One week of Starlink

[lucusloc]

Every month when I get the notice that I paid Concast I think maybe its time to give them a try. Pretty sure the contract we signed with them is about to expire.

IMHO sat internet is a lot less attractive when you have hardwired broadband available. No matte how good sat interned get it seems like it will always be less robust than a hard line solution. Maybe the future will prove me wrong on that point, but for now if I had the option to go with a hard line broadband solution I would take that.

Where sat shines is you can get it anywhere, and that means you don't have to live in the hellholes where hard line broadband is usually found. I will happily pay the sat premium to live somewhere I want, instead of where broadband providers are willing to invest in infrastructure.

 

[The Heretic]

IMHO sat internet is a lot less attractive when you have hardwired broadband available. No matte how good sat interned get it seems like it will always be less robust than a hard line solution. Maybe the future will prove me wrong on that point, but for now if I had the option to go with a hard line broadband solution I would take that.

Where sat shines is you can get it anywhere, and that means you don't have to live in the hellholes where hard line broadband is usually found. I will happily pay the sat premium to live somewhere I want, instead of where broadband providers are willing to invest in infrastructure.

I've had cable, fiber, DSL phone, Starlink and Cell.

IME fiber, then Cell (TMobile) and then Starlink - in that order - have been the most reliable - although I had to reset the modem on fiber and have not had to reset anything with TMobile.

*shrug* probably depends on where you are - but recently my neighborhood (extremely rural) has had landline phone service interrupted for days to several weeks - reportedly due to road grader taking out a junction box alongside the road. That doesn't include the times that the utility lines were taken down due to trees/limbs because of wind/ice/snow - which happens several times in the winter. And that doesn't include the couple of times a car has taken out a utility line pole.

Starlink has had outages that last a few minutes to a couple hours when I was using it, but I've had power outages in the winter more often than Starlink outages.

That said, if I had fiber, I would not use Starlink. Starlink is for those people who have no other options.

 

[oregunbob541]

IMHO sat internet is a lot less attractive when you have hardwired broadband available. No matte how good sat interned get it seems like it will always be less robust than a hard line solution. Maybe the future will prove me wrong on that point, but for now if I had the option to go with a hard line broadband solution I would take that.

Where sat shines is you can get it anywhere, and that means you don't have to live in the hellholes where hard line broadband is usually found. I will happily pay the sat premium to live somewhere I want, instead of where broadband providers are willing to invest in infrastructure.

During the recent ice storm, all other internet options including cable, DSL and cell hotspot type boxes were offline. Starlink was the only provider that was still online in my local rural area.

 

[The Heretic]

During the recent ice storm, all other internet options including cable, DSL and cell hotspot type boxes were offline. Starlink was the only provider that was still online in my local rural area.

My TMHI worked fine - but yes, cell towers are vulnerable if the power goes out in an area and the tower backup power is exhausted (if it has backup - not sure about urban towers). In the past, the cell towers around here (very rural) would seem to exhibit decreased signal if there was a widespread power outage. I haven't seen such an outage since TM upgraded to 5G.

That said, if you have backup power, or as long as you have grid power, Starlink should work fine. If one of their base stations goes down, the satellite just switches to a different base station - there are five (last I checked) in the PNW area. If a wide area backbone goes down - say west of the Rockies - then a satellite can use a laser interconnect to another satellite to maintain connectivity. This is how they provide connectivity over oceans. While I now use TMHI because it is less than half the cost, I kept one SL system setup so if there is something like a Cascadian earthquake, I can get the system service restored to it within a few hours.

That said, if the power goes out, my TMHI system only uses 5-10 watts while SL uses 50-100 watts, so the TMHI system will last longer on batteries.

 

[Alexx1401]

My TMHI worked fine - but yes, cell towers are vulnerable if the power goes out in an area and the tower backup power is exhausted (if it has backup - not sure about urban towers). In the past, the cell towers around here (very rural) would seem to exhibit decreased signal if there was a widespread power outage. I haven't seen such an outage since TM upgraded to 5G.

That said, if you have backup power, or as long as you have grid power, Starlink should work fine. If one of their base stations goes down, the satellite just switches to a different base station - there are five (last I checked) in the PNW area. If a wide area backbone goes down - say west of the Rockies - then a satellite can use a laser interconnect to another satellite to maintain connectivity. This is how they provide connectivity over oceans. While I now use TMHI because it is less than half the cost, I kept one SL system setup so if there is something like a Cascadian earthquake, I can get the system service restored to it within a few hours.

