Fellow country-folk. Starlink

[jmhobbs]

I think they have an extension cable. It's not possible to go up instead, where you are?

I'll have to look again. From what I saw there were folks on Reddit splicing it themselves and getting longer runs, but I'd be worried about screwing up my $500 dish

My house is tucked in a stand of big old evergreens, 80' +. I figured trenching out to the nearest pasture would be easier than trying to get above the canopy.

Oh, another point: you can't use just any ethernet cable - you need one that can do "power over ethernet". I don't know the differences anymore but I'm pretty sure a regular cat-5e won't cut it.

Yeah, I was going to run power alongside the plain ethernet for "backhaul" to the router in the house, and have that power line provide juice to the power brick which does the PoE over the included 100' cable to the dish.

 

[random]

My house is tucked in a stand of big old evergreens, 80' +. I figured trenching out to the nearest pasture would be easier than trying to get above the canopy.

Yeah, I was going to run power alongside the plain ethernet for "backhaul" to the router in the house, and have that power line provide juice to the power brick which does the PoE over the included 100' cable to the dish.

I can see how that might be a problem, going up that high!

And now I understand your setup better - sounds like a good plan.

 

[Jchonline]

I've been looking at Starlink too, since our ADSL (which is never great to start with) has been down for more than two weeks and they're in no hurry to fix it. My main issue is that the gear comes with a fixed 100' cable, which isn't enough to get out of the woods for a decent view of the sky (according to their app). So I'll need to trench power and ethernet out to a shed and go from there. Now I can justify that trenching bucket from bxpanded, probably better get the quick attach system too...

Now for the finance committee approval...

 

[bearbait]

I just ordered mine 2 days ago and it is supposed to be here September 3rd. We made the first month payment back February 13th

 

[DustyRusty]

I am getting on the next UFO that lands in my neighborhood, and I am going to Mars...

From the "Terms of Service" contract.....

For Services provided on Mars, or in transit to Mars via Starship or other spacecraft, the parties recognize Mars as a free planet and that no Earth-based government has authority or sovereignty over Martian activities. Accordingly, Disputes will be settled through self-governing principles, established in good faith, at the time of Martian settlement.

 

[random]

Note that it only identifies Mars. Apparently Ceres remains under California jurisdiction.

 

[ItBmine]

I am in an area where we cannot get unlimited high speed internet. After many painful years of dial-up, I finally got Rogers 4G. Them and Bell both offered 50 Gigs for that it was $60/month then you paid overages. All I did was emails and these tractor sites. No you-tube or downloading music. Before long my bill were $350 a month. So cancelled that.
Then got Bell. Started out great. was staying at the $60 and we were watching videos. Then it started going up and up.
So, despite all the bad reviews and my better judgment got ExplorNOT because they were the closest to unlimited. Problem was that they had so many people on it that I had no internet every day from 4:30 pm to 4 am. Every single day.

So got rid of that and just got Starlink. Got it free for a bit because they were still beta testing. It is okay, but it still does like ExplorNOT and fades out to no service at times, or slows right down.
I'm hoping it gets better as they expand, but Bell was the best internet so far....just don't like making a car payment for internet.

Other thing I didn't like about Starlink.....the wire they give you that goes from dish to inside your home has giant "blocks" (sorry not a technician, no idea what they are) on BOTH ends. So I could not use an existing cable hole into my house and had to go buy a giant drill bit and drill a ridiculously big hole in my house.

 

[Newaterman]

Note that it only identifies Mars. Apparently Ceres remains under California jurisdiction.

Remember the Cant!

 

[johnjk]

My Starlink system showed up yesterday. Wow. From the ease of installation and increased performance, I’m impressed so far. The hardest part was navigating my iPhone to enable the compass so I could do the location obstruction check for the antenna. Starlink will end up saving me around $60 a month over Viasat and no data caps. It ain’t Gig speeds but it isn’t one bar of cell service speeds either.

