Starlink - anybody finding this the best internet solution for where you're located?

[day_trippr]

I had just heard the PNW was bereft of rain of late. fwiw, my first year living on the Olympic Peninsula side of Hood Canal 4 decades ago was the driest in decades which had left me wondering where that soggy reputation came from. Payback came the following year, one of the wettest in recent history

Cheers!

 

[matt_m]

I don't have it but have a coworker that does. He regularly breaks up on Teams calls, esp with video. Obviously way better than the DirecWay dish I had 20 years ago at a rural location but its no replacement for the 1.2GB/40MB cable I have today at a suburban location.

I spent 7 years at that rural location working from home with a 3G card, then a $$$ 3G service with proprietary hardware, then DSL that might have been worse than 3G, then finally cable. We put the house up for sale before the cable line was even buried. I've talked to the new owner of that property a couple times and they've had reliability issue with the cable despite it being a full new fiber buildout for miles. I bet I could count on my fingers our outages at this location in the last 8 years.

Eventually we'll probably move again and will consider reliable internet as critical as electricity.

 

[sweetcell]

• starlink = unlimited data, high speed, high reliability*, and low cost

welp, looks like "unlimited data" is about to get an asterisk:

To ensure our customer base is not negatively impacted by a small number of users consuming unusually high amounts of data, the Starlink team is implementing a Fair Use policy in the US and Canada in December 2022. Based on your data usage over the last six months, this policy will have no impact on your service if your usage patterns stay the same. Under the Fair Use policy, all Residential customers will receive unlimited data, and will start each month with Priority Access, which means their data usage will be prioritized during times of network congestion. Customers who exceed 1 TB of data use on a monthly basis (currently < 10% of users) will automatically be switched to Basic Access for the remainder of the billing cycle, which means their data usage will be deprioritized during times of network congestion, resulting in slower speeds. Data used between 11pm - 7am will not count towards your Priority Access. Starting today, you can now monitor your data usage on your account page. Read more in Starlink’s Fair Use policy and in the Terms of Service. Thank you for being an early customer and for your continued support of Starlink! Starlink Team

 

[sweetcell]

additional details:

Starlink ends its unlimited satellite Internet data policy as download speeds keep dropping​

 

[Boilinginsc]

So price went up, wait till next year is the message I got, and now this.
I might have to pass at this point.

 

[oakbarn]

I just moved to T Mobile 5g internet and it is better than my fiber was. I have had no issues. I dumped TV for steaming a couple of years ago and was amazed at how easy and cost saving it was. I mostly watch Prime Video or Netflix (free with my T Mobile phones. It also includes Apple TV and Paramount plus.) Tubi and Feevee provide plenty of movies for free as well. I never was a big fan of standard network shows so it was easy for me.

The cost is only $50 total per month where FIOS was $79. (I actually get it for $30 with my Military Magenta Max Plan).

 

[sweetcell]

1 TB is a hell of a lot of data. in my house two people use it for work-from-home, AKA constant video calls all day monday to friday. all our TV comes over the 'net (Prime, Netflix, Disney+, etc.). every night i watch several hours of YT vids at 1080p or higher... and yet last month we used under 0.6 TB. per the email Starlink sent, over the past 6 months we haven't hit 1 TB, so i'm unconcerned. this data cap is theoretical for us - hence the asterisk.

 

[matt_m]

Comcast has a 1.2TB limit which we've never even come close to hitting despite 2 of us working from home and all our entertainment being streamed. I spend roughly half my work week on calls, mostly Teams. The rest of the time I'm utilizing remote resources, and rarely transfer large files these days. My wife's work is almost completely through Citrix. Our peak has been 746GB and 600 is more typical. Summer before last when our 20YO daughter is home we came close but she turned of wifi on her phone and it magically improved. I'm fairly convinced on of the social media apps the kids these days use is extremely data intensive, even compared to Netfilx/YouTube/Peacock/Hulu.

 

[hout17]

Even with the changes Starlink is still far better than Viasat.

