Anyone running Starlink internet yet?

[IowaOffRoad]

Put down a deposit in February after stumbling across this thread and doing some research. Still haven't received anything. Would really like to get it as we moved and our cellular internet is spotty at best where we are right now. Glad to hear that those who have it are getting good service.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

Wtf. 😂

I’m giving them a couple more days to figure it out before I just cancel and go without internet till Starlink.

They admitted that they were both busy and should have suspended the auto pay or whatever, but when they did call, they refused to refund anything.

Side note, anyone else have their phone Data go to shit? We were excited to have full 4glte service with Verizon when we bought our house in May. First month or so it worked great, even used a hot spot to stream TV. Recently it has been garbage. Still says I have 4-5 bars, but is painfully slow and sometimes won't even load a page on here. I heard Verizon put all their apples in the 5g basket and sold off many towers to smaller companies. I guess it's the same story as when 4g came out, 3g sucked, 4glte/4g, ect. Sucks because, the closest 5g is 2 hours away, I don't expect it up here anytime soon.

 

[crispins]

I am still waiting for Starlink.

I use a barely usable Verizon POS that runs out of data every month even tho I am never home and I have the largest plan they have.

it is slow as fuck, stops working all the time.

I hate it!

 

[bgaidan]

Fuckit. I just pre-ordered.

I'm still sporting a sprint unlimited hot spot and currently getting about 18mbps hard-wired in the shop and it drops to about 10-12 after a wireless bridge and WAP in the house. It's actually pretty acceptable for where I am as the only other option is DSL that "up to 3mbps"

Just did the sky scan in the app and verified that I have a good mounting location with no obstructions. Probably should have done that before I ordered.

They admitted that they were both busy and should have suspended the auto pay or whatever, but when they did call, they refused to refund anything.

Side note, anyone else have their phone Data go to shit? We were excited to have full 4glte service with Verizon when we bought our house in May. First month or so it worked great, even used a hot spot to stream TV. Recently it has been garbage. Still says I have 4-5 bars, but is painfully slow and sometimes won't even load a page on here. I heard Verizon put all their apples in the 5g basket and sold off many towers to smaller companies. I guess it's the same story as when 4g came out, 3g sucked, 4glte/4g, ect. Sucks because, the closest 5g is 2 hours away, I don't expect it up here anytime soon.

Mine's actually gotten better, but I think that's because of the Sprint/T-mo merge. I was only getting about 10mb when I first set it up and now I'm seeing 18+.

I kind of wonder if some of the slowdown is from more congestion on the lte network now that they're abandoning 3g. All the 3g traffic had to move somewhere.

I am still waiting for Starlink.

I use a barely usable Verizon POS that runs out of data every month even tho I am never home and I have the largest plan they have.

it is slow as fuck, stops working all the time.

I hate it!

If sprint/t-mo has any coverage in your area I can point you to the unlimited setup I use. Only caveat is you pre-pay for the year so if starlink ships next month, you'll be stuck with both. The LTE ends up being about $40/mo and I think they now have a 5G option the is around $60/mo.

 

[TheNorthernHoser]

I got my Star-link in June, I have been really happy with it. I was on a wait list for a few months then I went into the app and moved my location by a mile and the next day my I got notified my star-link was going to be shipped out. might be something to try for those of you who have been waiting awhile.

 

[crispins]

I got my Star-link in June, I have been really happy with it. I was on a wait list for a few months then I went into the app and moved my location by a mile and the next day my I got notified my star-link was going to be shipped out. might be something to try for those of you who have been waiting awhile.

what app?

 

[92 Green YJ]

Fuckit. I just pre-ordered.



Just did the sky scan in the app and verified that I have a good mounting location with no obstructions. Probably should have done that before I ordered.

eh, I wasn’t able to do the obstruction scan before ordering as I ordered and got mine a month or so before we moved to the new house. Had to wait until we got here to do it. The spot I chose had some obstructions from a tree growing next to the house. It was the best spot for it though so I mounted it then took the pole saw to said tree and lopped off a bu ch of branches and topped one of them. I’m now obstruction free.

that said, the obstruction viewer in the app has improved immensely from what it was two months ago. They pushed a big app update a few weeks back that really improved most of the features.

 

[92 Green YJ]

I live south of St. Louis about 40 miles and have been running Starlink since March. It has been awesome. No DSL where I live and just barely too far down the hillside for fixed wireless. and I had used Exced, and then AT&T wireless home internet. Both could barely handle steaming and had data caps.

I will see download speeds between 150 and 200mbs during non peak times and 30-80 during peak times, but they have been improving. Drop-outs and no sat issues have been decreasing as well. I am a little disappointed in the rain fade, people online act like it takes a monsoon to knock out the signal, but to me all it takes is what I would call a normal downpour, but I'm sure people have different ways of describing a downpour.

