Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Starlink Mini as a failover

jackpearce.co.uk

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 249 posts

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#131

Post by linolevan »

antonkochubey wrote: post #84
lxgr wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TFA specifically calls out not wanting to depend on 4G/5G coverage, which is anything but ubiquitous: > It has the advantage of working pretty much anywhere with a view of the sky so no relying on mobile network coverage. I'm also not sure if $25/month is anything close to the global average for unlimited 4G/5G data (if even available).

Sounds way too high to me, I am paying €8.80/month for unlimited 5G, calls and texting

Where on earth are you living with that kind of price point? Unreal.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#132

Post by Terr_ »

WarmWash wrote: post #105
SunshineTheCat wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was paying for gigabit with the local ISP and it slowed down and lost connection so frequently I bought a Starlink (the regular one, not the mini) as a "backup." As per the usual, my internet went down and I switched to the backup Starlink. After working with it for about a week I cancelled my ISP. Turned out around 350MBPS down was fine for everything I was doing (and it's way more reliable).

Kinda drifting off topic, but I'm so bitter over this My girlfriend had been paying for 1Gb fiber for about 5 years at the insistence of the rep because "You stream 4k content and use your internet for work". $110/mo or something. Verizon comes by and sets her up with a modem and an "auto-route smart 2.4GHz/5GHz" router which slots you into a frequency based on...something. Who knows because it didn't work. It just p…

Also "renting" their router/modem to you is typically a bad deal. (Billing details may depend on local laws.)

Getting my own modem and router easily paid for themselves, plus I'm not arbitrarily locked out of anything.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#134

Post by donalhunt »

kkapelon wrote: post #47
zajio1am wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When here is local power outage and everyone switches to 4g/5g, it is overwhelmed and unusable.

Again this is location specific. I have a mini ups on my router/ont. And I assume that my provider also has a UPS, because even when power is out my landline connection just works.

There was a major storm that disrupted infrastructure across the west coast of Ireland last year. Turned out a lot of infrastructure couldn't survive multi-day grid power loss (water plants, cell tower repeaters, etc).

Starlink is a solid backup for mitigating the risk of such disruption by having no local dependencies other than ability to power the CPE.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#135

Post by alexfoo »

vablings wrote: post #128
alexfoo wrote: post #61

Every so often I do the numbers on a backup Internet connection and decide that it's not worth it, but understand that it is useful for peace of mind reasons. My Internet is just too reliable. When I'm out of contract with my current provider I'll need to reconsider this as the supplier I'm likely to move to has no obvious/simple/integrated backup option. tl;dr FTTP. A single outage event in 16 months, lasted 40 minu…

I was with a small company called BRSK who did the FTTP rollout in my area, I think they have changed hands a few times now, but the sheer reliability was legit 5-9s. I don't legally fully understand how small companies ended up getting lots of money from the government for FTTP but they absolutely crushed it in my area. Shame they got mega review-bombed because they installed telegraph poles outside people's houses…

> the sheer reliability was legit 5-9s

That made me think about mine...

a) FTTC:

25 months and only outages were 17m36s, 47m7s, 31m22s gives ~99.991

b) FTTP:

16 months and a single 40m11s outage gives ~99.994

(Both using 30 day months, the answers remain the same to 5sf even if I calculate the durations more accurately.)

I'd happily take 4 nines for residential broadband.

> I don't legally fully understand how small companies ended up getting lots of money from the government for FTTP

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/project-gigabit-uk-gigabit-progr...

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#136

Post by annexrichmond »

hrmtst93837 wrote: post #133
kkapelon wrote: post #8

Using a 4g/5g router is much easier and probably cheaper/power efficient. Depending on your area you don't even need an external one. A simple 4g dongle would do.

[flagged]

100%. In my area unfortunately my ISP shares the same infra as my mobile provider. Many times they’ve gone out together.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#137

Post by polishdude20 »

nine_k wrote: post #83
zzyzxd wrote: post #81

I have a GL.iNet travel router. When I am not travel, it connects to the router's second WAN port. If my main internet goes down, it takes me 30 seconds to tether my phone and failover manually. My carrier detects and throttles hotspot traffic by measuring packets TTL, so I tweaks the router's iptables to dodge that. Typically I get over 400 Mbps. From time to time I get the itch to improve my home network uptime, an…

(Tangential, regarding GL.Net routers: I find it satisfying that these routers run OpenWRT out of the box, and top the "Travel routers" category on Amazon: "Overall Pick" and "Amazon's Choice".)

It's probably because usually normal people don't but routers because they get them included in their internet subscription. So the people buying them have a specific reason to that normal routers don't do

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#138

Post by boredatoms »

jonathonlui wrote: post #117
codethief wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> My carrier detects and throttles hotspot traffic by measuring packets TTL, so I tweaks the router's iptables to dodge that. Could you elaborate on this?

Some mobile phone providers check the packet TTL to limit tethering. Network packets commonly have start with default TTL values of 64, 128, or 255. Each hop in the network subtracts 1. When phone connects direct to carrier (cell tower, I assume) the carrier will see TTL of 64. A laptop tethered to a phone introduces a hop so laptop-to-phone TTL is 64, phone-to-carrier TTL is 63. Carriers can then limit bandwidth if…

How do you figure out what detection method a carrier is using?

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#139

Post by alexfoo »

bdavbdav wrote: post #100
Reubend wrote: 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…

I live a 25 minute train ride from london in a town with about 16000 residents, on a busy street 5 minutes walk from the main station. My cell is unusable.

Three in Hitchin?

My personal mobile is on EE. My wife's is on Vodafone. My work mobile was on O2.

(We don't have a fourth device that was on Three unfortunately, otherwise we'd have all of the major carriers covered.)

There are plenty of places I've been around the UK where only one of our devices could get any kind of signal.

Re: Starlink Mini as a failover

#140

Post by grasbergerm »

GaryBluto wrote: post #71
jofzar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Elon is publicly terrible, on the Epstein list and supports the far right. It's the easiest non support of my life, I don't use Twitter, don't have a Tesla, don't use grok.

Elon Musk is far from the nicest person in the world and there are many fair reasons to dislike him but he wasn't in "the Epstein list" (whatever that is), he was pictured with a number of other tech CEOs at a dinner with Epstein, who was a wealthy financier.

I don't normally engage with comments like this as I assume there's no hope for someone who may be so willfully blind to the facts. My comment is more for those who might read what you wrote and accept it as truth.

I believe the previous commenter was referring to Musk's emails with Epstein, many of which were released by the DOJ Jan. 30th earlier this year. On Nov 25, 2012, Musk asked Epstein "What day/night will be the wildest party on your island?" Source: https://www.justice.gov/epstein/files/DataSet%2010/EFTA01977...

So I think it would be fair to say he had more involvement with Epstein than a dinner. Epstein was a convicted sex offender since 2008, so it's not like people around Epstein didn't know who they were dealing with.

Post reply on HN