One week of Starlink

[RicInOR]

Royal Caribbean Asks FCC To "Expeditiously" Approve Starlink On Cruise Ships

 

[The Heretic]

I used 'potential' because I've not seen your place cuz you never invite me over to play COD, drink Mt Dew and eat Chimichangas…lol

Of those three things, I only have chimichangas (frozen - store bought).

But I do have a microwave, sour cream and mango salsa.

My potentials:

North/northwest:



West:


North/northeast:


All of those trees are within 50 yards of my house

 

[The Heretic]

@The Heretic, Sounds like you have a lot of potential obstructions on your property. Not that it matters, but we have clear skies 360* around our dish and very steady service, however, it appears we get 6-20 second interruptions maybe 4x a night between midnight and 3am. So far on our side it's been solid.

I get some interruptions that say "No signal received" for about 70 seconds total and "Network issue" for about 90 seconds total. There doesn't seem to be a pattern to them.

 

[Alexx1401]

IIRC SL actually marketed this as a "better than nothing" solution. That it is. If you have some other service that is reliable and relatively fast - say 50+ mbps - and you don't need something that will work almost anywhere while traveling, then I don't recommend SL as you may be disappointed. Don't get this because you hate Comcast or your local ISP, but they are reliable 90%+ of the time.

OTOH, if you live in the boonies like I do and there is just no way to get reliable internet of 10+ mbps, then Starlink is a solution to consider.

FWIW - most of what I have read on Reddit indicates that once you are up and running, SL customer service is severely lacking. Certainly do not expect them to hold your hand, much less show up at your house to fix your system - not going to happen. They do not make it easy to contact them and it can be weeks to months before they get back to you. The best bet for help on anything is Reddit or some other user group support forum.

Not that most people will need help - they won't, SL made the system very simple and somewhat robust for most situations - but if you do, it will usually be crickets you hear from Starlink.

I would have to guess at this point no surprise there. Like you said it's better than nothing and AFAIK only other choice for those who can't get cable or DSL is satellite. From what I have read and heard from those who use this its pricey and is like dial up speed wise. So no streaming with that. Many of us remember when there was only one phone Co. Service was "hey take it or leave it" because there was no choice. So until someone comes along and offers another choice I can see why Elon is not going to be spending lots of money on customer service. I do HATE Concast but, hey at least it works almost all the time and its still the only game here. City did annex us in a while ago but so far are not offering their cable here. The day they do I will be on the horn saying sign me up.

 

[The Heretic]

I would have gladly gone with cable or fiber if it was offered.

From what I have heard, Comcast is not much better with service than Starlink, which is why some people switched early on.

 

[Member 15244]

When I lived in the city I used to have comcast I would say it was worse than starlink. Not as good of speed and the router would need to be reset almost daily some times. I had moved a couple years ago and my only option was Hughes net which is bubblegum. Got starlink 2 weeks ago and it works great I'm in a heavily wooded area and see speeds from 50-300mbps.

 

[The Heretic]

Yesterday I moved the dish up to near the peak of the roof. SIL was here for several hours to be my safety man (in case I fell off the roof and broke my neck, he could call the coroner) and vice versa. He helped remove a LOT of moss off the roof, then spread moss remover.



I made a redneck mount where the SL mount is screwed down onto some scrap wood I had, the idea being that the wood would keep the dish from being tipped over due to the now much lower center of gravity and wider base. Also, the vent stand pipe would keep the whole thing from sliding down the roof.

I was hoping moving it up and further away from the trees would help with obstructions.

It seem to help a little, but now I won't know for sure how much; this morning at about 4 AM the system rebooted and loaded new dish firmware. Since that time, obstructions went way down - so far (you really have to wait at least 12 hours to get a decent take on this, and preferably wait several days).

Either way, I am hopeful; if current behavior continues, it is much much better than it was before I moved it further up the roof and before the firmware update. So far, for the last 6 hours, I am getting half the obstructed times I was before yesterday.

 

[The Heretic]

I also put up an external WAP with antennas:



The primary goal is to get WiFi out to my shop so I can have alarms (freezer, lights, intrusion). Might also put up cams.

I tested it and the 2.4 gHz side does better at penetrating the brush and even the metal shop skin, but I only get about 50 mbps anywhere outside, which is plenty for my purposes.

 

[The Heretic]

Either way, I am hopeful; if current behavior continues, it is much much better than it was before I moved it further up the roof and before the firmware update. So far, for the last 6 hours, I am getting half the obstructed times I was before yesterday.

So far so good; I've had two periods of roughly 70 minutes with no outages, and one just shy of two hours with no outages. The average of 6 minutes of outages per 12 hrs continues.

The typical Friday night speed drop is in effect, but I am watching the latest Dr. Strange movie in IMax/4K HDR with no problems.