Following up as it finally started pouring here with thunder and lightNing. Just ran a speed test and got 109 MB down, 14.7 up and 46 Ms ping

reminder the cloudy but not raining test from earlier this evening was 159 down, 7.73 up and 54 ms ping.

 

[665.0coupe]

Following up as it finally started pouring here with thunder and lightNing. Just ran a speed test and got 109 MB down, 14.7 up and 46 Ms ping

reminder the cloudy but not raining test from earlier this evening was 159 down, 7.73 up and 54 ms ping.

I ran a speed test with my current DSL a couple hours ago and got 15.4 MB down and 0.94 MB up and 32 ms ping. This is pretty typical even though we paid to upgrade to the 20 MB down package during covid. I think we will be putting our deposit in shortly.

 

[Mountain-Dweller]

Paid deposit and on waiting list, Starlink says expected availability for me is late 2022

 

[Chevy_man]

Place I'm working on has it. I'll see if I remember to run a speed test tomorrow. It's right outside Bozeman so I'll see what the Bozeman servers ping at.

The owner was happy to share his wifi and couldn't stop mentioning how great it was. He's been on DSL for years though.


I have gigabit at my house. So I doubt I'll change over. If anything I bet my prices drop since my ISP is 90% rural.

 

[Wheelin66bronco]

Side note, anyone else have their phone Data go to shit? We were excited to have full 4glte service with Verizon when we bought our house in May. First month or so it worked great, even used a hot spot to stream TV. Recently it has been garbage. Still says I have 4-5 bars, but is painfully slow and sometimes won't even load a page on here. I heard Verizon put all their apples in the 5g basket and sold off many towers to smaller companies. I guess it's the same story as when 4g came out, 3g sucked, 4glte/4g, ect. Sucks because, the closest 5g is 2 hours away, I don't expect it up here anytime soon.

Every swinging dick from California moved to rural America this year
Each cell site only has so many channel elements per sector and with increased usage in rural areas that were never built much over average usage capacity, the service has gone to shit.
Bars on your phone =signal level, roughly. It's kinda a fake scale.
Just because you have good signal does not mean you have good throughput if that sector is at capacity of channel elements.
It takes large companies like Verizon a while to add licenses etc, they watch long term trends of a site at capacity.
Basically, don't expect it to improve soon.
Verizon is not in the tower business, they own very few. They use their name and power to get new sites built, but then sell the sites to SBA, Crown Castle, American Towers etc.
5g/4g use the same frequencies, I doubt you'll notice much different on your end and I doubt it has anything to do with your local tower being overloaded.

 

[muddysamurai]

signal strength plays a big part in fade.
if you're a marginal signal to start with, well.

I don't think my signal is marginal, only a couple obstructions at the very edge of its view and dropouts are continuing to decline. It still is less affected by rain than Exced was though.

 

[Wheelerfreak]

what app?

Starlink App. go to their website for a link to download it.

 

[87manche]

I don't think my signal is marginal, only a couple obstructions at the very edge of its view and dropouts are continuing to decline. It still is less affected by rain than Exced was thoug

yes, but if you're at the edge of a satellites coverage area and someone else is right below it, they will have better signal strength.
just the nature of using radio waves to do communication.
until the giant mesh is finished there's bound to be some people that end up with a marginal signal to start with. In classic "it's easy" fashion it appears that the starlink app gives no actually useful technical information.

 

[Wheelin66bronco]

58ms ping time for satellite is impressive.

 

[Chevy_man]

 

[dnsfailure]

 

[AgitatedPancake]

Just saw a tweet from Elon that Starlink is coming out of beta in about a month. I don't think that means they will have completely filled all backorders, but a step in the right direction

 

[YotaAtieToo]

So I ran a few tests with the app and it's saying that I have "many" obstructions, expect outages every 2 Mins, and to try a new location. I tried most every reasonable spot, but haven't gotten on the roof yet. We have a few trees, but nothing crazy. It's also saying to aim north, which is odd, I figured they would be more consentrated near the equatorish.

 

[AgitatedPancake]

As the density of active satellites increase, I would expect it to be able to work with a narrower and narrower corridor. They've only got about 10% of the entire network up there right now.

As far as pointing north, I'm not 100% positive but I believe there is a higher density of satellites at the northern and southern ends of the orbits due to orbital mechanics, so the equator actually has less sats overhead at any given time. It also might be due to where the nearest ground station is to you as they still need to ping back down to the ground until they get these latest sats with laser interlinks fully operational

 

[VG SERE]

FYI for those of you considering.

I ordered 2 Starlink kits in Feb. Got our first one in late July. Told my neighbor and he ordered and received his kit in about a week. The grid is still not open at our home, so no kit shipped.

