One week of Starlink

[The Heretic]

Just got my router - the black Arcadyan KVD21. I have it setup near my kitchen window (east side of the house nearest cell tower). Took a few minutes to setup because I have the phone on extreme battery save, so the app kept being paused - other than that it was pretty straightforward.

Cell phone reported 90 mbps next to the router & living room. ETA - I didn't have my phone set correctly; it was testing its speed via its cell connection, so I turned off the cell connection and tested again - it got 250 mbps.

Laptop reports 350-400 mbps in my living room. Amazon FireTV (living room) reports 157 mbps, signal strength of -61 to -87 dBm.

https://www.speedtest.net/result/15359773823

Adequate. It will be interesting to see if the router can reach my shop - I think I am seeing my neighbor's router (he got the same deal) and his house is 200 yards away.

 

[The Heretic]

Has satellite internet like Starlink reached a tipping point in the North?

This summer's wildfires caused chaos when they took out fibre lines in the NWT. Increasingly, residents and communities are turning to low-Earth orbit internet.

cabinradio.ca

 

[The Heretic]

SpaceX Debuts New Website for Cellular Starlink Service

The site reveals SpaceX is targeting next year to launch the service to power satellite-based text messaging. The company then plans on supporting voice and text in 2025.

www.pcmag.com

 

[Bacchus]

This is my favorite thread, extremely informative. Thanks for sorting all of this out and forwarding it to us.

 

[The Heretic]

This is my favorite thread, extremely informative. Thanks for sorting all of this out and forwarding it to us.

My T-Mobile HI speed has varied between 200-420 mbps and so far connectivity seems to be ok (without interruption). Not very easy to see interruptions as it is with Starlink's status page. I unplugged my SL system so I wouldn't confuse my phone/laptop auto connect.

Yesterday I went into town for a chiro appt and stopped by a cell tower on my way home - I tested my cell phone speed there and only got about 100 mbps. I got 300 mbps there about a year ago. I don't know which tower is T-Mobile - that one, or the one I can see from my house. The only online map of towers I have found so far is not good enough to know. The WeBoost app on my phone points towards the one I stopped by yesterday, but the other tower is less than 90* from that tower, so it could be off (I don't know if the app is using static data or detecting the signal from the tower).

Either way, I am happy with the service at home - so far - and the cost is better. T-Mobiles web site is poor and their data usage page sucks - SL does a better job of that.

It has been 10+ days since I got the T-Mobile service. From what I have read T-Mobile is getting aggressive about providing cell based internet service - which is good.

 

[The Heretic]

Israel looks to roll out SpaceX Starlink internet amid war with Hamas

Israel is in discussions with SpaceX to roll out Starlink internet services, especially for communities near the conflict zone, an Israeli official said Tuesday. Starlink currently isn’t available in Israel, so this would be the first time the service is introduced in any capacity. “The...

news.yahoo.com

 

[RainMan_PNW]

Had a co-worker get fiber at his house about 3 months after he got SL. I just bought his SL gear (at a great price) and sent it off to my parents is super-rural MT. Need to go help them get it set up here soon.

Still would prefer not to be paying the SL price, but still having a great experience with it compared to my prior 18 years of 3Mbps DSL service...

 

[GCC_GOAT]

My wife and I are getting Starlink next week and this was a good insight of what to look forward to. Thanks OP!

 

[The Heretic]

uh oh!

TM Home Internet has been great until this morning. In fact I was getting 400 mbps from time to time.

This morning I am lucky to get more than 1 mbps. It went from 20 mbps down to 500 kbps over the period of a couple hours.
I am back on SL for a while (service will cease on the 9th because I deactivated it).

I will wait and see if TM comes back before then, otherwise I will return their router and go back to Starlink. I don't depend on the internet a lot - I am retired, so I don't need it for working from home - but I do like web surfing and watching TV.

I don't think the issue is the router - my cell phone also has very low speeds.

 

[The Heretic]

Well, it appears the tower is fixed.

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

 

[Flopsweat]

uh oh!

TM Home Internet has been great until this morning. In fact I was getting 400 mbps from time to time.

This morning I am lucky to get more than 1 mbps. It went from 20 mbps down to 500 kbps over the period of a couple hours.
I am back on SL for a while (service will cease on the 9th because I deactivated it).

I will wait and see if TM comes back before then, otherwise I will return their router and go back to Starlink. I don't depend on the internet a lot - I am retired, so I don't need it for working from home - but I do like web surfing and watching TV.