 

[2Wheels4Ever]

I've been on the wait list for a bit over a year now, and just got the confirmation yesterday. I'm really looking forward to it. It's got to be better than the sat internet we have now. I just did a speed test and got a whopping .3mbps download! I'd be absolutely stoked with a remotely consistent 10mbps.

 

[The Heretic]

So now I am down to 2 minutes of obstructions per 12 hours, with some periods of 2-3 hours with no obstructions.

 

[The Heretic]

7 weeks now and everything is still going well. about the same performance

had three firmware updates with no real discernable differences

one time, for about a week or more, the dish turned to the west and then after another update it turned back to the north

had some rain until a couple weeks ago and then the sun came out, so I think it will be sun and heat until late October, so I won't know for quite a while if the good performance during the heavy rains was a fluke or not - maybe by then I will be wintering in NZ, or not

maybe by then the new V2 sats will be deployed?

 

[RainMan_PNW]

Just got my RV dish today. Temporary install on the garage roof, cable running through a garage window, plugged Ethernet adapter into the house hardline and have my eero mesh network (in AP mode currently) feeding the rest of my house like it was before.

First speed tests from my eero after install compared to earlier this week on my DSL. I'm going to leave it in this spot till Saturday, then move it to other end of garage roof for a day or so to compare up time/obstruction, then hopefully final mount it to the gable (I have the wall bracket inbound and due on Saturday) on one end or the other and make the cable routing and connections permanent.

 

[coop44]

Brings back memories of being on the roof turning the vhf tv antenna with my dad shouting instructions to me. We have come a long way from the old black and white Emerson tv, my crystal a.m. radio set, and f.m. radio being the "new thing".
Damn it I'm getting old.

 

[The Heretic]

Just got my confirmation email on my deposit for the Residential service. I went ahead and confirmed the order.

So for at least until I sell my house, I will have two dishys.

Once I get the residential dish I will pause the RV dish. The service for Residential is supposedly faster (not deprioritized like the RV dish) and is $25 per month cheaper. We'll see. There will be some overlap of service periods so I intend to compare speeds/etc.

My intention is to use the dish as a perk for buying the property. Hard to get internet where I live and a lot of people now want to work from home, so for some internet is a hard requirement.

 

[The Heretic]

So it appears that SL is expanding its user base. I was slated for late 2022 and now I am getting my dish in mid 2022.

My neighbor is also. I am reading on Reddit a number of others are suddenly getting their emails to confirm their Residential order.

There will probably be RV dishys going on the used market soon. I will keep mine, but my neighbor will sell his and will get the Residential dish instead as it will save him $300 per year in monthly subscription costs, paying for itself in two years compared to the RV dish.

There was also a news article that Starlink will be coming out with a small satellite transceiver for phones. That will be nice.

 

[The Heretic]

So it appears that SL is expanding its user base. I was slated for late 2022 and now I am getting my dish in mid 2022.

My neighbor is also. I am reading on Reddit a number of others are suddenly getting their emails to confirm their Residential order.

There will probably be RV dishys going on the used market soon. I will keep mine, but my neighbor will sell his and will get the Residential dish instead as it will save him $300 per year in monthly subscription costs, paying for itself in two years compared to the RV dish.

There was also a news article that Starlink will be coming out with a small satellite receiver for phones. That will be nice.

 

[RainMan_PNW]

Just got my confirmation email on my deposit for the Residential service. I went ahead and confirmed the order.

So for at least until I sell my house, I will have two dishys.

Once I get the residential dish I will pause the RV dish. The service for Residential is supposedly faster (not deprioritized like the RV dish) and is $25 per month cheaper. We'll see. There will be some overlap of service periods so I intend to compare speeds/etc.

My intention is to use the dish as a perk for buying the property. Hard to get internet where I live and a lot of people now want to work from home, so for some internet is a hard requirement.

I also got my notice on Wednesday - literally the day after I made the first payment for RV service. Because I'm within the 30-days return window, I'm securing my residential equipment and services and then returning the RV service

 

[The Heretic]

I also got my notice on Wednesday - literally the day after I made the first payment for RV service. Because I'm within the 30-days return window, I'm securing my residential equipment and services and then returning the RV service

There was some question on the FB Rv group as to whether RV dishys can be transferred - like the residential dishys. Apparently at first SL said no, then may have changed their minds. I don't know. It is a good thing though that you are able to return the RV dish. My situation is kind of unique in that I would keep both.

 

[The Heretic]

I also got my notice on Wednesday - literally the day after I made the first payment for RV service. Because I'm within the 30-days return window, I'm securing my residential equipment and services and then returning the RV service

Did you have a residential deposit in for a long time? Mine was put in early March 2021 IIRC.