worth paying much attention to or getting frustrated over... Sort like some folks don't like Ram trucks. That's OK, doesn't change the fact mine have been wonderful and reliable. Or weird people who don't like bacon.

OK, most of that I can understand... but that bacon thing, that's just going too far!

 

[jymbee]

There are already a number of comments in this thread that there are cheaper, and often better alternatives out there if they are available in your area. Our only other "high speed" option is a DSL line rated at 7 Mbps down / 1 Mbps up which seldom achieves those speeds, and reularly drops out when it rains or the wind blows at anything over a stiff breeze.

I have to laugh, sarcastically, when commentators say things like, "just download this or that app on your Smartphone". Yeah, right. Then what?? They seem to just dismiss those living in areas with no cell signal or available Internet option. I only have to go a mile from home before I lose a cell signal and coverage is spotty in many other places.

From the FCC:

Notwithstanding this progress, the Report finds that approximately 19 million Americans—6 percent of the population—still lack access to fixed broadband service at threshold speeds. In rural areas, nearly one-fourth of the population —14.5 million people—lack access to this service.

Years ago my ability to work remotely at home with all the benefits that entails, meant I had to have broadband. Twenty thousand dollars later, I got connected. Since that original build out I did get back quite a bit of my initial investment, but there was never a doubt in my mind that this was worth every penny.

 

[John_Mc]

Just received an update from Starlink:

STARLINK​

Throughout the beta program, customer feedback has helped drive some of our most important changes to date as we continue to test and scale the network. The Starlink team has implemented a number of improvements since our last update. Below are some of the key highlights:

Starlink Expansion Since rollout of initial U.S. service in October 2020, Starlink now offers limited beta service in Canada, U.K., Germany and New Zealand. To date, we have deposits from almost every country around the world; going forward, our ability to expand service will be driven in large part by governments granting us licensing internationally. Preventative Maintenance Recently some beta users saw short but more frequent outages, particularly in the evening hours. This was caused by two main issues— preventive maintenance on various ground gateways, coupled with a network logic bug that intermittently caused some packet processing services to hang until they were reset. The good news is fixes were implemented and users should no longer see this particular issue. Gateway Availability As more users come online, the team is seeing an increase in surges of activity, particularly during peak hours. The gateway infrastructure to support these types of surges is in place, but we are awaiting final regulatory approval to use all available channels. Near term fixes have been implemented to facilitate better load balancing in the interim, and this issue will fully resolve once all approvals are received. Dynamic Frame Allocation The Starlink software team recently rolled out our dynamic frame allocation feature which dynamically allocates additional bandwidth to beta users based on real time usage. This feature enables the network to better balance load and deliver higher speeds to the user. Connecting to the Best Satellite Today, your Starlink speaks to a single satellite assigned to your terminal for a particular period of time. In the future, if communication with your assigned satellite is interrupted for any reason, your Starlink will seamlessly switch to a different satellite, resulting in far fewer network disruptions. There can only be one satellite connected to your Starlink at any time, but this feature will allow for choice of the best satellite. This feature will be available to most beta users in April and is expected to deliver one of our most notable reliability improvements to date.

These upgrades are part of our overall effort to build a network that not only reaches underserved users, but also performs significantly better than traditional satellite internet. To that end, the Starlink team is always looking for great software, integration and network engineers. If you want to help us build the internet in space, please send your resume to starlinksoftwarejobs@spacex.com. Thank you for your feedback and continued support! The Starlink Team

I'm looking forward to seeing how much of a difference that "Connecting to the best Satellite" feature works. Between that and fixing some of the maintenance and bug issues they've had, It should clear up some of the issues I've had.

Though I expect the biggest change will come from moving the dish out of my side yard and up onto the roof. Hardware is on it's way to make that happen.