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First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

starlinkhardware.com

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Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#161

Post by lazide »

yencabulator wrote: post #150
lazide wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are poe injectors that also fit the weird plug on the dishy and work well (48v). That said, you’re still talking 50-80 watts which is significant on a battery. It takes awhile for the signal to stabilize too, so it’s not the type of thing that does well turning it on for 15 minutes of usage.

> for the signal to stabilize too Weirdly analog expression, considering a device that hops from satellite to satellite very frequently. It takes ~10 minutes for Dishy to get a GPS fix and to do a wide beam slow-bandwidth download of exact satellite location data.

It also takes some time to build high resolution obstruction data. If you have perfect views, not an issue, but that is rare.

Until that happens, you’ll experience unpredictable short loss of signal when it can’t talk to a sat it expects to be able to for a second or two due to a branch, building, etc.

Usually 30 mins to a couple hrs and you’re fine, depending on the site and how much traffic. The more traffic, the faster it can find the ‘dead pixels’ and route around them.

Remarkable tech!

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#162

Post by janettansy »

wkat4242 wrote: post #127
theodric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

€50 in Ireland, down from €65 in the last year, down from €99 in 2022. Because they know where you are, and how much money your average target customer in a country has, and how saturated their satellites in that country are, they can be very specific about pricing.

Average disposable income in Ireland is a lot higher than in Spain (source: I moved to Spain from Ireland myself). So there must be more at play there than just purchasing power. If it was purely based on that it would be more like 70 euro compared to Spain's 40. Could be saturation indeed, as Ireland is very sparse in rural areas. And so is Spain, outside the few urban centres.

The Republic Ireland is rolling out fiber to all properties. The standard rate for gigabit fiber is ~60 euro at the moment, less if you just want 500mbs, so SpaceX was just responding to competition as fiber got to more and more properties.

Getting Starlink a few years ago was the first time we had reliable internet at our family farm, and we were stoked. We also started getting better and better service as fiber rolled out across the country, but we never got above 250mbs. Now that fiber is here, it's no longer necessary except perhaps as a backup.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#166

Post by paulgerhardt »

grecy wrote: post #22
paulgerhardt wrote: post #11

Feels like this is a direct response to the Amazon / Project Kuiper 7” terminal announced last year: https://www.aboutamazon.com/news/innovation-at-amazon/heres-...

The major difference being the Starlink mini terminal has 6,078 satellites to connect to today to provide functioning internet, vs the Project Kuiper terminals that can connect to a grand total of zero satellites.

The Kuiper proto-network came online in November last year with two satellites [1][2]. If you live near their Denver office you can pick them up on Ka band or just look up their id’s on CelesTrak or NORAD (2023-154A and 2023-154B).

Having had one of the first 1,000 dishy V1’s (at least by MAC address) I’m as big of a fan of Starlink as anyone if not more so, but even I have some reservations about cheerleading a low-earth orbit communication monopoly. Yes these other guys are behind but it’s intellectually dishonest to call it vapor ware or “zero”.

I plan on supporting both networks and more if possible just as with GNSS.

[1] https://www.reuters.com/technology/amazons-prototype-kuiper-...

[2] https://youtu.be/K34ch_L_YxY

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#167

Post by theodric »

wkat4242 wrote: post #127
theodric wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

€50 in Ireland, down from €65 in the last year, down from €99 in 2022. Because they know where you are, and how much money your average target customer in a country has, and how saturated their satellites in that country are, they can be very specific about pricing.

Average disposable income in Ireland is a lot higher than in Spain (source: I moved to Spain from Ireland myself). So there must be more at play there than just purchasing power. If it was purely based on that it would be more like 70 euro compared to Spain's 40. Could be saturation indeed, as Ireland is very sparse in rural areas. And so is Spain, outside the few urban centres.

I'll grant that Spanish people are on a bit less than the Irish, but please don't be misled by GDP Per Capita numbers. Irish people are hurting, especially in the parts of the country beyond greater Dublin. Dublin is well-served by €20/mo all you can eat 5G that seems to hit 300Mbps without effort, so there's no reason to compete with that. But out in the Cork mountains, where the broadband readiness date has now slipped two years to "Jan-Dec 2026," most people I know are hand to mouth or on assistance or at least not earning Dublin bucks. €50 is a stretch for such, but €20 for LTE was barely getting me 2Mb when I finally gave up on it, despite having a baller antenna.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#168

Post by theodric »

trompetenaccoun wrote: post #139
theodric wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tesla and SpaceX collectively employ 113,000 people, and I really think the story should be more about them than the guy who has the keys to the nicest office in the building. Gwynne Shotwell is a hell of an administrator. Without Starlink, I wouldn't have broadband! Elon Musk makes his questionable opinions public, but we don't know if the Hughes or Chevrolet CEO has bad opinions for which they must be cancelled, be…

In a liberal and civilized society no one "must be cancelled" for opinions. And I personally much prefer they openly share their convictions than sneakily hiding behind corporate speak. What you're describing is done out of cowardice and greed. Maybe Tesla's stock would be higher if Musk let his PR team do the tweeting, like Bezos does. But why would anyone sensible want to listen to that? They'll say anything as lon…

Nuance lost while attempting to approach the topic from GP's perspective. I don't personally adhere to cancel mob culture. My point is: they're likely all some variety of cartoon villain, given (my experience of) the sort of people who make it to that level, so singling out a bunch of compelling products because you know one specific dude who is peripherally involved is a socially-inept tosser is disingenuous at best and self-sabotage at worst.

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#169

Post by BenjiWiebe »

hoseja wrote: post #103
Ringz wrote: post #100

From the headline, I had hoped that they were smaller Starlink satellites that no longer spoil the night sky so much. I haven't heard from this topic for a long time. Except that there is a darker coating for the newer satellites. Does anyone know how long the individual satellites are in operation before they are sent back to the Earth's atmosphere to have hot fun there?

Have you ever actually had the night sky spoiled by a Starlink?

For backyard astronomy, light pollution is far worse than starlink satellites - and I live in a rural area!

Re: First look at the upcoming Starlink Mini

#170

Post by rescbr »

mathsmath wrote: post #135
dboreham wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But I don't think they have any subscription plans priced for that? As a former owner of a WISP, this idea of a "backup service" doesn't really work (read: I make no money from you).

Sure it does! I’m rural and our phones/ISP went out last week. I activated our Starlink roam (you can access the captive portal while service is disabled) & all the remote working neighbors came over and shared the connection. It worked great!

What do you mean? Can I just buy a dish, don't activate any subscription and just when necessary enable roam?
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