Starlink pre order open

[bmblank]

I just signed up for Starlink. I'm on AT&T right now. I managed to get an unlimited plan for $20/mo with no contracts. Problem is AT&T is very spotty at my house.
I've heard starlink has a cap at which they'll throttle speeds, but I also heard that throttled speed is only several times the speeds I'm currently seeing. I'm really excited to see if that's true.
I sure hope the latency stays as low as they're saying. I mean, 10Gbps, while ridiculously slow to many people, is totally usable internet as long as the latency isn't 300ms. If it's actually around 40ms like they're saying, that is going to be some fantastic satellite internet.

How long before they make a mobile version and I can put one on top of my camper?

 

[johnjk]

Many are pushing for the mobile version but I bet they hold on that until the have better coverage. My latency today is 700ms on Viasat. Pretty much normal.

 

[ccoon520]

The cost, latency and data caps are the reasons that I don't have with satellite services like hugh's and viasat. Even their "unlimited" plan throttles you to 3mbs after 25 or 50 gigs a month and with program updates, phone updates, and computer updates that'll blow through at least 5 gigs of your data. Not to mention if you want to stream movies or TV. So I may have a lower top speed at 10 mbs with my current plan but I average higher than I usually would when pulling 100 or 200 gigs a month from the other services.

I signed up for Starlink (hopefully I didn't preorder a bust) but the equipment cost will pay for itself with the savings that I get from my current internet plan. Plus if I can get something like 20-30Mbs constantly then I can get rid of the DirecTV package and pick up sling and ESPN or some other combination so I can watch college football and the wife can watch whatever she wants for much less than what we pay now to DirecTV.

 

[random]

I sure hope the latency stays as low as they're saying. I mean, 10Gbps, while ridiculously slow to many people, is totally usable internet as long as the latency isn't 300ms. If it's actually around 40ms like they're saying, that is going to be some fantastic satellite internet.

I think maybe you mean 10Mbps? You need fiber to get to 10Gbps...

The cost, latency and data caps are the reasons that I don't have with satellite services like hugh's and viasat. Even their "unlimited" plan throttles you to 3mbs after 25 or 50 gigs a month and with program updates, phone updates, and computer updates that'll blow through at least 5 gigs of your data. Not to mention if you want to stream movies or TV.

I hit my 50G cap around the 10th-12th of each month and notice very little change in most of my usage for the rest of the month, unless I'm downloading a large repo or an OS update or the like. I've tested my speeds while throttled and I've seen much faster than 3Mbps, so I don't think that's an absolute.

Either way it's better than the DSL service I had that averaged 300Kbps (yes, K) and dropped out whenever the weather even looked like it might rain (never did understand that). You get what you can out here...

 

[tbk5]

For those using Starlink, how is the performance during inclement weather (rain, snow, etc.).

I currently have 25Mbs ATT DSL. It is pretty stable and service is close to advertised speed. I had DishTV but it got pricey and I lost service as soon as it started raining out. I got rid of it. I cut the cord and switched to Roku with sling. Cell signal is poor here too. I use extenders which depend on internet service. While I want the extra speed promised by Starlink, I am concerned about losing everything (internet, tv, phone) if the service drops with bad weather.

 

[Crash277]

My dsl is crap, lucky to hit 1.8-2mbps. I signed up for the starlink beta, got my email they are stating 50-150mbps with 40ms latency. But..... they want $649 for hardware, 129/month and 65 for shipping.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

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

I wish my Starlink setup would filter things out, it doesn't filter or block anything.

And my latency on Starlink has been as low as 16ms .
Tested it quite a few times... like hundreds.
I was a little skeptical when Starlink said what it could do, but I thought what the heck anything has to beat my 400+ms Hughes net setup that would max out data caps all the time just responding to messages on OTT.
A normal computer update could take days to download.

Never experience any loss due to weather not even really heavy snow.
And it melts itself off, no more running out in my robe and slippers (or less) just so I can sit here in the morning on the computer drinking coffee and answering tractor questions.

I have nothing but rave reviews about Starlink!

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

My dsl is crap, lucky to hit 1.8-2mbps. I signed up for the starlink beta, got my email they are stating 50-150mbps with 40ms latency. But..... they want $649 for hardware, 129/month and 65 for shipping.

It's worth every penny!
OH wait your in Canada, worth every nickel?

 

[mikester]

For those using Starlink, how is the performance during inclement weather (rain, snow, etc.).

I currently have 25Mbs ATT DSL. It is pretty stable and service is close to advertised speed. I had DishTV but it got pricey and I lost service as soon as it started raining out. I got rid of it. I cut the cord and switched to Roku with sling. Cell signal is poor here too. I use extenders which depend on internet service. While I want the extra speed promised by Starlink, I am concerned about losing everything (internet, tv, phone) if the service drops with bad weather.

The service isn't steady like a hard wired connection. So far I've had snow a couple of times and no drop outs. It's definitely faster and more reliable than my xplornet service.

When I first got xplornet it wasn't oversold on my tower and speeds and reliability were good.

 

[bearbait]

The service isn't steady like a hard wired connection. So far I've had snow a couple of times and no drop outs. It's definitely faster and more reliable than my xplornet service.

When I first got xplornet it wasn't oversold on my tower and speeds and reliability were good.

My problem with xplornet is the latency is way too high (700 to 800 or more) so our Magic Jack phone won't work with their service but it would be better than what we have only for that. Our problem also is it would cost way too much to get a land line in because they would have to come across a lake in order to get it here, it was 10 thousand to get electricity and 16 years ago it would have been well over 2 grand for the land line which still doesn't offer high speed internet so now we sit and wait for Starlink.

 

[tbk5]

Good to hear that it works well in bad weather. In Alabama, I will not worry too much about snow but when it rains, it often comes in barrels.

