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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)

#221

Post by mdasen »

cagey wrote: post #162
the_only_law wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought about switching to one of those mobile internet providers, but it wasn’t available in my area, which I don’t quite understand. My providers network is certainly available, as I use it on my phone daily. Maybe it’s using some different band?

I suspect availability of 5G or LTE "home internet" service is gated by not only signal strength but also by the vendor's assessment of their (tower, backhaul?) capacity in the locale.

It's definitely not just about coverage, but also about how much capacity they have in an area. They don't want to overload the network given that home internet users will use a lot more data than mobile users. Likewise, they don't want to sign up people for them to have a bad experience, cancel service, and spread bad word of mouth.

T-Mobile has been managing how many people they sign up in an area. Sometimes T-Mobile's home internet is available in your area, but then they get a certain number of signups and it becomes unavailable in your area until they're able to increase capacity or customers cancel. It's possible that it was available in their area and others signed up for it.

AT&T is only offering service in very limited areas and it seems like they're mostly trying to replace their DSL connections that they don't want to upgrade to fiber.

Verizon's service is currently pretty small scale, but they're looking to grow it. Again, it will be limited areas because no one wants to overwhelm the network.

Even if you have good phone service, there's a big difference between someone using 10GB on mobile and someone using 500GB as a home user. Signing up 10 home users could be like adding 500 new phone users in a small area. That can be a lot of traffic and they don't want to start seeing their mobile users cancel service because home users are clogging up the network. So they want to roll it out a bit slowly, especially as they increase capacity over the next few years with midband 5G.

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

#222

Post by charcircuit »

i_am_proteus wrote: post #35
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…

Another tell is that the performer in the video assumes an exaggerated facial expression for the thumbnail image, a common practice in click bait videos.

Exaggerated emotions are just a way of marketing your video to viewers. It's good marketing.

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

#223

Post by charcircuit »

Kon-Peki wrote: post #59

Starlink is definitely demonstrating that there is demand and a willingness to pay. Part of me wonders if it will suffer the same fate as Iridium - terrestrial service came in and took the market away. Especially if the rollout continues to be so slow.

Terrestial roll out will also be slow because there is little financial incentive to do it.

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

#224

Post by mdasen »

justapassenger wrote: post #202
steelstraw wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

Elon Musk often makes contradictory statements. He's more recently said that Starlink has received 500,000 pre-orders and that, "Most likely, all of the initial 500k will receive service. More of a challenge when we get into the several million user range."

Some of this might be coming from real-world experience with the network and an update on previous incorrect assumptions. Part of it might be simply making bombastic claims.

Right now, Starlink hit around 100,000 customers with 1,700 satellites. With the full 12,000 satellites we'd then expect 700,000 customers. That might change given that the satellites aren't geostationary and they haven't launched in many countries, but to hit a million customers in the US, they'd need to increase the number of customers per satellite significantly. Maybe there are improvements they can make that we don't know about, but it seems like Starlink's advantages are in making cheap rockets and cheap satellites - which is very cool, but they likely don't have radio advantages.

Starlink is also thinking about an additional 20,000 satellites so it's possible that they'll just keep increasing the number of satellites. Still, if they're seeing linear gains, that's still a relatively small number of users even with 32,000 satellites (and even the 12,000 is 4-5 years away).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210510/08050146767/elon-...

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

#225

Post by garaetjjte »

jcrawfordor wrote: post #170
phkahler wrote: post #126

>> These connectors are dumb, and I can't think of a good reason they exist. There are ways SpaceX could improve networking hardware, but proprietary non-standard connectors ain't one of 'em. Did he ever think they might be weather proof? Looks like some rubber seals on those connectors. You know, since the dish is outdoors and has to deal with rain, sleet, or snow. I certainly wouldn't put a standard RJ45 on it. I'd…

Weatherproof RJ45 fittings are well established and used by most outdoor CPE. I do assume that Starlink figured their connector design was easier to use (the typical weathertight ethernet ferrules are kind of fiddly), but it seems like a poor choice overall considering it's going to make installation a lot more complicated since the cable needs to be fished with connectors on. It seems like a decision that was made t…

It seems cable is still ordinary twisted pair, so you can just cut it, add extra waterproof connection box and use modular connectors...

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

#226

Post by dan1234 »

BugsJustFindMe wrote: post #121
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…

> 15 GB (2 days of non-streaming usage for me) This sounds exceptionally high. What do you do that uses so much?

That’s not even a full Xcode update nowadays!

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

#227

Post by emteycz »

oversocialized wrote: post #207
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.

While most people use internet for porn, the same people also most likely use internet for work and business. It's not like your browser is locked to Pornhub.com.

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

#228

Post by Sophistifunk »

I live in Australia, which is divided into two regions: those where I can get internet better than modem speeds, and those in which I might ever hope to afford to purchase a home. Starlink will make one of those areas a subset of the other, and for that I remain ever hopeful it works out.

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

#229

Post by michaelt »

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 your dish over to your cousin's house and try using it?

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

#230

Post by zyngaro »

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…

Spacex business plan: Sucking tax payers money maybe ?
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