Starlink

[ponytug]

I agree that our Starlink has generally been better than our DSL, but I noticed yesterday that the upload speed was falling into DSL range, so quite a drop in performance. YMMV...

All the best,

Peter

 

[dmccarty]

It only beats the terrestrial options if you can get it. Some TBN'ers complain they've been on a waiting list for a couple years now. When you over-promise and under-deliver it's gonna catch up with you.

But they seem to be a minority. I think it took 12-14 months for our Dishy to arrive but others have gotten it quicker than we did. I am not a Musk FanBoy but there was this pandemic that caused vast supply chain disruptions, including for chips, and that shortage has not gone away. Not much that companies can do about the chip shortage, Starlink/Musk included. Other people complain about that the speed of Starlink is not constant. No scat. Neither is a cell based solution or cable. In the six months or so we have had Starlink, it has just worked. Can't say that for DSL or the several cell based Internet services we have used.

StarLink is not for everyone nor can it be. If one can get a land based solution that provides for fast, reliable Internet, grab it. Our DSL is 1.5 mbps, CenturyLink will not upgrade the lines we use, in spite of taking hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, and it is unreliable. We have neighbors that would like to use Starlink but they would have to cut down trees, and their neighbor's trees, to get the correct Dishy orientation.

Later,
Dan

 

[dmccarty]

I agree that our Starlink has generally been better than our DSL, but I noticed yesterday that the upload speed was falling into DSL range, so quite a drop in performance. YMMV...

All the best,

Peter

When I check StarLinks performance, it is always changing, it is not constant. I see really fast speeds and then slow speeds. But I only notice the speeds when I go check them, which I don't often do unless I notice a slowdown in downloads/uploads, and when I do check, the performance returns quickly. My guess is that the slow downs is when the signal is obstructed by some trees, we have some very slight obstructions from trees, and/or there is higher demand on the satellite. Had/have the same problem on our cell Internet. When it worked.

Starlink aint' perfect but it is soooo much better than the DSL and cell service in our area.

Later,
Dan

 

[GSVette]

We’ve had our dishy up for about 3 months now- moved from temporary ground mount ( which had a very minor amount of obstruction) to shop roof mount ( with no obstruction).

I’ve been watching our speeds somewhat closely- we seem to range from 40-140 mb/s depending on time of day. Without a doubt it is faster than HughesNet- our only option; cell coverage not good enough, no DSL or Fiber and microwave not available at a reasonable location on property.

Not perfect by any means but beats the heck out of the very limited options we had available.

 

[ultrarunner]

From testing with Fast.com I think some devices are self limiting as to speed...

In a side by side the Moto is always 40 and the old Apple 6S always 200 to 240...

This is one reason I don't think paying for gig speed is a benefit many would realize unless many users at the same time?

For myself and a lot of my neighbors we have found optimal locations in our homes for cell wifi hotspots...

Moving 20 feet across the room can be night and day as in no service to 2 bars...

All is not lost as there continues to be incremental improvement because only a few years back we had no bars.

 

[buckeyefarmer]

Finally got my starlink router installed upstairs with cable ran thru wall, behind the siding.
I also added a mesh unit which helps extend to far side of house.

 

[plowhog]

fyi I just de-installed a SL "RV system" at my CA property and replaced it with an address-dedicated SL system. Here were notable discoveries:

1. Due to earlier confusion/problems/bugs of iPhone communicating with more than one SL, I deleted the SL app before proceeding. Despite a warning that the app "and all data" would be deleted, I learned the data was not deleted. Upon reinstalling the newly downloaded "fresh" SL app-- it was still populated with my old data.

2. It took some fighting, and multiple tries using the "Setup Another Starlink" option, but I finally got the address-dedicated system installed. Most of the trouble was getting it into bypass mode, which it did not want to allow me to do. And after I finally convinced it to let me try, I repeatedly got "Error During Save" messages. (I suspect it needed to finish some of its bootup processes as it later let me save.)

3. At first, I swapped only the modem/router. I figured the outside antenna didn't need to be changed. But after the swap, I saw a message "Outside Service Address" at dishy.starlink.com. I powered down, swapped the antenna, and that message went away. So the modem/router and antenna seemed to need to stay together as a matched set.

While I was waiting for bootup, I looked around at the new questions and answers on the SL app. Now, in response to the question as to whether there are any data caps, the answer is "not at this time."

The data cap answer is somewhat alarming to me-- I'm pretty sure it used to say "No." I hope there are no rude data cap "surprises" in the future ....

 

[K5lwq]

Good information plowhog! Glad you got it going.

No telling what may happen in the future. It would not surprise me to see caps or reduced speeds. I am thinking there will be some attempts to get the funding reinstated they just lost. I have not seen any response from SL or Musk on that subject. But I also do not understand the rules the FCC play by.

 

[ponytug]

Good information plowhog! Glad you got it going.

No telling what may happen in the future. It would not surprise me to see caps or reduced speeds. I am thinking there will be some attempts to get the funding reinstated they just lost. I have not seen any response from SL or Musk on that subject. But I also do not understand the rules the FCC play by.

The denial of funding was pretty straightforward; the FCC said that Starlink hadn't maintained their speeds above the required minimum 100Mbits/s. That is pretty black and white. It is unclear to me if there is any sort of appeal process if in six months, Starlink were to get average speeds over 100Mbits/s again.

At this point $900M over say five years maps out to at least an extra 136,000 customers in the US, which seems...unlikely. The $900M would have been pure profit and the extra 136,000 customers would be just $900M in extra revenue.

A normal company would tweak customers/cell, ground-stations, and routing software in their satellites, basically moving heaven and earth to get back over the 100Mbits/s threshold, but this is a Musk company, so who the heck knows what their response will be.

All the best,

Peter

 

[plowhog]

It would not surprise me to see caps or reduced speeds.

Nor do we know what threshold triggers "RV" type SL systems to reduce speed. Or how slow those systems might get.

It was just a short time ago I bought the RV system feeling that occasional slowing from 60-80mbps to even half would be no big deal. Now that speeds are tumbling, seemingly due to system load, that calculation could be way off. Nor do we know if future launches more satellites will help although logically that would seem so.

Just dazed and confused customers, stumbling around, but always prompt to pay the monthly fees.