The B3200 will get some work this weekend digging a trench for the antenna cable

 

[JeremyBX2200]

My Starlink system showed up yesterday. Wow. From the ease of installation and increased performance, I’m impressed so far. The hardest part was navigating my iPhone to enable the compass so I could do the location obstruction check for the antenna. Starlink will end up saving me around $60 a month over Viasat and no data caps. It ain’t Gig speeds but it isn’t one bar of cell service speeds either.

The B3200 will get some work this weekend digging a trench for the antenna cable

I put my deposit down a while back. Unfortunately not scheduled to expand in my area until 2023.

I almost put a deposit down 2 years ago. If I had I would already have it.....kicking myself. For now I am stuck with a data router and a directional antenna on my roof. Works okay, but requires some patience.

Have a co-working in my same boat. Lives out in the country and no good internet options. He received his a few months ago and said it works great.

 

[johnjk]

I put my deposit down a while back. Unfortunately not scheduled to expand in my area until 2023.

I almost put a deposit down 2 years ago. If I had I would already have it.....kicking myself. For now I am stuck with a data router and a directional antenna on my roof. Works okay, but requires some patience.

Have a co-working in my same boat. Lives out in the country and no good internet options. He received his a few months ago and said it works great.

I reached out to do beta with them back in mid 2020 and was .5 miles outside their test area so that was a no. I signed up in Feb 2021 when they were taking early applications for service and was offered to start with their best effort last week while they get more birds in the air.

Lots of people want to bash Musk and his endeavors but he is doing it. Politicians and current ISP’s in my areas have done studies for the last decade on expanding broadband. The only thing to come out of that is more money in the ISP pocket and no rural broadband.
I’m in a cell dead zone. One bar usually so those options are not feasible. T-Mobile only covers US33 and the Honda facilities. Their service drops a quarter mile past the plants. People that can use their 5G hotspot love it.

 

[JeremyBX2200]

I reached out to do beta with them back in mid 2020 and was .5 miles outside their test area so that was a no. I signed up in Feb 2021 when they were taking early applications for service and was offered to start with their best effort last week while they get more birds in the air.

Lots of people want to bash Musk and his endeavors but he is doing it. Politicians and current ISP’s in my areas have done studies for the last decade on expanding broadband. The only thing to come out of that is more money in the ISP pocket and no rural broadband.
I’m in a cell dead zone. One bar usually so those options are not feasible. T-Mobile only covers US33 and the Honda facilities. Their service drops a quarter mile past the plants. People that can use their 5G hotspot love it.

T-Mobile is functional in my area (depending on what your definition of functional is). I have a directional antenna mounted on a 10 ft pole on top of my roof. I can usually get 2-3 bars. Problem is there is only one tower close enough for a signal and the ONLY current option in my area is a cellular router.....so everyone has them and it bogs the network down bad at certain times of the day.

Also bad because it seems like the router SIM cards only last a few months, then get corrupted somehow. All support is by mail, so you are stuck without service for a couple of weeks until you get the new one in the mail.

There is a decent P2P carrier in the area with equipment plenty close, but with all the trees around they cant get a clear line of site to where I am at. Said they tried it with multiple people on my road and they all failed.

So now it is cellular until 2023.

If you wait for government or big ISP's to actually do more then lip service, you are gonna be dead and gone before anything happens. I am glad Elon is pushing things forward.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Ordered mine about a year ago after we started building our home. Still waiting.... not mad, as I knew it was going to be a while. They said Q3 2022 but I knew the world wasn't going to work that way with supply issues and such. They changed to saying late 2022/ early 2023 back in the Spring. Some neighbors have it and love it. Multiple users/ devices on at the same time and no issues.
Good news is the Musk-Rat is lobbing more satellites in space this week. Two launches so far.

 

[58Ford]

I have had it for 3 months now.

1. Remember it is still in beta, which means there will be some service interruptions as they do updates or reposition satellites.
2. If you have it in an unobstructed view of the sky (say on a roof with no trees around) it is doing to do great.
3. Good for all internet uses, almost good for video conferencing (but still some intermittent issues).
4. $500 for the satellite and $100 a month. Remember they could go bankrupt (who knows) so purchase with this in mind.
5. The router they give you isn't the best feature wise, so if you need more you can probably use your own, but you will have to try it. No guarantees it will work.
6. Make sure the cable to the dish is not exposed to critters/water, etc. It carries both power and data, so if it gets damaged you are toast. They have to replace the entire dish/cable assembly. I had a mouse chew mine. Now it is completely enclosed in electrical conduit.