That said, if the power goes out, my TMHI system only uses 5-10 watts while SL uses 50-100 watts, so the TMHI system will last longer on batteries.

Will have to check and see when the contract expires on Concast then look again. Still frosts me every time I pay the damn thing. That sad part is as of last time I looked there is no other option (yet) for us and the kind of bandwidth we use. So I pay that almost $200 every month but does not make me happy for sure.
City has a NICE fiber system but so far they have not annexed our property in yet. Kept hoping they would but so far no luck. When there is no competition it tends to really suck.
The cell towers here do not last long when power goes out I have found. Now and then something will kill the one we use like a car accident. Within and hour or so there goes the cell signal. Have had to get in the car and move around to find signal when it happened and I needed to make a call. It is VERY rare thankfully or I would set up to use the net to call with. Bottom line I keep watching the Starlink tech get better and better and they are calling to me

 

[Alexx1401]

I've had decent performance/service with TMobile Home Internet - so far. But they are not available everywhere.

A good while back when I first started seeing their ads they really looked nice, and price looked REAL nice. So I checked a couple times and so far not yet where I live.
Any competition here would be nice as Concast would not hold all the cards when there is finally others to choose from.

 

[lucusloc]

Will have to check and see when the contract expires on Concast then look again. Still frosts me every time I pay the damn thing. That sad part is as of last time I looked there is no other option (yet) for us and the kind of bandwidth we use. So I pay that almost $200 every month but does not make me happy for sure.
City has a NICE fiber system but so far they have not annexed our property in yet. Kept hoping they would but so far no luck. When there is no competition it tends to really suck.
The cell towers here do not last long when power goes out I have found. Now and then something will kill the one we use like a car accident. Within and hour or so there goes the cell signal. Have had to get in the car and move around to find signal when it happened and I needed to make a call. It is VERY rare thankfully or I would set up to use the net to call with. Bottom line I keep watching the Starlink tech get better and better and they are calling to me

Oh wow, how are you paying so much for comcast? When I was in their service area I only paid ~$60 or so, but that was internet only, no bundle. If you are paying that much just for connectivity then I can see how SL would be very attractive. But do keep in mind that SL does have bandwidth quotas now. They are pretty generous but they do exist. The nice part is if you exceed the cap all they do is throttle you, not cut you off.

 

[Alexx1401]

Oh wow, how are you paying so much for comcast? When I was in their service area I only paid ~$60 or so, but that was internet only, no bundle. If you are paying that much just for connectivity then I can see how SL would be very attractive. But do keep in mind that SL does have bandwidth quotas now. They are pretty generous but they do exist. The nice part is if you exceed the cap all they do is throttle you, not cut you off.

Since its a commercial property they only offer us a Business account. We do suck up a good amount of bandwidth sine everything is done streaming. Often use close to 100Gig a week. So by the time all the local taxes get tacked on its $176 a month
We signed a 3 year contract when we moved in here. So when that's up will be looking again to see if anything is available. Just checked T-Mobile again and so far not yet here.

 

[The Heretic]

A good while back when I first started seeing their ads they really looked nice, and price looked REAL nice. So I checked a couple times and so far not yet where I live.
Any competition here would be nice as Concast would not hold all the cards when there is finally others to choose from.

Yeah - I checked with almost everybody at first (about 12 years ago), and then periodically with the cell cos as it became clear that fiber/cable would never be offered here (for one thing, I live on a private road, about a quarter mile down it, and my utilities are all underground {even if I could, which I can't, it would cost me $$$$$ to run a new line down the road} - so the best that I could do with a landline would be for the telco to build a new CO much closer than the current one - which is highly unlikely since they have zero motivation to do so).

For years I kept checking, more often with TMobile, and then finally, out of the blue last year, they offered me and my neighbor Home Internet, so I jumped on it.

 

[The Heretic]

Starlink Offers 50% Price Cut, If You Can Handle Slower Speeds

Starlink is offering a new 'Deprioritized Plan' for New Zealand consumers.

www.pcmag.com

 

[The Heretic]

SpaceX: We've Reduced Starlink Latency by Over 30% for US Users

The company publishes new details on how SpaceX has been driving down the latency for Starlink, with the goal of one day bringing it under 20 milliseconds.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Alexx1401]

SpaceX: We've Reduced Starlink Latency by Over 30% for US Users

The company publishes new details on how SpaceX has been driving down the latency for Starlink, with the goal of one day bringing it under 20 milliseconds.

www.pcmag.com

Getting more damn impressive every time I see an update here. Getting damn tempting to give it a try since I HATE concast which is so far the only choice here.

