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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)

#201

Post by thaeli »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #189
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...

IMO they are just getting you used to the idea of what is normal. Then they gonna introduce $500/month “mobile” plan that many sailors will swallow like a bargain!

..they did this a few days ago. You nailed the price point, too.

Notably, this is only about twice the cost of a high speed "business" internet connection from the cable companies in a high density area. Regular Starlink is priced at about twice a high speed "consumer" internet connection, so the premium seems reasonable for the available-in-austure-areas part.

I do hope they end up coming out with a version for RVers that has the lower throughput but allows arbitrary roaming.. but I do understand putting roaming on a premium plan first, since it plays such havoc with per-cell capacity planning.

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

#202

Post by justapassenger »

steelstraw wrote: post #197
justapassenger wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was totally the hype. I had multiple friends, living in SF, telling me how they'll finally ditch Comcast and use Starlink. I also had other friends telling me how SpaceX is going to bankrupt all ISPs in the world, and they'll make trillions of dollars in revenue. And even here, in comments to this very article, you can still find people waiting for Starlink, to lower down their internet cost, while they live in…

Even though Musk was saying that it's not really meant for cities and wouldn't be a serious competitor there? "the SpaceX CEO argued that Starlink won't be a major threat to telcos because the satellite service won't be good enough for high-population areas and will mostly be used by rural customers without access to fast broadband." https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/musk-...

> Starlink was publicly announced in January 2015, with bandwidth to carry up to 50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet traffic, in high-density cities. CEO Elon Musk said that there is significant unmet demand for low-cost global broadband capabilities.

Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

It's typical Musk - announcing something that sounds super cool and impossible, because it's impossible. Ad later quietly scale it down to something still pretty cool, but nothing like it was presented initially. And ride the hype as much as you can in the process.

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

#203

Post by frebord »

Recently got Starlink. From 10Mbps/0.5Mbps to 150/10 is a god send. I'll gladly pay for the extra power consumption.

I have some sympathy for the astronomy crowd, but I wonder if its inevitable. And is world wide broadband more/less important to society than having to correct for light streaks?

The router debacle is just ridiculous though. All of the networking tech being used is so ubiquitous, why not include a damn ethernet port. I just received my ethernet adapter 2 months later and... it doesn't work. Tried multiple configurations including straight into a PC - nothing. to top it off my support ticket was closed without any response... so my $300 mesh wifi will just sit on the shelf while half the house gets poor connectivity.

Overall its exciting to have decent internet and not live in a city. The future of it is exciting too -especially the space laser links. Imagine a situation where you can hop directly to a ground station on or very nearby a data center. A lot of people saying Starlink is great if you don't have access to something better, but Starlink may end up being the "fastest" internet available.

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

#204

Post by tomatoman »

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 have to move to another area they serve? Do you still have to wait for them to reactivate it, or you have to throw it out and buy a new one? Can't you just say you now live with your cousin?

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

#205

Post by MrStonedOne »

Karsteski wrote: post #152
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #93

I've had starlink for probably a year and a half now. It has steadily improved, gotten more reliable, and is more able to avoid trees (I alas am not in an open plain). I used to have 10 seconds of blockage every 5 minutes. Now I get some blockage every... 5 hours? I also have a 5G modem appliance that I used to use for stuff like Zoom. It actually is LESS reliable than the Starlink now. Do I do massive bandwidth down…

Why inject worthless politics talk into your otherwise fine comment...

No post body was provided.

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

#206

Post by fastaguy88 »

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...

If you have no alternative, you get reasonable internet (100+ up/20+ down) with no data caps or throttling. It's a big step up from a hotspot/LTE connection (if you can even see the cell tower).

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

#207

Post by oversocialized »

frebord wrote: post #203

Recently got Starlink. From 10Mbps/0.5Mbps to 150/10 is a god send. I'll gladly pay for the extra power consumption. I have some sympathy for the astronomy crowd, but I wonder if its inevitable. And is world wide broadband more/less important to society than having to correct for light streaks? The router debacle is just ridiculous though. All of the networking tech being used is so ubiquitous, why not include a damn…

Destroying the night sky is only inevitable if people choose to use Starlink and similar services. Considering most people use the internet for cat pics, porn, and mindless entertainment not sure the trade off is worth it.

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

#208

Post by dzhiurgis »

thaeli wrote: post #201
dzhiurgis wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IMO they are just getting you used to the idea of what is normal. Then they gonna introduce $500/month “mobile” plan that many sailors will swallow like a bargain!

..they did this a few days ago. You nailed the price point, too. Notably, this is only about twice the cost of a high speed "business" internet connection from the cable companies in a high density area. Regular Starlink is priced at about twice a high speed "consumer" internet connection, so the premium seems reasonable for the available-in-austure-areas part. I do hope they end up coming out with a version for RVer…

Is the cell capacity planning required since there are no laser interlinks or it's going to be forever like that?

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

#209

Post by olyjohn »

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...

The point is that it's better than what anybody 5 miles outside of the city core can get. Local and state governments won't allow wireline competition, so this is the best we can do.

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

#210

Post by mattl »

geerlingguy wrote: post #18
adventured wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because it's not. The cost isn't $240 by necessity. They're knowingly overpaying for Internet access (they have multiple connections, they're not even using Starlink for example). I'm paying $34 / month in a small city in the middle of nowhere for 200mbps in the US.

$140/month to get the most upload bandwidth possible at my house (35 Mbps through Spectrum). Then $99/month for Starlink (for now, at least). Meanwhile a few blocks away a friend has 500 Mbps symmetric access for $50/month.

How is 5G or LTE service in your area?
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