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Starlink Mini as a failover

jackpearce.co.uk

181–190 of 249 posts

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#181

I also do this. Xfinity went out for a few hours earlier this month and Unifi failed over almost instantly, and within minutes we had high speed internet once I upgraded us. The standby mode would have been plenty for basic web browsing, too. $5/mo for pretty guaranteed connectivity, plus being able to take it around with me on travels is pretty awesome.

XFinity has been terrible lately, and I have a Starlink Mini. XFinity failed today, and I did fallback for a few hours on the Mini. Connectivity was actually better than fiber. If only it worked when it is cloudy -- for $50 on roaming, that's a no-brainer given the exorbitant cost of living in northern cal.

I’ve never had an issue with Starlink when it’s cloudy, or rainy for that matter. They even advertise this. Mini is different this way?

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>USAID? Estimates are that this has already killed hundreds of thousands of people who relied on that aid. I know this was “the line” upfront… but USAID had nothing to do with aid… it was a soft power factory… it was the “we’re helping” face of the CIA.

It was not the "helping face of the CIA" it's a means for the United States to maintain first world power order in a quid pro quo scheme. It's hardly groundbreaking or evil considering every single country with large wealth plays this game (eg; china, india europe ect), I give you lots of money and help your people and in exchange you do/don't do xyz. if you do xyz then we take away the money

> it's a means for the United States to maintain first world power order in a quid pro quo scheme.

Um… yes. Run by the CIA, with their helping face mask.

Even if you disagree with what is easily researched… in no fucking way were they and aid organization.

That was the low information “news follower” line put forward until it was so obviously disproven that everyone updated and pretended they didn’t complain about missing HIV vaccines to Africans.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#183
post #87
post #42

A mobile failover would be cheaper and would give you better connectivity in heavy rain. A 4G dongle can be purchased for $15, rather than $200 for a Starlink Mini. Then, let's say your main internet source fails and you need to actually use the backup plan beyond the standby amount of 0.5 Mbps. That will cost you a minimum of $50 for Starlink, versus roughly $25 for a month of unlimited cell service. As for standby…

If you're in a rural area (and heck, even in an urban era) the primary ISP of a region dropping is likely to cause a lot of congestion from cellphones falling back to the operator network. I found it quite absurd that Spectrum (my cable operator) wants to sell me a modem with integrated 5G/4G backup knowing that as soon as the cable plant drops, hundreds of local phones are going to congest the network as well and my…

I noticed the pattern. 5G disappears when ISP is down. Everyone WFH trying to get on I guess.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#184
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XFinity has been terrible lately, and I have a Starlink Mini. XFinity failed today, and I did fallback for a few hours on the Mini. Connectivity was actually better than fiber. If only it worked when it is cloudy -- for $50 on roaming, that's a no-brainer given the exorbitant cost of living in northern cal.

I’ve never had an issue with Starlink when it’s cloudy, or rainy for that matter. They even advertise this. Mini is different this way?

My Mini is fine unless it's a large rainstorm, +1 anecdata

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#186
post #42

A mobile failover would be cheaper and would give you better connectivity in heavy rain. A 4G dongle can be purchased for $15, rather than $200 for a Starlink Mini. Then, let's say your main internet source fails and you need to actually use the backup plan beyond the standby amount of 0.5 Mbps. That will cost you a minimum of $50 for Starlink, versus roughly $25 for a month of unlimited cell service. As for standby…

The issue is that mobile is easily overloaded if those around you are also failing over onto it. There are only so many channels available per sector. In my experience, when one of the two incumbent carriers in my area goes down, mobile is immediately useless as a backup.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Starlink is an amazing solution to the problem of "How do I keep my orbital transport business somewhat liquid" which isn't really the kind of problem governments are meant to resolve.

Correct, the government should have ran fiber lines to every home in the united states

The government should have torn up your copper monopolies a few decades earlier, but the one thing the US has done right is sort of letting local power companies and ISPs work it out for themselves where it comes to fibre. Enforcing a single standard everywhere is bad actually.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the role of Unifi here? I read the article and went to their site but I still have no clue.

Same remark here. This reads more like paid promotion for UniFi than anything. It should be mentioned that any Linux box can trivially accommodate multiple WAN interfaces. You don't need to pay the UniFi tax for this.

People like unifi because it’s relatively easy to configure. My Netgear R7000 from at least a decade ago running Fresh Tomato firmware will also happily let you have 1-4 WAN interfaces depending on how many of its Ethernet ports you want to dedicate. It won’t let you use all 5 ports for WAN though!

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#189
post #186
post #42

A mobile failover would be cheaper and would give you better connectivity in heavy rain. A 4G dongle can be purchased for $15, rather than $200 for a Starlink Mini. Then, let's say your main internet source fails and you need to actually use the backup plan beyond the standby amount of 0.5 Mbps. That will cost you a minimum of $50 for Starlink, versus roughly $25 for a month of unlimited cell service. As for standby…

The issue is that mobile is easily overloaded if those around you are also failing over onto it. There are only so many channels available per sector. In my experience, when one of the two incumbent carriers in my area goes down, mobile is immediately useless as a backup.

Does Starlink have the bandwidth to avoid the same failure mode, or is it just that few people are using it for that purpose yet?

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#190
post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

XFinity has been terrible lately, and I have a Starlink Mini. XFinity failed today, and I did fallback for a few hours on the Mini. Connectivity was actually better than fiber. If only it worked when it is cloudy -- for $50 on roaming, that's a no-brainer given the exorbitant cost of living in northern cal.

I’ve never had an issue with Starlink when it’s cloudy, or rainy for that matter. They even advertise this. Mini is different this way?

Good to know. Thank you!
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