Starlink pre order open

[johnjk]

Put down my $99 to order Starlink today. I’ll be like a kid at Christmas watching my email for the shipping notification now

 

[bearbait]

Thanks for the heads up and yes we'll be very happy. It says mid to late 2021 for us before it'll be available, $129.00 here in Canada.

 

[Code]

just got the beta email for here. bit south of the where its been available. I personally dont need it as my coop ran fibre but many many around here do

 

[bearbait]

just got the beta email for here. bit south of the where its been available. I personally dont need it as my coop ran fibre but many many around here do

We're a bit north by 1 degree, internet is at it highest here right now at 2.75 Mbps, later today it'll be somewhere around 0.85 Mbps, gonna be a long wait.

 

[johnjk]

Was hoping for the beta but if I can get a t here in the next 2-3 months I’m happy. Current download is 10mbs and upload is 800k on Viasat

 

[Daren Todd]

We were at 1mbps download speed forever at our house with DSL. It was enough for us though so my wife could keep up with her Facebook and I could pay the bills.

They ran fiber optics several years ago and finally turned it on two years ago. They ran a special as a thank you to the folks on 1mbps to 3mbps speed. You get the 50mbps speed for the same price as the 1mbps.

They bumped us up so we are now at 100mbps speed for the same price.

 

[RCW]

This is a sore subject for me.

My Governator spent $500MM for "rural broadband" over a couple years.

We have miles and miles of fiber in front of houses, but the ISP provider won't allow homes to connect to it.

They probably met their commitment by putting on the poles....I saw miles of new (short) poles with loops of a single wire on them today....certainly wasn't for power.

They've already gotten paid by NYS, and probably don't have the infrastructure on the their side to provide service and/or customer service, so .......why bother with the hook-up to the house?!?!

We also have a lot of fiber was run into 80,000 of acres of State Forestlands, etc.

Last I knew, trees very seldom used the internet....

Welcome to New Yorkistan.....

 

[Daren Todd]

This is a sore subject for me.

My Governator spent $500MM for "rural broadband" over a couple years.

We have miles and miles of fiber in front of houses, but the ISP provider won't allow homes to connect to it.

They probably met their commitment by putting on the poles....I saw miles of new (short) poles with loops of a single wire on them today....certainly wasn't for power.

They've already gotten paid by NYS, and probably don't have the infrastructure on the their side to provide service and/or customer service, so .......why bother with the hook-up to the house?!?!

We also have a lot of fiber was run into 80,000 of acres of State Forestlands, etc.

Last I knew, trees very seldom used the internet....

Welcome to New Yorkistan.....

It took them a few years between running the fiber in my area and actually connecting people to it.

It took several phone calls before I determined who actually ran the fiber. Then a little time before I was connected with someone who actually knew about it with the company.

They waited till they built up demand for the fiber and faster speeds before they started connecting people to it.

The companies reasoning was it didn't pay to hook up the equipment for a few households. Which does make sense.

Once they get enough phone calls from potential customers, they will start sending out mailers to drum up even more interest. Then they will finally turn it on and start hooking people to it.

 

[random]

Was hoping for the beta but if I can get a t here in the next 2-3 months I’m happy. Current download is 10mbs and upload is 800k on Viasat

I'm assuming that's satellite (name suggests it) What sort of data caps do you have?

I have Hughes Net. It's not great, but it's good enough that I work full-time as a remote programmer, video meetings and all. Just had to get used to the delay. If I have a REALLY big download I head to the local office, or a friend's house to use fiber, but haven't had to do that for quite a long time.

 

[bearbait]

I'm assuming that's satellite (name suggests it) What sort of data caps do you have?

I have Hughes Net. It's not great, but it's good enough that I work full-time as a remote programmer, video meetings and all. Just had to get used to the delay. If I have a REALLY big download I head to the local office, or a friend's house to use fiber, but haven't had to do that for quite a long time.

There is no data cap so far that I know of.

 

[random]

There is no data cap so far that I know of.