 

[Rodent]

Survived a cold, often snowy/icy winter and never had an issue with ice build up on the dish. Even a blizzard type snowfall one Jan afternoon didn't cause issues with my VPN connection and video calls with customers.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Starlink will be available in my area in mid-2022. The equipment will cost $500, and the service will cost $99 per month.

No; wait. It will be available in late 2023. The service will cost $110 per month, and now the equipment costs $600.

Elon keeps moving the carrot.

I now have what is known as "best effort" Starlink. It means I pay the full Starlink price, but the service is a lot slower. I see insane speeds (by my area's standards) when I use various speed tests, but what Starlink doesn't tell you is that tests are rigged. I may see 100 Mbps when I test, but I download at 3 Mbps a lot of the time.

It sounds great not to have a contract, but Elon doesn't have a contract, either, so he can do anything he wants. When the price here went up, I wasn't asked to consent. I was informed.

Starlink is much better than the garbage phone-line service I had at first, and it's better than the cell-based service that replaced it, but it's not fantastic.

 

[Rodent]

I'm currently VPN connected to Corp HQ in Europe, and Speedtest.net just returned this at 6P local (fairly close to as much peak usage as there will be today)

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

Here is what I was told: ISP's are aware people use Speedtest, so they have worked it out so it gets better performance than other sites.

I judge my speed by downloading files, and it's not pretty.

 

[sweetcell]

Survived a cold, often snowy/icy winter and never had an issue with ice build up on the dish. Even a blizzard type snowfall one Jan afternoon didn't cause issues with my VPN connection and video calls with customers.

the dish has a heater that turns on to melt snow. i was impressed by that bit of design.

 

[Rodent]

the dish has a heater that turns on to melt snow. i was impressed by that bit of design.

The ability to work during inclement weather is a feature I've been tracking and updating here. I was curious how well the features would work in the real world vs advertisement selling fluff, and so far the hardware has been delivering beyond specs.

Even the high temps last summer didn't cause for ol' Dishy to do a thermal shutdown, and I was able to remain working on endless mind-numbing video calls with heavy data transfer to/from remote servers while connected via VPM (o, and also with my SO streaming movies on the big TV in the other room)

 

[corkybstewart]

the dish has a heater that turns on to melt snow. i was impressed by that bit of design.

What powers the heater?

 

[Rodent]

there's a low voltage feed thru the cable connecting the dish to the modem base unit. you can set the heat capability to on/auto/off via a setting in the app

Edited to add this interesting read: Starlink in the Snow

 

[corkybstewart]

there's a low voltage feed thru the cable connecting the dish to the modem base unit. you can set the heat capability to on/auto/off via a setting in the app

Edited to add this interesting read: Starlink in the Snow

Interesting. Where we live now in NM we normally only have a handful of days over 100F, and we're not usually here in the summer anyway. But somebody usually is so we'd have to take that into account.

 

[sweetcell]

1 TB is a hell of a lot of data. in my house two people use it for work-from-home, AKA constant video calls all day monday to friday. all our TV comes over the 'net (Prime, Netflix, Disney+, etc.). every night i watch several hours of YT vids at 1080p or higher... and yet last month we used under 0.6 TB. per the email Starlink sent, over the past 6 months we haven't hit 1 TB, so i'm unconcerned. this data cap is theoretical for us - hence the asterisk.

welp, that theoretical concern is no more:

from:	Starlink <[email protected]>
to:	<me>
date:	May 2, 2023, 7:31 PM
subject:	Starlink Fair Use Update

Good news! Your Starlink subscription will remain unlimited and will no longer be deprioritized after 1 TB of data use.

We’ve updated our Terms and Conditions to reflect this change. See the Starlink Fair Use policy to learn how we manage our network for the benefit of all customers.

 

[Rodent]

welp, that theoretical concern is no more:

from:	Starlink <[email protected]>
to:	<me>
date:	May 2, 2023, 7:31 PM
subject:	Starlink Fair Use Update

Good news! Your Starlink subscription will remain unlimited and will no longer be deprioritized after 1 TB of data use.

We’ve updated our Terms and Conditions to reflect this change. See the Starlink Fair Use policy to learn how we manage our network for the benefit of all customers.