I don't think the issue is the router - my cell phone also has very low speeds.

If your phone was unusually slow at the same time, it was likely an internet issue rather than your provider.

 

[The Heretic]

Starlink bug frustrates users: “They don’t have tech support? Just a FAQ? WTF?”

Users locked out of accounts can't submit tickets, and there's no phone number.

arstechnica.com

 

[Flopsweat]

Starlink bug frustrates users: “They don’t have tech support? Just a FAQ? WTF?”

Users locked out of accounts can't submit tickets, and there's no phone number.

arstechnica.com

How did QA miss this scenario? It should be one of the more basic user stories. Please tell me they didn't assume this could never happen.

 

[The Heretic]

How did QA miss this scenario? It should be one of the more basic user stories. Please tell me they didn't assume this could never happen.

I am guessing SL did an update Friday or today to their backend account systems.

Generally, this is why updates are not desirable for Friday or weekends.

I imagine their s/w devs (or DBAs) are scrambling to fix this.

 

[Flopsweat]

I am guessing SL did an update Friday or today to their backend account systems.

Generally, this is why updates are not desirable for Friday or weekends.

I imagine their s/w devs (or DBAs) are scrambling to fix this.

Oh, I know aaaaaalllll about No Friday Updates. I've had that argument with coworkers before. It's amazing to me how otherwise intelligent people can honestly think "Just this one time. What's the worst that can happen." You 'bout to find out, pal.

My first Dev gig with an IT department (Before DevOps was invented), I was very nervous about making changes to a system with millions of users. You get used to it, but some of us never forget that one good screw-up can affect a huge number of people. Some do though.

 

[The Heretic]

Oh, I know aaaaaalllll about No Friday Updates. I've had that argument with coworkers before. It's amazing to me how otherwise intelligent people can honestly think "Just this one time. What's the worst that can happen." You 'bout to find out, pal.

My first Dev gig with an IT department (Before DevOps was invented), I was very nervous about making changes to a system with millions of users. You get used to it, but some of us never forget that one good screw-up can affect a huge number of people. Some do though.

Sometimes weekend updates are necessary - at least for those systems where it is less likely that the users will need access to the system during a weekend. Most of our updates we did to the backend were done in the early morning hours.

Obviously in this case, somebody screwed up - maybe big time. Seems like it was mostly for people who recently signed up. I have two systems on my account and I did not get an email - but both systems are not activated right now because I went to T-Mobile.

 

[lucusloc]

Sometimes weekend updates are necessary - at least for those systems where it is less likely that the users will need access to the system during a weekend. Most of our updates we did to the backend were done in the early morning hours.

Obviously in this case, somebody screwed up - maybe big time. Seems like it was mostly for people who recently signed up. I have two systems on my account and I did not get an email - but both systems are not activated right now because I went to T-Mobile.

Whenever we do weekend updates we staff people for the whole weekend. Not just regular "on call" but "on call on call". We aim for half our typical on call response time or better. "stay close to home guys, and keep your stuff logged on". But then again our entire department is remote so staying home is functionally equivalent to staying in the office the whole weekend.

With this setup our management has basically mandated that all major changes happen on weekends; smaller user base in case of impact, support/engineering staff exactly as effective as they usually are, and issues are sorted before start of business Monday morning. And we get compensated for days worked regardless of if the upgrade/patch was a nightmare or not. I have been comped days for binge-watching some show or other more than once.

On the other hand there are the patches that break the whole world and we wind up pulling a 48 hour plus weekend. Those suck, but we do have good management so we get comped extra for those.

 

[The Heretic]

Amazon's New Internet Service is Ready to Start Mass Production - Here is When You Can Sign Up For Its Affordable New Home Internet Service | Cord Cutters News

This week, Amazon announced it has completed the testing of its internet service. This also came with an announcement that Amazon will now start mass production of satellites for its home internet service. The goal is to start launching these satellites in early 2024, public beta tests start in...

cordcuttersnews.com

TBD

We'll see whether Amazon can launch enough satellites to get decent coverage and if the price is affordable

At this point I am fine with my Tmobile service for $50/mo - again got 450 mbps down this morning

Finally getting some competition and choice in the rural market.

 

[The Heretic]

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

 

[Flopsweat]

Speedtest by Ookla - The Global Broadband Speed Test

Use Speedtest on all your devices with our free desktop and mobile apps.

www.speedtest.net

Internet Speed Test

How fast is your download speed? In seconds, FAST.com's simple Internet speed test will estimate your ISP speed.

fast.com