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I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

jeffgeerling.com

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Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#41

Post by csours »

geerlingguy wrote: post #12
fastaguy88 wrote: post #3

I get it. If you already have internet, then Starlink is not for you. There are lots of questionable design choices (particularly in version 2), it's picky about placement, etc. etc. But if your other choice is HughesNet or its competitors, that throttles you after 15 GB (2 days of non-streaming usage for me), or 50 GB, the Starlink "shortcomings" are irrelevant. With Starlink, if you can get it, and if you can site…

My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away. Back when preorders started, it wasn't obvious how slow Starlink would be to expand, and it also wasn't obvious transfers wouldn't be a supported feature for many months. Even so, my cousin also signed up in hopes to get Starlink, and 11 months later her date was moved from 'late 2021' to 'late 2022'.…

What happens if you just take it there and plug it in?

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#42

Post by sidewndr46 »

jacquesm wrote: post #34
geerlingguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away. Back when preorders started, it wasn't obvious how slow Starlink would be to expand, and it also wasn't obvious transfers wouldn't be a supported feature for many months. Even so, my cousin also signed up in hopes to get Starlink, and 11 months later her date was moved from 'late 2021' to 'late 2022'.…

What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...

I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others.

SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of SpaceX with respect to starlink.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#43

Post by lsaferite »

sschueller wrote: post #26
woudsma wrote: post #10

$240 per month for internet, wow. I didn't realise things were that expensive for people living in remote areas. I'm currently paying ~$40 (converted from EUR) per month for a 100Mb/s fiber connection.

CHF 64.75 (~71 USD) per month for 25 gbit synchronous [1] here in Zürich, Switzerland. The cost now is hardware. The Fiber infrastructure in the city is mostly operated by the state electrical company. Anyone can provide service over it. [1] https://www.init7.net/en/ [2] https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/df4123cf-5f0e-40f2-bf71-f...

25Gb ?! Symmetric? Wow.

I guess that's a benefit to a small relatively wealthy country?

My question would be, what do you have to even _use_ that much bandwidth? I have 1Gb/50Mb asymmetric and my Ubiquiti router can't really saturate the down stream. Sure, I could invest in a more powerful router, but in normal daily use we never even get close to max bandwidth.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#44

Post by JohnJamesRambo »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...

I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others. SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of Spa…

I don’t understand though. His cousin is 70 miles away, are the satellite coverages that small?

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#45

Post by sidewndr46 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #29
sschueller wrote: post #16

I don't understand why cable connections are so bad when there is DOCSIS 3.1. Is it that the cable provider just has such a limited link on their end that people are getting speeds sub 100mbit? Are they vastly over provisioning their networks?

In my case, Spectrum has decided that they want a flashy "gigabit tier", so they provision everything as download bandwidth (940 Mbps), and then only assign 35 Mbps upload. I'd pay extra for business class service, but it doesn't even help, it's the same speed just with some more guarantees and a stable IP.

It's the same in my area. I have 200/10 now for about $78 month. I don't need more than 100 Mbps down under any circumstance. I would pay nearly $200/month to get on the 940/30 plan here. I don't really feel like paying more than double to get internet that is still painfully slow.

Also the DOCSIS network in my area is such low quality it isn't reliable anyways.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#46

Post by colechristensen »

sidewndr46 wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...

I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others. SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of Spa…

A lot of it has to do with satellite orbits, and basically the constellation is just far from complete.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#47

Post by causi »

csours wrote: post #41
geerlingguy wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away. Back when preorders started, it wasn't obvious how slow Starlink would be to expand, and it also wasn't obvious transfers wouldn't be a supported feature for many months. Even so, my cousin also signed up in hopes to get Starlink, and 11 months later her date was moved from 'late 2021' to 'late 2022'.…

What happens if you just take it there and plug it in?

Yeah, that was my first thought. After reports of success from people mounting it to the roof of their RVs I thought you could move it anywhere you wanted.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#48

Post by geerlingguy »

spaniard89277 wrote: post #38
tylerscott wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We pay 180 USD a month for a phone line and DSL from Century Link. This connection is 1.5 mbps down and 500 kbps up in practice (advertised speeds are higher). Starlink has been a game changer for us.

> 180 USD Damn... hope your wages make up for this man.

It's crazy, in a lot of rural areas ISPs know they can charge the moon for terrible service and they justify it by saying how hard it is to service remote locations... at least for some 4G is a new alternative that is more readily available than Starlink.

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#49

Post by alexktz »

clvx wrote: post #24
ghaff wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is a game changer if you don't have decent wired broadband. We had about 1 Mbps download and were the last house on the road who could get it. Then we didn't even have that. Verizon hotspot was "ok" but data was expensive so you had to watch your usage. Starlink isn't perfect--had a couple of days downtime over Christmas--but basically it works fine with 20+ Mbps bandwidth. With the prior DSL, I couldn't hav…

Similar situation but I switched to T-Mobile. I have a Starlink order but it got delayed 6 months. At this point, I'll just cancel it because T-Mobile Home Internet is a game changer.

How "unlimited" is the T-Mobile Home Internet package?

Re: I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled)

#50

Post by Stephen304 »

geerlingguy wrote: post #29
sschueller wrote: post #16

I don't understand why cable connections are so bad when there is DOCSIS 3.1. Is it that the cable provider just has such a limited link on their end that people are getting speeds sub 100mbit? Are they vastly over provisioning their networks?

In my case, Spectrum has decided that they want a flashy "gigabit tier", so they provision everything as download bandwidth (940 Mbps), and then only assign 35 Mbps upload. I'd pay extra for business class service, but it doesn't even help, it's the same speed just with some more guarantees and a stable IP.

Upload speed shenanigans is what pushed me to pursue Comcast's "business tier" gigabit pro fiber and the last 3 or so years have been pure bliss. Unfortunately it's limited to locations right around the corner from fiber so yet another reason I might live in the same place forever, or at least until cheap symmetric 5 gig or more starts becoming the norm.
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