Star Link satellite internet.

[popper]

SIL emailed today, wondering about StarLink. Anybody use it? He has Hughes at the ranch and it is terrible. I know about it but don't use it. Any comments helpful!
I noted some responses, his ranch is in Palestine Tx area - which is new coverage. Post your location?

[Sudsy]

Following
We're exploring this option for our RV

[cwtebay]

I have it at home and my office. It's ridiculously fast and the only outage I have experienced is when we had an ice storm (actually my fault, the placement I had couldn't have been worse). The snow melt feature works well also. I am quite rural and seeing as my kids do quite a bit of their school work online at home and my work computer system is entirely cloud based it seems to be a good choice - though expensive.

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[dverna]

I have had it for a while and the speeds are great, but it is pricey. $120/mo plus the "dish"....think that is at $600 now.

No capacity issues at all/

[kerplode]

Guy I used to work with has it. He absolutely loved it and raved about how great it was...Until Elon stopped toeing the Democratic party line. Now he's not such a fan. He doesn't like his Tesla much anymore, either.

lol

Edited to add:
Seriously, though, it did sound like it worked well. The speed reports he showed me were impressive and he said the downtime was significantly less than he was expecting.

[Keyman]

Great question. I am on day 5 of a new install and use of "Dishy", short name for Starlink. I had Hughes for 14 years, and need to call and kill that service today. Supper fast and great for all my needs, am streaming music now. Binge watching Netflix shows and figuring out how to make the smarter TV work. $650.00 delivered to remote off road Alaska.

Several downfalls.
1 No phone access. . . I mean no way to call and ask any questions. Must order on line. No support at all until the payment is made. Then only by email after finding complaint area.

2 You must have a newer smart phone. Mine will not work. Why? To set password, and snow melt, and something else. Can not be done in computer, no way. Found out I needed a newer tablet. Bought that, brought home, and could not charge it. Them guys at BEST BUY are still laughing at me I am sure, cause they did not tell me a special charger, that I did not have was needed. That was a 1200.00 round trip to Anchorage as a waste. I am using this right now as no to set pass word till charger gets here.

Side note, I guess the trip to town was good, as I was able to buy 15,000 primers. Getting them home was another story.

Keyman

[Outer Rondacker]

I am on it right now. We tried using cellular internet but ran out of data days in. Starlink for the win here. We run the entire ranch on it. Two Roku devices three phones many computers in different parts of the house. I use it to stream everything from fox news to Pandora radio while splitting firewood. It has saved us as we do not even have phone lines on my road. I say go for it.

[MUSTANG]

Question on Cell over Wifi:

1. Most cell phones these days can make a call via linking to local WiFi. (Our iPhones can link to House WiFi; we receive house Internet via Century Link, Century Link provides home Router/Switch box that provides WiFi - Also other Wireless Routers at House that our iPhone 10's can use to make Cell Calls via the iPhones - use AT&T, but we know that Verizon also works on this set up for guests.

2. Does anyone know if the Star Link Home router (Satcom system) support a WiFi connection accessible by Cell Phones? Does it play with AT&T, Verizon, other Cell Phone plans.

3. Where we are at both Montana and Southern Nevada locations we have NO CELL COVERAGE; and rely upon Cell Phone using WiFi link for home and around home coverage.


Thanks

[Outer Rondacker]

Mustang answer to number 2 is yes. I have verizon wife has at&t and a friend has T mobile and they all work viva wifi. We have family that has other plans with non apple phones and they all connect one the holidays just fine. My Iphone is a 7 and works fine.

One thing to add about the starlink. The router that comes with it kinda sucks. It is what holds back the system. I bought the ethernet cable adapter and feed my own router system and even mesh it out around the property. It honestly made the speeds 10 times faster. I am going to run a test right now hold for numbers. 213 mbps down and 17.1 upload. with a 11 lat.

Just ran another 209.21 down 23.33 up. Not the best but not bad for 90 bucks a month.

[BLAHUT]

Son has it; loves it; said expensive though; that's the only draw back.......

[MUSTANG]

Mustang answer to number 2 is yes. ....I I am going to run a test right now hold for numbers. 213 mbps down and 17.1 upload. with a 11 lat.

