Starlink will be here within two weeks

[Matz]

As a rural resident, my options for internet service have been limited to a cellular hotspot or satellite (Hughsnet).

We tried Hughesnet, and cancelled after the initial contract. We're currently enjoying the 12 MBPS (and sometimes slower) Verizon MiFi offers.

A year ago I signed up for Starlink, paid the deposit, and waited. And waited some more.

Since I signed up the dish design has changed, and delivery dates were pushed out a couple of times.

A couple of days ago Starlink emailed me and asked me to confirm the order, and pay for the equipment. Interestingly, the price seems to have gone up a bit. No matter, I'm looking forward to finally having what promises to be decent internet access.

I realize that this is no big deal to most folks, at least in the US, since most folks here live in areas with good internet service. But to rural denizens, it has the potential for being a game changer. Local governments have been working on increasing broadband access to underserved areas, but progress, at least thus far, has been glacial at best. Starlink seems like the best bet, at this point.

 

[BrianBaughn]

I be interested to hear your updates on this.

 

[satcomer]

Take picture when you finally get set it up!

 

[Matz]

There are two inactive pole-mounted dishes in the yard, from Directv and Hughesnet. I'm thinking of pulling one of them out and using the other to mount the Starlink dish, as I don't want the dish on the ground.

Pictures to follow, in a couple of weeks.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

I agree with you! I live in a rural area and while I got lucky (I live right near some fiber from Centurylink so I get 100mb), there are thousands of residents who did not. I have been telling people how awesome it will be when you could live 50 miles from the nearest town and still get high end internet speeds with low latency. People will literally be able to work any remote job from anywhere.

 

[Matz]

Just received the shipping notice. The kit will arrive on March 7!

 

[moonman239]

As a rural resident, my options for internet service have been limited to a cellular hotspot or satellite (Hughsnet).

We tried Hughesnet, and cancelled after the initial contract. We're currently enjoying the 12 MBPS (and sometimes slower) Verizon MiFi offers.

A year ago I signed up for Starlink, paid the deposit, and waited. And waited some more.

Since I signed up the dish design has changed, and delivery dates were pushed out a couple of times.

A couple of days ago Starlink emailed me and asked me to confirm the order, and pay for the equipment. Interestingly, the price seems to have gone up a bit. No matter, I'm looking forward to finally having what promises to be decent internet access.

I realize that this is no big deal to most folks, at least in the US, since most folks here live in areas with good internet service. But to rural denizens, it has the potential for being a game changer. Local governments have been working on increasing broadband access to underserved areas, but progress, at least thus far, has been glacial at best. Starlink seems like the best bet, at this point.

My county passed its own broadband initiative. Specifically, last year the electorate voted to allow the county to establish its own municipal broadband infrastructure. (Per Colorado law, municipalities are prohibited from establishing their own broadband service without consent of the electorate)

I'm a rural person, too. The best Internet I can get is up to 100 Mbps down for $90/month. Charter has announced plans to roll out service to my neighborhood soon, and their offerings look like a STEAL in comparison, so I'm going to switch to Charter as soon as possible.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

My county passed its own broadband initiative. Specifically, last year the electorate voted to allow the county to establish its own municipal broadband infrastructure. (Per Colorado law, municipalities are prohibited from establishing their own broadband service without consent of the electorate)

I'm a rural person, too. The best Internet I can get is up to 100 Mbps down for $90/month. Charter has announced plans to roll out service to my neighborhood soon, and their offerings look like a STEAL in comparison, so I'm going to switch to Charter as soon as possible.

100mb is pretty dang good in a rural area.

 

[Matz]

100mb is pretty dang good in a rural area.

I would say so. I'd be thrilled to get 100mb.
Half of that, even.

 

[Matz]

Shipping delayed.
Sigh.

 

[Matz]

It arrived, a day later than scheduled, so not so bad.

The rectangular dish is smaller than I expected, especially when compared with the DirecTV and HughesNet dishes.

Roof mounting is not being considered, as we don't want any new roof penetrations. Wall mounting appears infeasible due to trees adjacent to the house.