But 50GB data cap! Yikes. DSL gives me 1024 GB/month. Between remote work, internet, phone, and streaming tv, we usually use 600-800GB/month. I would probably use more if I had more bandwidth. Hmmm.

 

[bearbait]

Heavy wet snow here right now so I had to put the ladder back up and clean off the antenna for our internet with the ice scraper brush to get it back. Probably good for another 15 to 30 minutes then back up the ladder again.

 

[ccoon520]

Good to hear that it works well in bad weather. In Alabama, I will not worry too much about snow but when it rains, it often comes in barrels.

But 50GB data cap! Yikes. DSL gives me 1024 GB/month. Between remote work, internet, phone, and streaming tv, we usually use 600-800GB/month. I would probably use more if I had more bandwidth. Hmmm.

Yeah traditional satellite internet companies really hose you when it comes to data caps. The best part is they advertise it as like Unlimited25 in reference to the speed and try to trick you into thinking that you have unlimited data at 25mbs. Then have in fine print that after 25 or 50 gigs of data usage that the speed is throttled to 3mbs.

So far Musk has said there isn't any plans for data caps on starlink at this time. Hopefully that holds up throughout the full rollout. He also said that they are taking it slow to keep Starlink economically feasible because he doesn't want it to go bankrupt like other LEO Internet providers have in the past.

 

[bmblank]

I think maybe you mean 10Mbps?

 

[mcfarmall]

So I have garbage AT&T DSL internet that is gouging me for $101/month due to overages and is always flaking out. Will I be money or service ahead with Starlink? Thinking about signing up as AT&T DSL is my ONLY option where I am.

 

[ccoon520]

So I have garbage AT&T DSL internet that is gouging me for $101/month due to overages and is always flaking out. Will I be money or service ahead with Starlink? Thinking about signing up as AT&T DSL is my ONLY option where I am.

I think it depends on what your AT&T service is and exactly how spotty it is. Currently Starlink will most likely have a consistent outage for 3-4% of the day due to the current number of satellites in orbit but it would not likely be more than a few minutes. This should reduce as more satellites come online but that does take time.

The way I would look at it is if it gets me 15 Mpbs I am happy because that is what I have now for less money. If it gets me 20+ Mpbs I would be very happy because then I could drop our TV package and pick up a streaming platform instead without needing to worry about who can use the internet at the same time.

They are reporting people getting over 100Mpbs with it but I think it depends on what performance gains you are expecting and what you'd be happy with. Maybe ask/beg/bribe NIW to put together a spreadsheet that he updates whenever he goes on his speed test expeditions to maybe get an idea of averages?

On the negative side there are reports that the system could reach a bottleneck when brought fully online due to bandwidth constraints but there really isn't any real world data to support that claim.

 

[random]

mcfarmall: You'll probably be about the same money-wise with starlink, less the initial equipment cose ($500-ish) but I think you'll be much happier with the service.

I would expect LEO satellites to be less susceptible to weather than geosyncronous, if nothing else because the signal is probably a lot stronger given they're like 1/10 the distance - same power would be 1000x stronger per inverse cube law. I would be curious about the transmitter power and frequency differences. (maybe something to look up...)

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

Good to hear that it works well in bad weather. In Alabama, I will not worry too much about snow but when it rains, it often comes in barrels.

But 50GB data cap! Yikes. DSL gives me 1024 GB/month. Between remote work, internet, phone, and streaming tv, we usually use 600-800GB/month. I would probably use more if I had more bandwidth. Hmmm.

I think you might be mixing things up?
Starlink does not have data caps.
Hughes Net and other services do.

 

[North Idaho Wolfman]

I think it depends on what your AT&T service is and exactly how spotty it is. Currently Starlink will most likely have a consistent outage for 3-4% of the day due to the current number of satellites in orbit but it would not likely be more than a few minutes. This should reduce as more satellites come online but that does take time.

The way I would look at it is if it gets me 15 Mpbs I am happy because that is what I have now for less money. If it gets me 20+ Mpbs I would be very happy because then I could drop our TV package and pick up a streaming platform instead without needing to worry about who can use the internet at the same time.

They are reporting people getting over 100Mpbs with it but I think it depends on what performance gains you are expecting and what you'd be happy with. Maybe ask/beg/bribe NIW to put together a spreadsheet that he updates whenever he goes on his speed test expeditions to maybe get an idea of averages?

On the negative side there are reports that the system could reach a bottleneck when brought fully online due to bandwidth constraints but there really isn't any real world data to support that claim.

I see 50+ MB/s consistently.
I've seen as high a 159 MB/s and uploads in the 50MB/s
Just ran the speed test and got 68 MB/s right now.

 

[mikester]

For those using Starlink, how is the performance during inclement weather (rain, snow, etc.).

I currently have 25Mbs ATT DSL. It is pretty stable and service is close to advertised speed. I had DishTV but it got pricey and I lost service as soon as it started raining out. I got rid of it. I cut the cord and switched to Roku with sling. Cell signal is poor here too. I use extenders which depend on internet service. While I want the extra speed promised by Starlink, I am concerned about losing everything (internet, tv, phone) if the service drops with bad weather.

I've only had my system for a couple of weeks and have limited weather to compare. Right now I've got a fairly heavy mix of wet snow and rain and I'm getting 36Mbit down and 16Mbit up.

On hughesnet I would get drop outs with heavy wet snow or thunderstorms either at my place or the upload center.

I've noticed that Xplornet tends to drops out at 4pm after the school buses have started dropping kids off at home. And weeknights and weekends. Weekdays too. I think part of xplornet's problem is that they send your network traffic accross canada a few times before it actually gets to the internet. That and they've oversold the service for the bandwidth available.