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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)

#81

Post by stickfigure »

qayxc wrote: post #17
krisoft wrote: post #13

So he says that he wanted to give the dish to his cousin. Then he describes all the bureaucratic barriers he faced in that plan. But what happens if he just places the dish there? Does it immediately give an error on first connection, or doest it get banned later? I understand that the limit is because Starlink is oversubscribed in the cousin's area, I'm just wondering where the limitation is enforced.

> But what happens if he just places the dish there? That's exactly what he tried a few months back. It didn't work (no connection was possible IIRC). The service was basically geo-fenced back then and still might be.

Did he say that in the video? He never said so in the article, and its absence is conspicuous.

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

#82

Post by gambiting »

mprev wrote: post #27

If you can get high speed, low latency, affordable internet access another way then Starlink probably isn't for you. We've just moved to a place where our only other option was a £400 a month leased line delivering synchronous 100Mbps. For less than a quarter of that, Starlink gives us roughly 120-150Mbps down, around 7Mbps up, and pings around the 30 ms mark. Upload is slow but workable for now. It's easy to complai…

>> The power draw is around the same as a fairly typical lightbulb from 20 years ago, so I can totally live with that.

Since you mentioned pounds, I just want to address the power consumption part.

At averaged 100W power usage, the system will use 2.4kWh of electricity every day. In UK the energy prices are absolutely exploding - with the government estimating that the "average" consumer will be paying 28p/kWh of electricity from April. At that price, you are talking £20 a month in JUST ELECTRICITY to keep the system running. That's more than some basic broadband offers in this country on a per month basis.

Yes I know that's not an option for you. But damn, £20 worth of electricity a month just to keep my internet router running? That's crazy.

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

#83

Post by numpad0 »

nikanj wrote: post #37
perydell wrote: post #8

Article looks and sounds like clickbait. One of the fundamental aspects of starlink is the internet access and speed you will get. That doesn't seem to be covered here. You took down your starlink because you couldn't transfer it to someone else, are afraid of the damage starlink is doing to astronomy, and you don't like the design decisions about the new dish that you don't even have? Sorry, this doesn't make any se…

I agree, it's very "SEE THIS INSANE DESIGN FLAW IN STARLINK"-esque. And the design flaw is "They elected to use weather-proof proprietary connectors, instead of letting me crimp my own CAT6

Waterproof RJ45/fiber/USB/UHF RF/anything is not new. Completely waterproof and weatherproof broadband wireless access point is not new, that's what cell tower equipment are. Those had been around since late 20th century.

Now, a proprietary, weather hardened, friction fit, outdoor connector that repurposes USB-C? that's user hostile new.

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

#84

Post by Danieru »

gambiting wrote: post #74
reportingsjr wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The dish won't work since it knows where it is via GPS and where it is supposed to be. There is a little bit of tolerance in where the dish can be moved, but certainly not 70 miles of leeway.

Ha, reminds me of the tiny 3G picostations you could get from your mobile operator for a while when 3G was in its infancy - if you said you had really poor signal at your home, they would send you a small 3G station you could use in your home and which used your own internet for data and calls....but the hardware had a GPS built in to make sure it was never moved from the address it was assigned to(otherwise you coul…

The geo tieing makes more sense as a product of spectrum regulation. If you move the Pico station they might not even own the resulting local spectrum.

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

#85

Post by elteto »

perydell wrote: post #8

Article looks and sounds like clickbait. One of the fundamental aspects of starlink is the internet access and speed you will get. That doesn't seem to be covered here. You took down your starlink because you couldn't transfer it to someone else, are afraid of the damage starlink is doing to astronomy, and you don't like the design decisions about the new dish that you don't even have? Sorry, this doesn't make any se…

It’s typical click-bait YT style: you keep watching and watching waiting for “it” to drop and then the video is over, your time is wasted, and someone made a few millicents or whatever.

I’ve learned nothing new except that there is a custom cable that is somewhat expensive to replace.

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

#86

Post by HideousKojima »

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…

Due to the orbits, the northern US has the highest concentration of sats. Specifically I think if you use the Washington-Oregon border and extend that line across the entire US that's roughly where the highest concentration is. That said, I think they already have full coverage in the entire lower 48.

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

#87

Post by HideousKojima »

traviswt wrote: post #72
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'.…

Disclaimer: I am a very happy Starlink customer that has no other option for internet besides terrible LTE. Starlink never originally advertised the ability to transfer service or even sell your hardware. It was very clear from the beginning you had to use it for the address you provided, and their communication was very clear to that effect. You are definitely correct that logically you should be able to sell your k…

>(Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV)

Mobile antennas will also require separate FCC approval.

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

#88

Post by woah »

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…

The hype a couple of years ago was at a fever pitch. Starlink was going to replace all forms of internet with space-ey goodness. Millions of people getting 100mbps for $50/m on cable who just didn't like the cable company's call center reps were clamoring for Elon to save them from their predicament.

I was working in the ISP space, and we did some rough back of the envelope calculations which showed that Starlink could only ever service a very low population density, based on the radio spectrum fundamentals.

Now people are realizing the obvious- it's an incremental improvement over other satellite internet options. It's great for people in very rural places, but if you are in or near a town of any size, you likely have a better option available.

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

#89

Post by reportingsjr »

hanklazard wrote: post #33

“Then there are other people reading who think he's the commensurate con-man” Does anyone actually think this about Elon? Think what you will about the guy’s persona, but it seems undeniable that he is doing big things in the world (and outside of it).

There are definitely a lot of people who think this. Go on twitter and search for "TSLAQ". There are people deluding themselves that Tesla isn't actually shipping the number of cars they claim.

Maybe 7+ years ago you could try to make that claim and not be a laughing stock, but it's very odd at this point.

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

#90

Post by brk »

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'.…

But your gripe seems to be centered around something they never claimed as a selling point initially.

Just because they do not have the coverage of other satellite systems does not mean it is still a beta.

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