I discovered when reading the installation instructions, which are a bit sparse on detail, that the powered ethernet cable is not suitable for direct burial. That means running the cable in buried conduit. It would have been helpful if the required conduit size was included in the instructions.

When it stops raining I'll use the Starlink app to confirm the best location, but it appears that mounting on one of the existing poles is still the best bet. Probably why both satellite dishes were placed there in the first place.

Burying the conduit should be pretty straightforward, as the soil here isn't rocky and it's a fairly short run (~15 feet). I'll have to figure out how to make the dish end of the conduit weather and critter proof. Worst case, I suppose I can use a glob of silicone. As for the penetration through the wall, I'm sure there's a junction box I can mount to the house, similar to the one shown in the picture above.

I'll also have to get an adapter to mount the dish to the existing pole. I may try to improvise an adapter, as the Starlink version won't be available until later this month. As an interim step, I may just run the conduit and place the dish next to the pole, on the ground. We'll see how that goes.

In conclusion, the installation is going to be a bit more involved than I first imagined. I shouldn't be surprised, as that's often how things go for me.

More to follow.

 

[ascender]

We've had ours for a few weeks and its totally changed our broadband - we've gone from 20Mbps to 200-300Mbps and from the connection dropping 5/6 times a day to no dropouts.

Its more expensive, but definitely worth it for me.

We installed ours on top of a wooden fence in the back garden - I just made a simple wooden platform for it and its got great visibility without needing to resort to any poles or mounting kits.

I had it on the ground initially and worked OK but with some obstructions. We did think about a pole and there do seem to be 3rd party adapters you can buy for poles as well as some instructions on how to make your own which I found with Google and the Starlink Reddits.

Only disappointment was that they ditched the Ethernet port so we had to install a temporary Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge but those adapters are finally shipping.

 

[Matz]

We've had ours for a few weeks and its totally changed our broadband - we've gone from 20Mbps to 200-300Mbps and from the connection dropping 5/6 times a day to no dropouts.

Its more expensive, but definitely worth it for me.

We installed ours on top of a wooden fence in the back garden - I just made a simple wooden platform for it and its got great visibility without needing to resort to any poles or mounting kits.

I had it on the ground initially and worked OK but with some obstructions. We did think about a pole and there do seem to be 3rd party adapters you can buy for poles as well as some instructions on how to make your own which I found with Google and the Starlink Reddits.

Only disappointment was that they ditched the Ethernet port so we had to install a temporary Wi-Fi to Ethernet bridge but those adapters are finally shipping.

The wooden platform is a great idea, and I'd probably do that if a pole weren't already in place, and apparently right where it needs to be.

Glad to hear the speeds you're getting - I wasn't expecting that much! Of course it remains to be seen how it will work here.

As for the ethernet connection, I'm wondering if I need that. I have an old AirPort Extreme that might be useful, and believe it requires an ethernet connection. Thoughts?

 

[ascender]

The wooden platform is a great idea, and I'd probably do that if a pole weren't already in place, and apparently right where it needs to be.

Glad to hear the speeds you're getting - I wasn't expecting that much! Of course it remains to be seen how it will work here.

As for the ethernet connection, I'm wondering if I need that. I have an old AirPort Extreme that might be useful, and believe it requires an ethernet connection. Thoughts?

I guess it depends on the wireless coverage you get from the stock router. Our house is wired for Ethernet due to the build not being good for wi-fi and I didn't find the Starlink router very strong. We have a mesh wi-fi system in place, but without Ethernet I couldn't connect it to Starlink so I was kind of stuck.

 

[satcomer]

Most mesh router uses a base router that usually have a small ethernet switch built into it! You might want to look for that to plug into it!

 

[Huntn]

As a rural resident, my options for internet service have been limited to a cellular hotspot or satellite (Hughsnet).

We tried Hughesnet, and cancelled after the initial contract. We're currently enjoying the 12 MBPS (and sometimes slower) Verizon MiFi offers.

