Starlink is very good

[Brian Hall]

I received my Starlink package Wednesday. It took about 30 minutes to set it up counting drilling to get the cable inside. The cable that ships with it is 15 meters (for the metric fans) which I think is a little short. With that cable length there is only a slight obstruction from one tree. I ordered a longer cable (45 meters) and will be moving it further out in the field and mounting it on a pole.

The newest generation does not require a motor, just a manual alignment towards the North. The app leads you through all the steps and is well done.

I'm located in Southeast Oklahoma and my speeds are averaging about 220mbps download and 42mpbs upload. Quite an upgrade from 25mpbs DSL.

Everything mostly worked right away except for Roon and XBox. Had large delays doing anything with Roon and Xbox couldn't get open NAT or UPnP. I did some reading and almost all issues are resolved by adding a good external router and setting the Starlink router to bypass mode. That worked and now Roon and Xbox are both happy.

Had a pretty heavy storm one night and didn't have any issues with disconnects or speed so Starlink can handle heavy rain as they claim.

So far I am very happy with it and would recommend it to anyone with limited options for internet.

 

[Blumlein 88]

What did is cost to get it up and running and what are they charging monthly for that now?

 

[Brian Hall]

What did is cost to get it up and running and what are they charging monthly for that now?

The hardware was $680. Add to that a longer cable for $95 and the kit to mount the antenna on a pole for $35 for me. You may not need those.

The monthly cost is $120.

Edited to add: The antenna can just sit on the ground if you have a good spot for it. I'm going to mount it on a fence post so my lawn service doesn't run over it.

 

[DWPress]

I agree, really the only usable option for me. For over a decade I had to rely on AT&T data connections spread out over my 3 buildings here in the bottom of a heavily wooded valley by a river. I needed the 45 meter cable too, just to get it in a clear area, I have the Gen2 Starlink so motor, heater, etc.

I link into an Asus modem for bypass mode as well. I've looked at various POE alternatives to their very expensive cable but the reviews still don't look great. Not looking forward to the day it'll have to be replaced. I've had the service for about a year now, aside from costs, no complaints.

 

[Chrispy]

Are those speeds readily available or do they fluctuate like cable? My dsl was more like 8mpbs, but get up to 200 from the more recently available cable services here.....

 

[Brian Hall]

Are those speeds readily available or do they fluctuate like cable? My dsl was more like 8mpbs, but get up to 200 from the more recently available cable services here.....

I've been checking pretty often out of curiosity. The lowest I have seen is 142mbps so far. Just checked again. 172mbps now. I have Roon streaming a Paganini album right now from Tidal or Qobuz so that would be taking a little of my bandwidth.

The only outages have been when it downloaded a software update. Two of those since I got it last Wednesday after the initial setup. I understand they are really working to get the latency down. That last test showed latency of 47 Ms.

 

[beefkabob]

Because of Musk's behavior, I dropped Starlink. Did it work? Yeah. Was it as good as terrestrial wifi? No. Faster, but a lot of little drops.

 

[Brian Hall]

Because of Musk's behavior, I dropped Starlink. Did it work? Yeah. Was it as good as terrestrial wifi? No. Faster, but a lot of little drops.

I don't care about Musk's behavior. I am not seeing drops except as mentioned for software updates and those are fast. No wifi internet vendors around here.

My choices were 512kbps cable, 25mbps DSL or Starlink.

I still get mailers from the cable company advertising high speed internet in my area. I don't think 512kbps qualifies as high speed.

 

[Chrispy]

I've been checking pretty often out of curiosity. The lowest I have seen is 142mbps so far. Just checked again. 172mbps now. I have Roon streaming a Paganini album right now from Tidal or Qobuz so that would be taking a little of my bandwidth.

The only outages have been when it downloaded a software update. Two of those since I got it last Wednesday after the initial setup. I understand they are really working to get the latency down. That last test showed latency of 47 Ms.

Cool. Did try a sat service that was worse than dsl in another out-in-the-boonies place I lived previously. Glad we at least have a fiber fed cable system now instead of just dsl....

 

[beefkabob]

I'd take 25 mbps DSL. Less latency and more reliability.