 

[The Heretic]

Getting more damn impressive every time I see an update here. Getting damn tempting to give it a try since I HATE concast which is so far the only choice here.

I am looking forward to the cell coverage option. Sometime this year probably. My SL system is shutdown since I got the TMobile system, but it would be nice to have cell<->satellite phone coverage anywhere.

 

[Alexx1401]

I am looking forward to the cell coverage option. Sometime this year probably. My SL system is shutdown since I got the TMobile system, but it would be nice to have cell<->satellite phone coverage anywhere.

That one T-mobile is offering "looks" very promising but alas, so far not available here. Looking at SL to get the coverage we are getting now I would have to buy the $2500 equipment and $250 a month plan. I pay $175 for concast. so the $250 would be no big deal assuming it really did work. Concast have pissed me off enough that its damn tempting to buy the damn equipment for SL and give it a shot. Of course my luck a week after I spent the $2500 for the SL equipment T-Mobile would start offering their plan where I live or the city would finally annex us and offer the VERY nice plan they have to us.

 

[The Heretic]

That one T-mobile is offering "looks" very promising but alas, so far not available here. Looking at SL to get the coverage we are getting now I would have to buy the $2500 equipment and $250 a month plan. I pay $175 for concast. so the $250 would be no big deal assuming it really did work. Concast have pissed me off enough that its damn tempting to buy the damn equipment for SL and give it a shot. Of course my luck a week after I spent the $2500 for the SL equipment T-Mobile would start offering their plan where I live or the city would finally annex us and offer the VERY nice plan they have to us.

Why do you need to spend $2500 for SL equipment?

Do you have special requirements that necessitate getting the marine or business terminals?

The standard SL equipment is $600 and you can get used gen 2 terminals (which work fine) for about half that.

 

[Alexx1401]

Why do you need to spend $2500 for SL equipment?

Do you have special requirements that necessitate getting the marine or business terminals?

The standard SL equipment is $600 and you can get used gen 2 terminals (which work fine) for about half that.

No but when the one kid is in town we often burn through 100Gigs a week. Also tempted to try their "basic" set up just to see how it works. Since I can just cancel it any time may be fun to play around with.

 

[The Heretic]

No but when the one kid is in town we often burn through 100Gigs a week. Also tempted to try their "basic" set up just to see how it works. Since I can just cancel it any time may be fun to play around with.

There is no data limit for the basic home service.

 

[Alexx1401]

There is no data limit for the basic home service.

I saw that but, I just have to "guess" this is like the cell plans that also have this? Lots of them offer this but in the fine print always warn you that after a certain point they will start to throttle you? So again since they are offering the "more robust" plans I have to guess they would not let someone have massive bandwidth for the lower price? We got one of those 4K, Ultra whatever the F, TV's. I was dubious at first not having actually seen one in use. After I set it up though something seemed "off" about the picture. Took a few for me to realize what it was, was the stuff on there seems like you are looking out a window its so sharp. The dogs at first kept going nuts as they would look at it and thought someone was just the other side of that glass. This does suck up bandwidth though.
This is why I really should just buy the basic package and play with it a little and see what happens. It looks like if I decide later to upgrade the equipment is mine, so guess I could sell or give it away? Would be interesting to hook up their basic and see if it soon freaks out when I start sucking in huge bandwidth. I would SOOOO love to get concast out of my life only because they remind so damn much of the old phone co days. When they acted just like this too because it was take it or leave it. Live with how we do it for don't have a phone.

 

[The Heretic]

Lots of them offer this but in the fine print always warn you that after a certain point they will start to throttle you?

They do have a clause that (maybe not in the contract) that if you "abuse" the service and become a problem then they can throttle you. But reportedly that only happens if you exceed something like 5-10 TB per month?

100GB per week is well within their limits. For a while they said they were going to have a 1TB per month limit, but then they dropped that. I easily exceed 100GB per week every month I had the service active. There were some days were I did downloads that approached or exceeded 100GB per day. There were some months I approached 1TB for the month.

But whatever, you do you.

 

[Alexx1401]

They do have a clause that (maybe not in the contract) that if you "abuse" the service and become a problem then they can throttle you. But reportedly that only happens if you exceed something like 5-10 TB per month?

100GB per week is well within their limits. For a while they said they were going to have a 1TB per month limit, but then they dropped that. I easily exceed 100GB per week every month I had the service active. There were some days were I did downloads that approached or exceeded 100GB per day. There were some months I approached 1TB for the month.

But whatever, you do you.

Damn, I really need to just get off my butt and order the stuff then and give it a shot. If it would let me kick concast to the curb it would make my day!