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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)

#111

Post by modeless »

A lot of this is poorly informed. The reason many places can't get service isn't the number of satellites, it's the number of ground stations. The satellites don't communicate with each other, only ground stations, so there have to be some near you that the satellites can see for the entire time they're over you (either one very close to you or several farther away but surrounding you), or your signals don't have anywhere to go. The next generation of satellites will be able to communicate with each other, but they haven't really started launching in earnest yet. It may have to wait for Starship.

The proprietary connector is annoying but the antenna needs 100+ watts. Power over Ethernet doesn't support that, so the antenna connector can't use standard Ethernet. If the router additionally had a standard Ethernet port then it wouldn't be weatherproof, which was clearly a design goal. They should really have done some kind of weatherproof housing for an Ethernet connector. I expect they will on the next version.

Kessler syndrome is not going to happen because unlike their competitors SpaceX intentionally put all their satellites in very low orbit where the atmosphere naturally cleans up any debris within a couple of years. That's something uniquely enabled by SpaceX's low launch costs because it limits the useful life of the satellites, requiring frequent replacement. But it's worth it.

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

#112

Post by giantrobot »

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #44
sidewndr46 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The satellites just relay signals from a customer ground station to a Starlink-owned ground station. That ground station has a wired Internet connection.

So coverage at your house is dependent on you and a Starlink ground station being in the ground track of some Starlink satellites. Because of their low altitude it's entirely possible for your house being in the ground track of satellites but the nearest Starlink ground station being outside.

At some point in the future Starlink satellites will have laser communications between each other. Then only one in that group needs to be able to see a Starlink ground station and the others can route customer signals to it.

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

#113

Post by ncallaway »

stickfigure wrote: post #94
ncallaway wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As mentioned in the article, though, how much could the added cost of an Ethernet connector be? That can’t increase the BOM that much, right?

Taking a wild guess here: Standard PoE+ is 30w, and even the newest PoH maxes out at 90w. The new hardware draws more than that, so Starlink made up their own PoEish standard with proprietary cable/connectors. The $20 dongle is probably a custom PoE adapter. The good thing about this setup is you only need a single cable run up to your roof. Adding an RJ45 jack directly to dishy might actually complicate the construc…

> Adding an RJ45 jack directly to dishy might actually complicate the construction

It wasn't an additional jack on dishy. It was an additional jack on the router.

See here for an example of the router: https://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/file... One of those ports connects to the Starlink (through another box which provides the POE), and the other is labeled `aux` and is available for LAN.

My understanding for the newer routers is there is now only the single port. The router itself doesn't appear to be weatherproof'ed in any way, and already needs to be installed indoors, so I think it'd just be the cost of the RJ45 jack (and whatever internal differences for the router).

It just...seems like it cannot be much of a cost savings.

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

#114

Post by gambiting »

the-dude wrote: post #101
gambiting wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?

Yep - https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsun...

IP would be absolutely trivial to spoof so that's not a proof of anything really.

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

#115

Post by DwnVoteHoneyPot »

gkfasdfasdf wrote: post #62
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 don't think it's clickbait at all. The concerns about power usage, proprietary connectors, and lack of ethernet or WiFi 6 seem spot on.

Regarding power usage: old lightbulbs used to be 100W, but now I get to high speed internet by connecting to low orbit satellites at my rural property... I'm not going to complain about 100W.

Propriety connectors: it's not a laptop which i need to connect to many things. I set it up and leave it.

Lack of ethernet: sure, that's a legitimate problem for me... $20 fix.

Wifi 6: as author said, Starlink isn't fast enough to utilize Wifi 6. If author wants Wifi 6 connected devices within the home, that's not Starlink's issue.

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

#116

Post by jdofaz »

the-dude wrote: post #101
gambiting wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?

The one I had years ago did have GPS, I was told the reason was for accurate 911 locating. It was a hassle because we were trying to use it in an office and the GPS antenna needed to be near a window.

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

#117

Post by tinus_hn »

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…

If you were to take it abroad your provider would also not have a license to use the frequencies it needs.

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

#118

Post by gruez »

the-dude wrote: post #101
gambiting wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?

>Are you sure it had GPS?

AFAIK even regular cell sites have GPS for timing purposes.

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

#119

Post by unfocussed_mike »

Androider wrote: post #103
gambiting wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> 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 ele…

For comparison, my US bill is currently 9.5c/kWh, which is 7p/kWh. Your UK price is 4x that of mine! The SpaceX office where the dish was designed is just down the road from here, so I can totally see the engineers thinking "What's the big deal, it's only 100W? That's a few dollars a month."

> Your UK price is 4x that of mine!

And just to drive the point home: this is not the last price increase we will see. It will rise another 50% in October and probably won't fall much until 2024.

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