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

jeffgeerling.com

241–250 of 258 posts

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

#241
post #127
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…

For those of us outside US, how far from the urban area you have to be to not have good LTE and/or fiber internet? (Also, does Amazon deliver in those places?)

No Amazon doesn't deliver in rural areas (central Kansas, USA, anyways), if you mean Amazon trucks/drivers. However we can still get Amazon packages just fine via UPS, FedEx, or the US postal service.

Actually I've only seen an Amazon delivery vehicle one or two times...

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

#242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Isn't clickbait good marketing? I don't like it, but I'd say it is good marketing.

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

#243
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Time to build a wireless link to your friend :)

Seriously though this is achievable with consumer hardware[0], as long as you have line-of-sight or close enough to it. [0]: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-300Mbps-dual-polarized-direct...

And check out Ubiquiti and Mikrotik for more hardware that does this sort of thing.

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

#244

100W continuous draw is around $15 a month in power alone - this buys you unlimited 5G in many places around the world.

Believe me, if I could buy unlimited 5G (or 4G, my phone is old) for $15/mo here in the US I'd be doing it.

I'm paying $10/mo for 1GB.

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

#245
This article was from the perspective of someone who doesn’t need Starlink.

They already have (pricey) fast internet.

Starlink isn’t for them. It’s for idiots like me who live far enough out of town that nobody wants to run cable or fiber to me.

I’ve literally offered to pay for “whatever it takes” to AT&T and Comcast on several occasions only to be told it’s just never going to happen.

I don’t like Elon Musk, what he stands for, how he manages companies, staff or social media. But I’ll throw fists with anyone who wants to talk poorly of Starlink.

My only option for internet was 5mbit/768k. Now I can play FPS and stream 4k video to multiple screens simultaneously.

Until we as a nation (USA) start investing in telecomm infrastructure Starlink is going to be as good as it gets for me.

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

#246

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…

> If you already have internet, then Starlink is not for you. We bought a property in a very rural area in mid 2020. One of the hard requirements was verified high speed Internet access. Our home has good performing Comcast. But I also pay $100/month and have a Dishy on my roof. Fortunately our home is very tall and we're able to get about 95% visibility, since our home is in the middle of a forest. Why am I paying a…

Sort of how Iridium made tons of money? I'm skeptical of it being a cash cow since for almost everyone LTE makes more sense (technologically, not necessarily any specific plan..). There aren't THAT many people living in the woods...

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

#247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agree 100%. My community is in the DC metro area and despite our relatively ex-urban setting, the corrupt local and state government has failed us. Subsidies badly misspent and monopoly policies that stifle land-based competition. Probably 25-30% (thousands of households) have no access to true broadband, just unreliable DSL from a bankrupt provider that once put our state representative on payroll. We're all clamori…

Starlink won't work well for the sort of sprawling exurbs you live in, fyi. It can't support a very high density of dishes due to RF bandwidth limitations. Starlink's key markets are fairly spread out rural areas, not infrastructure expensive exurbs and suburbs.

Exactly, terrestrial wireless (i.e. LTE) is the correct technological solution for anything denser than rural.

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

#248

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 unde…

Surely whatever SoC they're using already has the capability, so yeah, it's probably a few $ at most. I bet they figured they'd save money because of people's shitty wifi setups in their gargantuan exurban homes.

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

#249
post #183

Regarding the second LAN port and proprietary cable — standard RJ45 ports are not waterproof, especially if they’re delivering almost 100W (the max load of this new dishy). I expect that plays into the decision making here; also, selling a phase array antenna plus power supply plus WiFi router for $500 is actually pretty cheap.

There are ways around it: You can put the RJ45 inside a water-tight screw-together housing, or at least use a standard plug design -- the best option being a waterproof variant of an IEC metric screw sized connector like M12:

https://www.mcmaster.com/networking-equipment/micro-m12-scre...

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

#250
post #157

Its interesting to me how the customer service mindset between Elon's companies and a company like Amazon is so opposite. Amazon has a almost militant drive to optimize customer experience, will take anything back, will do just about anything to please their customers. They state so. Tesla, Space X in the form if starlink, solar city all seem to have pretty piss poor customer service and experience. They get away wit…

Theranos couldn’t deliver reliable tests using other people’s equipment, let alone the magic box they pretended to have invented. Their claims were pretty much impossible to fulfil. There are Teslas driving on the roads. Starlink is serving customers. SpaceX is delivering payloads. Like him or loathe him, Musk has delivered multiple times.

Percentage wise though. How many times has he delivered as promised on time vs. how many times has he not. It's got to be close to 25/75 right?

I agree, he has delivered on about the bottom 25% of his promises.

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