Just ran another 209.21 down 23.33 up. Not the best but not bad for 90 bucks a month.


Thanks that helps a lot

[Handloader109]

Actually good dsl like speeds. Glad out local coop power company installed fiber internet. For $85 a month I get true gigabit up and down service where I was stuck with hughesnet or cell phone internet

Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

[Big Tom]

I use Starlink with the mobile plan for our camping trips in the summer - worked great every time and you can deactivate it month by month if not needed. It is expensive, but worth it, as it allows me to work remotely anywhere we go. Plus my T-Mobile phone can use the internet for normal telephony. I would buy it again.

[labradigger1]

Week 2 on starlink here. Dsl before and 0.2 download and .02 upload. Starlink in my very rural area is hitting 29 mbps. $120/month for unlimited service. Zero issues with streaming anything. Had to mount on a 40’ antenna tower to lear the trees. Liking it so far.

[MrWolf]

Mustang answer to number 2 is yes. I have verizon wife has at&t and a friend has T mobile and they all work viva wifi. We have family that has other plans with non apple phones and they all connect one the holidays just fine. My Iphone is a 7 and works fine.

One thing to add about the starlink. The router that comes with it kinda sucks. It is what holds back the system. I bought the ethernet cable adapter and feed my own router system and even mesh it out around the property. It honestly made the speeds 10 times faster. I am going to run a test right now hold for numbers. 213 mbps down and 17.1 upload. with a 11 lat.

Just ran another 209.21 down 23.33 up. Not the best but not bad for 90 bucks a month.

Agreed with #2. Been using it for 3-4 months now. Much better and more reliable than Frontier was. Speeds are OK but definitely not as high as they could be. I am looking into meshing also once I get a few other things done. It is $120 a month now and my Ooma is another $10 (VOIP phone which I am slowly phasing out).

[deces]

Too bad we all can't get the ukrainian pricing.

[Jsm180]

I have had Starlink for over a year with no complaints, just bought a second dish for the 5th wheel. Simple set-up, less than 15 minutes, just needs a clear view of the sky, to the north here in central FL. It takes a serious downpour to take it out, much better than the other satellite providers. My only other option is copper line dsl and those speeds are a joke, 2.8 mb/sec down and 770 kb/sec up. Starlink gives me 50-200 mb/sec down and 10-20 mb/sec up. If fiber isn't an option where you live, it's a good choice. My speeds this morning are 232 mb/sec down and 15 mb/sec up.

There is no phone support, only email, but the response times are getting better from what I see online. I had a router issue early on and they replaced it promptly.

[Moleman-]

We've had it about 6 months now and like it. Super heavy rain we will lose the signal but not for a normal t-storm, I'm guessing it'll be the same for a blizzard. Our yard is lower than the neighbors on either side and we have tall trees so our dish is on a 30' tower on the barn with the starlink router inside of it and a ethernet cable running over to the house to a router. I couldn't get our repeater to bounce the signal to an out building and the house so ethernet cable, but that's a minor annoyance next to having decently fast internet.

[Outer Rondacker]

My son in law got starlink shortly after I did since he was on cell internet and the kids would run it out of service in a few weeks. He was installing the dish on the roof and dropped it to the stone deck below. Smash. Contacted starlink and they replaced it for just the shipping cost.

I agree with the heavy rain but so far a heavy snow has not interrupted the signal. I mounted the dish on the peak of my roof and has worked well for the last two years.

[BrassMagnet]

Hughes sucks the worst of anything I have ever tried! Hughes asked for my opinion of their service and my answer was worst ever, I would dump them as soon as ANYONE offered me service, and I would never do business with them again!
Starlink said coming to your area soon so place a deposit for early service. I did!
Starlink arrived and I fired Hughes. Hughes said you have been a customer for so long we can give you the same service you have now for $89.99/Mo vice the $149.99 you have been paying and soon we will have our newer satellites and really fast service you can sign up for. I reiterated to the customer service guy, "You are fired and I will never do business with you again!"
Starlink was terrible at first because I had to mount it on my rear deck and I had blockages every minute from my house and trees. I got the roof mount system and it got much better. Blazing fast with blockages every four to five minutes due to the trees. Still great service compared to what I had before from anybody either here or at my previous house with cable.
Go Starlink! Go!