I went from hughesnet and it is night/day difference. I usually get 20 up and 100+ down with latency less than 50 ms.
View attachment 65036

Just a heads up. Inside the casing is standard cat6 wire. Anyone with IT experience should know how to splice.

 

[MattN03]

We've had good performance out of T-Mobile home internet as we have no other options where we live, besides satellite internet.

 

[johnjk]

Just a heads up. Inside the casing is standard cat6 wire. Anyone with IT experience should know how to splice.

Good to know. Also when you go to run the cable through walls or conduit, the end that goes in the router is fixed and will only clear a 1.5” hole. The end that connects to dish is flexible and will easily slide through a .5” hole.
The connectors look to be USB type C, not the standard RJ45 you would expect for network. The cable they ship is 75’ and you can get a 150’ cable if you need it.
There are no connectors on the router other than power and the dish. They do offer a wifi mesh extender for $130. So far the range of the main unit is a lot better than my TPLink access point I was using. I may pick one up when the barn is built and go that route since I can’t run Ethernet cable. That being said, they do offer an adapter to give you that physical RJ45 but really, what electronics these days don’t support wifi? I’d spend more in conduit and cable plus the adapter vs the wifi mesh unit.

 

[The Evil Twin]

Good to know. Also when you go to run the cable through walls or conduit, the end that goes in the router is fixed and will only clear a 1.5” hole. The end that connects to dish is flexible and will easily slide through a .5” hole.
The connectors look to be USB type C, not the standard RJ45 you would expect for network. The cable they ship is 75’ and you can get a 150’ cable if you need it.
There are no connectors on the router other than power and the dish. They do offer a wifi mesh extender for $130. So far the range of the main unit is a lot better than my TPLink access point I was using. I may pick one up when the barn is built and go that route since I can’t run Ethernet cable. That being said, they do offer an adapter to give you that physical RJ45 but really, what electronics these days don’t support wifi? I’d spend more in conduit and cable plus the adapter vs the wifi mesh unit.

For some, like me, the RJ45 is necessary. The Starlink router doesn't support port forwarding and won't allow you to access cameras, energy management systems and such. Well, unless you use Nest, Arlo, Ring, etc that are web hosted. I like to write my own rules and use my own router.

 

[58Ford]

I am the same as ET. Some dedicated connections in our house require RJ45 instead of WiFi. I am glad johnjk pointed out that the Starlink router doesn’t come with the port but there is an option to add a single from Starlink. I missed that and was caught surprised. Now I have to integrate the Starlink system into our home network. We have already cancelled the Viasat but will keep the Century link via load balancing through Ubiquiti. Just waiting on the 150ft cable. It’s been on order for 3 weeks and just received the shipping note today.

I wish I could write my own rules! Luckily I have a guy.

 

[johnjk]

I did have to split bands (2.4 and 5) so my older devices (thermostat, printer, iRobot, and weather station ) could connect. No issues with my security system connecting. Other than that, no issues with any other devices. That being said I have not connected the wifi in my vehicles. Will do that later today. I finished up the cable management in the basement today. Due for rain this afternoon and Sunday so I’ll hold on the trench till we get some moisture in our ground. Ohio clay is not fun to dig in this time of year

 

[Jchonline]

Just a heads up. Inside the casing is standard cat6 wire. Anyone with IT experience should know how to splice.

Kind of. You can still make it work, but the wires carrying the power are not normal.

Despite the connectors being proprietary, the underlying technology connecting the router and the rectangular dishy is gigabit ethernet with non-standard PoE(The orange and green pairs are positive, the blue and brown pairs are negative). The cable itself is plain stranded STP CAT5e, suitable for outdoor use. The router acts as a 48V, 2A PoE power supply, so 96 watts are available at the port the router.