A year ago I signed up for Starlink, paid the deposit, and waited. And waited some more.

Since I signed up the dish design has changed, and delivery dates were pushed out a couple of times.

A couple of days ago Starlink emailed me and asked me to confirm the order, and pay for the equipment. Interestingly, the price seems to have gone up a bit. No matter, I'm looking forward to finally having what promises to be decent internet access.

I realize that this is no big deal to most folks, at least in the US, since most folks here live in areas with good internet service. But to rural denizens, it has the potential for being a game changer. Local governments have been working on increasing broadband access to underserved areas, but progress, at least thus far, has been glacial at best. Starlink seems like the best bet, at this point.

How fast is Starlink Up and down?

 

[Matz]

How fast is Starlink Up and down?

I guess it depends on where you are, but I'm reading reports of >>100 down and >25 up. Weather and schedule have prevented me from hooking mine up so far. Hoping to do so today.

 

[Matz]

As it turns out, the dish needs to point north, according to the Starlink app for checking obstructions. Unfortunately, the two existing satellite poles are on the south side of the house, as those dishes (DirecTV and HughesNet) were pointed south. If I place the dish on an existing pole, I'll have a ~3% obstruction, according to the app; it suggests looking for another location. After checking all around the house, it appears that the best location will be on the roof, which we wanted to avoid. Ah well.

I'm still going to temporarily install the dish on one of the existing poles, because it just may be good enough. If it is, great. If not, it looks like it's going on the roof, after all.

That said, nothing is going to happen today, as it's raining pretty hard, and is supposed to change to snow around noon.

More to follow.

 

[Matz]

Ok, we got a break in the rain, so I mounted the dish on the old DirecTV pole, ran the cable on the ground and in through a window, to test it out. It's not pretty, but it's just a test. Wish I knew how to rotate the picture.

Here's the Verizon MiFi:

And here's Starlink:

I was hoping for faster, but am actually pleased, considering that the location isn't optimal. So now I need to order up a roof mount, so that it will have an unobstructed view of the sky. That will take a couple of weeks, I suppose.

More to follow.

 

[Matz]

I moved the dish to the front yard, using the provided stand. Think I'll keep it there until the roof mount arrives.
Speed Test is all over the map, but the results are looking good, overall.

I'm also pleased to report that the snowmelt feature works!

 

[Matz]

I moved the dish away from the house a bit, to where the setup app suggests I have a good location. I guess I could treat the dish as yard art, but running the cable underground in schedule 80 conduit would be a pita.

Anyway, speeds are quite variable, but I've had no service interruptions as of yet. This morning speed test showed 146 down and 9.36 up, which is stellar p), considering what I get on Verizon cellular. Latency was 31 ms.

Yesterday I updated my iPhone, iPad, and Mac with the latest OS updates. What used to take an hour or two took a matter of minutes.

My understanding is that speeds and latency will improve as the network builds out. We'll see.

So far I am very pleased with Starlink. It's expensive when compared with most cable internet service, but easily worth it to me. To this rural resident, it really is a game-changer.

 

[BrianBaughn]

You're getting as good or better (download) than I was getting on Comcast until I upgraded my modem recently. My upload is still a lame 11.6 Mbps.

 

[Matz]

You're getting as good or better (download) than I was getting on Comcast until I upgraded my modem recently. My upload is still a lame 11.6 Mbps.

My experience with Comcast is that it's pretty fast and reliable. I don't recall the upload speeds though. As far as I know, upload speed isn't likely to be a limited factor for me with Starlink.

 

[BrianBaughn]

My experience with Comcast is that it's pretty fast and reliable. I don't recall the upload speeds though. As far as I know, upload speed isn't likely to be a limited factor for me with Starlink.

They must have heard me. I got an email from Xfinity yesterday about improved speeds and after a modem restart my download is 665 (up from 465) and upload is now 22.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

They must have heard me. I got an email from Xfinity yesterday about improved speeds and after a modem restart my download is 665 (up from 465) and upload is now 22.

Not bad, but you have to live in town.