[MaryB]

I had Hughes Net way back when it was new and it sucked then! LOL from reports it has not improved... useless if you wanted to watch video... hit the download limit way to fast...

When DSL came to town I jumped on it, had 100meg down, then then ran fiber and now I have 1gig down(800ish most days..)

[Rapier]

Starlink just went live here, my dish and stuff is sitting on the floor. Tomorrow two young acrobats arrive to mount the dish and run the cable in the attic, through the trusses. Going to mount the dish on a long wall mount off the gas fireplace chase above the roof. Guy down the road about 2 miles just installed his dish on a 10' 6x6 pole, said it works great.

Ruku wifi service is supposed to work with it and the receiver is a $40 buy. Apps for streaming are about $5 a month. So Direct TV may take a hit, we will see.
I am going to try to test the medical monitors, my main interest. Our current cel service will not maintain contact at present and the monitors all require a constant loop contact. Nearest city is 30 miles.....

[lancem]

Best thing since sliced bread. Works great, out in the middle of nowhere Terlingua, TX

[WILCO]

This is an informational thread. Thanks for all the replies.

[GregLaROCHE]

I am surprised at the prices you are paying for Starlink in the US. We got it when it was first available here. Back then it was around 100 euros a month. Then they dropped the price down. We only pay forty euros for it now here in France. I do think it worked a bit better in the beginning. Still it gets the job done and is the only fast internet available where I am.

[Markopolo]

It’s a bit technical for some, but for me in remote alaska it was a no brained… super fast internet and video for our business, and for home internet… I also recently installed at our church… love it… once you get it setup, you are golden. I use my setup in bypass mode so it integrates well with my office and home networks.. cost me 90 bucks per account and the overhead cost of 600 for the equipment…

Any questions, please PM

[Reddirt204]

We've had Star Link for about 18 months, basically the only real internet available where I am (south West Western Australia..) I was one of the first in my area, not cheap but with no real alternative (pretty much zero phone service, no matter what provider you have) Best thing we have ever had, my wife can work from home without the issues of internet (or lack of it)
Also interesting with costing, cost AU$799 for the setup and now AU$139 per month, the equipment cost has come down now to about $300-$400. But given the value of the Ozzie peso vs the Green Back it works out fairly well. The only thing I had to sort after it had arrived was an ethernet connection for my office PC as the new version (square dish) is Wi-Fi only and the PC doesn't have Wi-Fi, easily ordered but a delay due to shipping etc. If I had of known I would have ordered as a bundle originally.

Would I buy again?

In a hart beat :)

Cheers

Redd

[Rapier]

We got the system installed yesterday, only one of the two guys showed up, so I became his helper. With some minor mods to the original plan we got er done.
The dish takes about 12 hours to get fully oriented and fully self adjusted. Have to give it some time to get set, after you get the dish installed. When you power the dish up, the dish starts moving to orient itself, you just install the upright hole in the mount so the top of the hole is level and the mounting pipe of the dish is plumb. The dish as it comes in the box is set at an angle and it orients itself once it gets power. Setup is real complicated, you plug the dish cord up to the router then you plug the router to the power, then you setup the wifi network name and password using the downloaded app on your smart phone. Then do a software update.

So this morning I ran a speed test.....wow...196 mps download and 20 mps up load. and it is overcast and foggy.

That is with their up graded router and a standard rectangular dish, mounted on an 1 1/2" galvanized pipe, bolted to the Fireplace "chase" that puts the dish above the top of the roof about four feet. Wiring was dropped down through the "chase", between the triple wall insulated fireplace flue piping and the "chase" itself, then through the roof hole for the triple wall insulated pipe, then across the attic and down into my electronics room. The house is spray foam insulated, sprayed on the underside of the roof.

Did not do an obstacle search, because the "chase" offered the highest point without obstacles in a 360 circle on our tree farm. These trees are 150' tall, so.....there was only one real place to put the dish.

A bit more testing to do for consistency, but so far so good.

[GregLaROCHE]

Anyone have information on their up graded router? Mine doesn’t seem to work as well as it originally did further away and through walls.