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Setting up Starlink

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: Setting up Starlink

#121

Post by freedomben »

stochastician wrote: post #87
freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

This is OT but can you share a little bit more about what it's like living in East Idaho? I grew up in Boise and now live in Chicago but with the way things have been going lately I've been considering moving back, and there's a real appeal to living in a smaller town in the eastern part of the state (my dad was from Twin Falls). Internet access is always a bit of a concern though, which maybe Starlink ameliorates? S…

Sure! I love living here. The only thing is the airports are small. You have to drive to SLC or Boise for good selection of flights. Other than that though, I love it. Population density is much nicer. All the stores and restaurants you want, but traffic isn't too bad.

There's a lot of fiber out here, but you'll need to either be near a city center of in a new enough area. The homes that are 10 to 15 years old are underserved and you're mostly stuck with a wireless ISP. But ... Starlink is about to negate that in my opinion!

Re: Setting up Starlink

#122

Post by freedomben »

DecoPerson wrote: post #109
freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

At first I thought “30s” meant “30 seconds” rather than “thirties (ms).” My opinion of Starlink and what it means for the world was being completely reshapen until I read your comment again!

Ah yes, thanks! I did mean thirties but I changed it to `ms` to avoid confusion :-)

Re: Setting up Starlink

#123

Post by teh_klev »

Fiahil wrote: post #105
freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

How is the power consumption compared to a regular router + fiber/ADSL dongle ?

From the article the author suggests 100W continuous using POE++.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#124

Post by jws »

nevi-me wrote: post #10

The cell grouping is interesting. A colleague likes the outdoors, so he's preordered one for his Suzuki Jimny, to mount on it. I wonder if Starlink are considering this use case. I haven't been able to preorder mine, because we're planning on moving out from the city to a small village next year, but the Starlink website requires a street address. Our villages are quite primitive, no street names (I think it's cos no…

You don’t need an address. I’m in the preorder queue for a small island with no streets, much less addresses.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#125

Post by freedomben »

geerlingguy wrote: post #119
Fiahil wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is the power consumption compared to a regular router + fiber/ADSL dongle ?

I can answer that I've been monitoring the full setup (dish + router) through a Kill-A-Watt for a few days, and it never goes below 94W, and averages a little over 100W.

I don't have numbers for just the starlink stuff since I have other things plugged in to my UPS, but that sounds about right. The power brick is always warm to the touch.

My other ISP also uses PoE to power a wireless dish (line of sight) and uses a little less power but not a ton less.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#126

Post by teh_klev »

freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

> interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps)

For many of us that's reasonably fast ;). In the UK, FTTC provided over POTS (often BT or some form of unbundle), the top end is 80Mbs/20Mbs.

I don't know what you'd expect with cable provisioned areas supplied by the likes of Virgin (DOCSIS).

Re: Setting up Starlink

#127

Post by jws »

paranoidrobot wrote: post #40
andrepd wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why not just coordinates? Talk about overcomplicating.

Probably because a plus code is harder for someone to screw up. Find the place on Google Maps, copy the plus code. Rather than entering lat/lon coords... except did you get the sign right, or maybe you flipped lat/lon, or got a significant digit out.

… or you used minutes with a decimal minute, or minutes and seconds, or maybe decimal degrees.

There comes a time when a format has so many confusable variants, it’s best to make a new unambiguous format.

I prefer “three words”. You get three words and they identify a location suitably accurate for navigation. https://what3words.com/

Re: Setting up Starlink

#128

Post by nly »

teh_klev wrote: post #126
freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

> interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) For many of us that's reasonably fast ;). In the UK, FTTC provided over POTS (often BT or some form of unbundle), the top end is 80Mbs/20Mbs. I don't know what you'd expect with cable provisioned areas supplied by the likes of Virgin (DOCSIS).

Virgin provide up to 300 or 500 Mbps depending on area

Re: Setting up Starlink

#129

Post by zertrin »

jws wrote: post #127
paranoidrobot wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Probably because a plus code is harder for someone to screw up. Find the place on Google Maps, copy the plus code. Rather than entering lat/lon coords... except did you get the sign right, or maybe you flipped lat/lon, or got a significant digit out.

… or you used minutes with a decimal minute, or minutes and seconds, or maybe decimal degrees. There comes a time when a format has so many confusable variants, it’s best to make a new unambiguous format. I prefer “three words”. You get three words and they identify a location suitably accurate for navigation. https://what3words.com/

If only 3 words wasn't a proprietary black box, which demands that you use their service / api and that you are not allowed to reproduce it without their assent. Plus there's a bunch of other drawbacks to w3w if you just search a bit online.

At least the algorithm for plus codes is known and can be reused even if Google decides to drop it in the future.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#130

Post by spookthesunset »

freedomben wrote: post #73

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

Are the speeds symmetrical? In other words upload is the same as download?
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