 

[Brian Hall]

I'd take 25 mbps DSL. Less latency and more reliability.

Usually had 65 or higher latency with DSL. Starlink is an improvement over that.

 

[Blumlein 88]

I'd take 25 mbps DSL. Less latency and more reliability.

My only experiences with DSL have been that it is glitchy and latency was inconsistent (often high). That it is variable in speed with time of day. Maybe some aren't, but it hardly seems as good as the usual cable at the same speeds or higher. Fiber optic is nice all the way around. 5G wireless seems to work better than DSL though it too can have variable speeds during the day in many areas. The main issue is in many areas of the USA you don't have much of a choice in the first place. Starlink is a reasonable alternative choice not circumscribed by your location.

 

[-Matt-]

I'm pretty interested in the latency that can be achieved with Starlink. Would you consider setting up a broadband quality monitor?

https://www.thinkbroadband.com/broadband/monitoring/quality

It is a good system and allows you to log latency and dropouts over time to make nice charts like this:

 

[Chrispy]

My only experiences with DSL have been that it is glitchy and latency was inconsistent (often high). That it is variable in speed with time of day. Maybe some aren't, but it hardly seems as good as the usual cable at the same speeds or higher. Fiber optic is nice all the way around. 5G wireless seems to work better than DSL though it too can have variable speeds during the day in many areas. The main issue is in many areas of the USA you don't have much of a choice in the first place. Starlink is a reasonable alternative choice not circumscribed by your location.

I think its not too dissimilar from the "cable" companies ideas of speed/latency other than what they say what you "might" get. It's definitely less in my experience than a few different cable feeds before I got stuck with dsl....and am not too far away from the box when I had the dsl....I knew folk further away that got much less "service".

 

[amirm]

My son was stuck on 5 mbit/sec DSL and huge monthly costs from phone company. Cable was just a few miles away but they would not run it to their neighborhood. Seemed the phone company has fiber nearby but they too would refuse to run it. He got on the waitlist for starlink and got it a few months ago. Like OP, he is extremely happy with the speed and reliability.

 

[Brian Hall]

 

[Brian Hall]

AT&T 5g speed here.

My phone plan allows 50gb per month of fast 5g which is not enough for even one large game update on Xbox.

 

[Doodski]

Hi @Brian Hall. I was involved in the early days of TV satellite reception with 12 foot mesh dishes or 10 foot spun aluminum dishes and a actuator motor for accessing many satellites with TV, sports and porn channels. We would do everything from pouring the concrete for the mast/pole, assemble all the dish stuff and mount up the polar-rotor and feedhorn and run wires to the house, calibrate the alignment of the dish across the Clark Belt and program the electronics and teach the customer to use it and provide a warranty. It was pretty cool stuff and made lotsa money doing that. I am specifically intrigued with the alignment calibration procedure that you used for this Starlink system that you aligned/calibrated recently. Can you give us a rundown of the alignment procedure so we have a little insight into that? That would be ace.

 

[Brian Hall]

Hi @Brian Hall. I was involved in the early days of TV satellite reception with 12 foot mesh dishes or 10 foot spun aluminum dishes and a actuator motor for accessing many satellites with TV, sports and porn channels. We would do everything from pouring the concrete for the mast/pole, assemble all the dish stuff and mount up the polar-rotor and feedhorn and run wires to the house, calibrate the alignment of the dish across the Clark Belt and program the electronics and teach the customer to use it and provide a warranty. It was pretty cool stuff and made lotsa money doing that. I am specifically intrigued with the alignment calibration procedure that you used for this Starlink system that you aligned/calibrated recently. Can you give us a rundown of the alignment procedure so we have a little insight into that? That would be ace.

I had one of those large dishes for TV in the 80s.

The Starlink app shows an alignment screen and you just move the rectangular antenna around until it shows aligned. I'll show a picture of it.

 

[Doodski]

I had one of those large dishes for TV in the 80s.

The Starlink app shows an alignment screen and you just move the rectangular antenna around until it shows aligned. I'll show a picture of it.

Wow...That's all? That is very cool.