I might take a look then.

Hughes has a "soft" cap at 50GB, after which they supposedly throttle your data. I've never noticed any difference before and after hitting it though.

 

[johnjk]

I'm assuming that's satellite (name suggests it) What sort of data caps do you have?

I have Hughes Net. It's not great, but it's good enough that I work full-time as a remote programmer, video meetings and all. Just had to get used to the delay. If I have a REALLY big download I head to the local office, or a friend's house to use fiber, but haven't had to do that for quite a long time.

It is satellite. They cap me at 60M/ month and then I get slower speeds. I could do Century Link but they only get 3mb at best. I usually do updates or file syncs when we hit the local brewery 30 min away in town. For work I use a virtual desktop so latency and slowness is not an issue. We never get the published rate of 25-30mb and when they slow us down it is negligible. My ping is over 800ms so video conf is not doable unless I am on cellular.

 

[johnjk]

I might take a look then.

Hughes has a "soft" cap at 50GB, after which they supposedly throttle your data. I've never noticed any difference before and after hitting it though.

Viasat was less than Hughes/ month and a bit better speeds in my area. I could upgrade my equipment to get better speeds but that comes with more data limitations and a 2yr contract. No thanks

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I've had Starlink from the very beginning and Zero complaints from me!
Was on Hughes Net which was and is a joke comparatively.
No Data caps with the Beta who knows what they will do down the line.
It's amazing, we can do everything we need to do and more if we want to.

 

[random]

Just got my starlink "coming soon" preorder on Friday. Jumped on it right away. Looking forward to <100ms pings

 

[bearbait]

Just got my starlink "coming soon" preorder on Friday. Jumped on it right away. Looking forward to <100ms pings

Good luck, let us know when you get it and how you like it...can't wait

 

[bucktail]

Are there equipment costs?

 

[ccoon520]

Are there equipment costs?

yes about 500 dollars. However, if your only other option is Hugh's net you'll make that back in like 10 months with a comparative plan just in monthly payment savings.

 

[johnjk]

Viasat is another option like Hughes. They don't charge for hardware but they have data caps and a lot more $/month than Starlink but less than Hughes. They (Viasat) also want you on a 2yr contract to start then you can go month- month, but if you want their faster gear or newer packages you have to re-up the contract. I looked at going with their faster gear and resigning but after discussion with them, they told me that the speeds were estimates and to stick with what I had in place. A bit of honesty while being bent over? The other thing I don't like about Viasat is that if a component goes out, they will not just send you a replacement, you need a service call. For me that was 5 days down when we took a lightening strike and lost the Viasat router. Due to how they drew up their service area, i get service from just outside Indianapolis and I live 50 mile from Columbus. Tech is always thrilled to see my name come up for a repair. Drives 6 hrs round trip to hand me a router that I had to go plug in due to Covid. Spent maybe 10 minutes on my driveway.

Makes me wonder how fast those two companies will fold when Starlink pushes in to the market further south? I can't see many people sticking with them when you have better bandwidth at a lower cost

 

[random]

Makes me wonder how fast those two companies will fold when Starlink pushes in to the market further south? I can't see many people sticking with them when you have better bandwidth at a lower cost

Unlike what I see from many here, I've been pretty happy with Hughes. I work remotely as a programmer, and I've had very little problem with work, online meetings, etc., as well as a lot of streaming services. (Hulu is useless though, can't handle the latency.) It has definitely been better that the hard-wired DSL I had previously, faster downloads and less outages.

But given the costs are lower and service is better with starlink, I'm almost certainly going to switch over fully as soon as it's fully stable (the email indicated it may have some windows of no-service as they get all the satellites up)

My only hesitation is that I read somewhere several months ago that they may filter content. I'm hoping that was only rumor.

As for viasat and hughes vs. starlink - I don't think they're going go completely go out of business for quite some time. Starlink won't have full world coverage for at least 10 years at their current rate. But unless they come up with another business model, they're definitely on the way out.