Was coming here to post the same update. I'm on Zoom/Chime/etc ... video calls all day long, work with large datafiles pulled/pushed on remote servers, and the fam streams movies a large part of those same hours, and we stream a lot in the evenings, and closest I ever came to the cap was once when I exceeded 80% on my allocation.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I contacted Starlink because I was on "Best Effort," and I asked if they had any idea when it would improve. They gave me unexpected news. They said I was already supposed to have normal service, and they said they had just made some kind of adjustment to make it faster.

I found out my router has two bands, and they can be separated so you have one at 2.4 and one at 5. I separated them because some devices won't work on 5, and because 2.4 has better range and far greater speed than I will ever actually get. I'm not quite sure why anyone needs the 5 GHz band when 2.4 goes 3 times as fast as the Internet itself. I don't know what the web can do under ideal conditions, but I have never gotten a speed test better than around 135 Mbps. Maybe some nerd can explain it.

It seems like 5 Ghz is all downside where I am.

 

[day_trippr]

I'm not quite sure why anyone needs the 5 GHz band when 2.4 goes 3 times as fast as the Internet itself.

fwiw, whatever max bandwidth a router can actually provide on a channel is shared between all the connected clients. And those clients may be "conversing" between themselves - LAN traffic - which can benefit from higher spec bandwidth if it is actualized...

Cheers!

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

So not a big issue here at the Heavily Armed North Florida Compound, unless intruders breach the perimeter and guess my password so they can look at porn on my dime.

 

[corkybstewart]

My parents live in rural New Mexico and Viasat was their only option and it's total crap. Starlink has been a godsend for them.

I live in rural New Mexico and we're looking seriously at Starlink. We have decent line of sight service from a mountain top antenna 4 miles away, but last winter the antenna blew over in a blizzard. Luckily neither of us work and we still have good internet on our cell phones because Verizon also has their tower up there.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

The thing I don't like is that Musk jacks up the price without warning. There is no contract. Also, when I signed up for the waitlist based on a price Musk promised, I got charged a higher price when I got my equipment. What will it cost next month? Ask Musk. He can ask for ten thousand dollars if he wants.

 

[whoaru99]

Prices increases are nothing new. Far as I know most Internet services are month by month. Sure, there are some exceptions like maybe some sort of promo rate or the occasional "price for life" thing but month by month is the norm, afaik.

 

[whoaru99]

He can ask for ten thousand dollars if he wants.

Perhaps, but I presume everyone who has a more normal income decides at some point it's not worth it to them and kicks it to the curb.

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

I get 2-year contracts with Verizon. There is pretty much no hope another cell provider will work here in the foreseeable future, so I'm happy to sign. I would be using Verizon Internet if I could, but they don't offer enough monthly data. AT&T does, but the signal is bad.

 

[whoaru99]

... I'm not quite sure why anyone needs the 5 GHz band when 2.4 goes 3 times as fast as the Internet itself. I don't know what the web can do under ideal conditions, but I have never gotten a speed test better than around 135 Mbps. Maybe some nerd can explain it.

There are several variables involved regarding wireless throughput, all of which are well detailed on the Internet so I won't rehash all that here.

But, for an example why I use the 5GHz band when possible is shown below. And, yes, we have several IoT devices that only work on 2.4G so both bands are active at our house.

These two results are on the same computer, same router, same seating position, same Internet provider, same everything except switching the computer from the 5Ghz band to the 2.4Ghz band and a minute or two between tests to make that change.

Our Internet service is nominally 300/10 (that's the rated speed package) but with the typical overprovisioning we get more actual than that.

You can see why 5GHz is preferable in this case.

5G:

2.4G

 

[Clint Yeastwood]

What do you think of me making 2.4 the default in my house? I never get real downloads anywhere near the theoretical 5 GHz or even 2.4 GHz maximums, but I want the best range and reliability possible. My guess is that 5 GHz will not download any faster, but it will drop more often and give me shorter range.

Do you really trust Speedtest? It is said to be rigged by ISP's that want to impress their customers. If I were really getting 135 MBps, I would never see 4K buffering. I just got 52 down/13 up, but testfiledownload.com gave me about 5 MBps down.