It appears that once your grid is "open" you can get your kit as soon as they come off the line. The grids are about 18 mile areas, according to reddit.

In other words you're waiting on satellite launches, not equipment. If your neighbor already got his kit, chances are you can get yours immediately.

 

[bgaidan]

So I ran a few tests with the app and it's saying that I have "many" obstructions, expect outages every 2 Mins, and to try a new location. I tried most every reasonable spot, but haven't gotten on the roof yet. We have a few trees, but nothing crazy. It's also saying to aim north, which is odd, I figured they would be more consentrated near the equatorish.

The app should show you an overlay of the obstructions so you can identify them and see if going higher (roof) or a different location will work. Look at the pic in post 133 above.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

The app should show you an overlay of the obstructions so you can identify them and see if going higher (roof) or a different location will work. Look at the pic in post 133 above.

It does, its all trees that I want or are on neighbors property. Going on the roof might help, but there is a big tree in front of the house that may be more in the way.

I even went up to the gate, which has a pretty open view north, but it says the trees way off to the side are obstructions. I can't imagine anyone but desert or plains dwellers having a much better view up.

 

[bgaidan]

It does, its all trees that I want or are on neighbors property. Going on the roof might help, but there is a big tree in front of the house that may be more in the way.

I even went up to the gate, which has a pretty open view north, but it says the trees way off to the side are obstructions. I can't imagine anyone but desert or plains dwellers having a much better view up.

This is the only pic I have on hand, but it's basically right about where I'd mount the dish. North is to slightly left/behind where I'm standing and my shop and a ton of trees are back there. I thought I'd have problems but it showed zero obstructions.

for added flair

 

[gtxracer2]

Preordered. After trying to "WFH" from the beach a few times this year, I need something fast enough to keep blurring my background

 

[YotaAtieToo]

This is the only pic I have on hand, but it's basically right about where I'd mount the dish. North is to slightly left/behind where I'm standing and my shop and a ton of trees are back there. I thought I'd have problems but it showed zero obstructions.

for added flair

I don't know, we're up near the canukistan boarder, so maybe a zone with poor coverage still?

Funny, I did get a call from the local dsl place to schedule my install...... I'm like, I don't remember committing to this? after talking to her, I'm going to give it a shot. Free install, free internet the first month, no contract, and about $95/mo after that with a land line and unlimited data. It's only 12 mps, but that probably 25x's what we have right now and if it's consistent, that will be a huge upgrade. Only really doing some Netflix or similar streaming and surfing this place. If stark link gets that good here, we can always make the jump.

Edit: I did a few tests and got ~20-30 mbps out or wifi and ~1.5 out of my cell service . The problem with our AT&T wireless is it is extremely unreliable and inconsistent. 30 mbps here, 0.5 there, then just completely shuts off sometimes. It also seems to suck extra in storms.

 

[bgaidan]

I don't know, we're up near the canukistan boarder, so maybe a zone with poor coverage still?

Funny, I did get a call from the local dsl place to schedule my install...... I'm like, I don't remember committing to this? after talking to her, I'm going to give it a shot. Free install, free internet the first month, no contract, and about $95/mo after that with a land line and unlimited data. It's only 12 mps, but that probably 25x's what we have right now and if it's consistent, that will be a huge upgrade. Only really doing some Netflix or similar streaming and surfing this place. If stark link gets that good here, we can always make the jump.

Edit: I did a few tests and got ~20-30 mbps out or wifi and ~1.5 out of my cell service . The problem with our AT&T wireless is it is extremely unreliable and inconsistent. 30 mbps here, 0.5 there, then just completely shuts off sometimes. It also seems to suck extra in storms.

I'm in a FB group for "LTE Hacks". There are people like me that just wanted to see 15-20mbps out of a cheap LTE plan and then there are guys that are bonding 3-4+ different LTE modems and getting in the hundreds. Kinda crazy and way to much work for me.

I'm honestly ok with the 15 I'm getting on Sprint now. Everything streams fine and I really don't have many complaints, but I'll certainly take the starlink speeds for a little more $$.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

I'm in a FB group for "LTE Hacks". There are people like me that just wanted to see 15-20mbps out of a cheap LTE plan and then there are guys that are bonding 3-4+ different LTE modems and getting in the hundreds. Kinda crazy and way to much work for me.

I'm honestly ok with the 15 I'm getting on Sprint now. Everything streams fine and I really don't have many complaints, but I'll certainly take the starlink speeds for a little more $$.

I'd be fine with it if it was remotely consistent.

 

[YotaAtieToo]

Got our DSL a min ago. So far it seems to suck

Speed test is ~12 like they said, seems to stream OK, but if I connect to it on my phone, it will not load this site.

Edit: I take it back, it doesn't stream, it won't even open Amazon prime.