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Setting up Starlink

jeffgeerling.com

191–200 of 340 posts

Re: Setting up Starlink

#191
post #179

I’ve been using Starlink for a few months now. It’s great for the cost. One annoying thing is their super non-standard and kind of broken network setup if you want to use your own router. They have two subnets with different IP ranges (cgNAT and local) on the same Ethernet link. You have to do some weird manual routes, interface resets, and dhcp client configuration if you want things to work reliably.

The issue you're seeing there, using your own router, is that during a network-unavailability outage, the starlink terminal will continue serving as a DHCP server to whatever you plug into it. When the network is up and you plug a router into it that's a dhcp client, it'll get an IP address in cgnat space and periodically renew it.

When they're doing network maintenance/beta downtime/terminal firmware updates, your router will fail to get an IP address in the cgnat space, but the terminal itself will give the router a new lease in 192.168.100.x (you can ping the antenna at 192.168.100.1), and your router will be happy because it has successfully received a lease and can keep renewing it).

Then when the network unavailability is finished, your router keeps its 192.168.100.whatever address and the terminal doesn't issue it a new cgnat address.

This sort of setup is weird and not normal, so once your default-configuration DHCP client WAN port router is stuck, you need to manually tell it to go get a new lease, or set up your dhcp client in such a way that it always rejects IPs and leases in 192.168.100.x. I can see why they do it, because they want the starlink app on peoples' phones to be able to communicate with the grpc endpoint on the terminal during outages.

But they'll clearly need to do something different with the terminal's firmware and how it treats BYOD router customers, because people will expect to connect a ordinary DHCP client and have it 'just work', and resume working after an outage has cleared.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#192

I'm using Starlink right now. AMA. I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later. My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to…

I wish I had 60 mbps :( That would be a big upgrade for a lot of people.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#193
I have Starlink and am in a wooded part of New England. I mostly agree with freedomben's points. All I will add is I still use my cell phone hotspot (Verizon -- only carrier that gets a modicum of service where I am) for Zoom calls or similar. Starlink is definitely fast but too many hiccups for video calls.

Edit: More musings. There is a push to get broadband in our area within the year. If that happens and Starlink's service remains the same, I will cancel Starlink. For me continuous connectivity is much^3 more important than speed.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) For many of us that's reasonably fast ;). In the UK, FTTC provided over POTS (often BT or some form of unbundle), the top end is 80Mbs/20Mbs. I don't know what you'd expect with cable provisioned areas supplied by the likes of Virgin (DOCSIS).

Oh 60 is fast around here too. I mostly meant that I've never seen a download start slow and progressively get faster. If anything it usually bursts at the begihning and then throttles back (comcast did that to me the most)

I've observed download starting slow and getting faster on all connection types: dialup, DSL, fibre, mobile wireless from 2g to 4g. It's just how TCP operates. Interesting that your experience on Comcast is different.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is OT but can you share a little bit more about what it's like living in East Idaho? I grew up in Boise and now live in Chicago but with the way things have been going lately I've been considering moving back, and there's a real appeal to living in a smaller town in the eastern part of the state (my dad was from Twin Falls). Internet access is always a bit of a concern though, which maybe Starlink ameliorates? S…

I know a few people from the Seattle area who do part time work there - unless you enjoy and agree with religious fundamentalists, die-hard MAGA anti maskers or people whose personality revolves around owning 35 guns, you might want to spend some time there first... Boise by comparison is much more secular and liberal than some of those areas.

I’m sure the generalization earned the downvotes but candid opinions good and bad help paint a more well rounded picture, thanks.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ah yes, thanks! I did mean thirties but I changed it to `ms` to avoid confusion :-)

I have never heard of adding 'ies' onto the end of numbers to mean 'ms'. I'm (probably) not alone, fyi! What industry is that lexicon from?

Internet connection speeds, in context. Latencies faster than milliseconds are not found in home internet connections (or anywhere maybe?) and 30 second latencies in Starlink would have prevented the product from even existing or would imply faulty hardware.

Re: Setting up Starlink

#199

I really hope StarLink completely replaces CenturyLink DSL. CenturyLink DSL 30mbps DOWN and 5mbps UP, real world speed is 2mbps DOWN and 512mbps UP. Never goes above this speed. CenturyLink DSL is a complete rip off. Costs $45 and they charge for the modem $10. $55/month total I would be willing to pay $99/month if it had at least real world speed of 30mbps DOWN and 5mbps UP ^_^

512mbps UP?

Re: Setting up Starlink

#200
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I live in the city center of a major city and the only wired provider available at my address peaks out at 0.3 Mbit/s upload during workdays. 4G is better, but not by much (given that apparently everyone of my neighbors has already switched to that in favor of the cable provider). One of my neighbors has already pre-ordered Starlink.

Try to downgrade to 3G, it is in phone setting, you should get 3 Mbps easily.

Many carriers are now reducing radio bandiwdth available to 3G due to reallocating spectrum to 4G (or even 5G) so this isn't a viable long term plan.
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