Starlink Discussion

[Robo]

Looking at the mapped out beta tests in Canada it looks like only Southern areas across Canada have gotten the beta invites so far

[zarrell]

Just ordered the service from starlink as I was invited into the beta. Anyone else get it? Upfront costs are a little high at $750 just to get the equipment and monthly service fees of $130. Still beats $155/month for 150 GB and 25 mb/s. Not to mention the 800ms latency...

Also curious where in the sky the dish has to be aimed? I've heard it's northerly and a lot more vertical than traditional dishes.

[jonesy]

What area are you in, I have been trying to get on beta test in rural Northern PA for months.

[zarrell]

I'm SW of Calgary.

[Samonadreau]

Just got the invite and ordered/signed up for Beta in mid-northwest Alberta. Woot-Woot.

Oh lawd pumped to go from 3-5Mb/s to 50-150.

[Azure]

Is there even an invite stage still? I thought they had moved to first come first served basis?

[Sluggo]

Originally Posted by Azure

Is there even an invite stage still? I thought they had moved to first come first served basis?

Got a email from an application but responded a few days late and it threw me back to the registration. I imagine they are releasing them in batches so if you are not quick on the draw you are SOL until the next one gets served.

[Hack&Lube]

My boss just went from 1mbps in a rural area by Okotoks to 150mbps. He can finally stop coming into the office and work remotely like the rest of us now!

[Azure]

Originally Posted by Sluggo

Got a email from an application but responded a few days late and it threw me back to the registration. I imagine they are releasing them in batches so if you are not quick on the draw you are SOL until the next one gets served.

That is what I assumed.

The stories that people are posting how this changes their life is amazing.

And we are already starting to see better pricing and plans from other rural providers.

[taxbuster]

Starlink user here in rural BC. No WISP worth using here (and I've used them all at one point or another.) I built my own radio system using Ubiquiti radios to relay signal to me from a local town about 26 km away. Works well, if somewhat bandwidth limited. It's rock solid and has been in place for 6 years. Typically 15-30 down, 15 up.

Starlink: less stable during the beta (I can't use corporate VPNs because I drop too many packets at the moment) but for everything else...stellar (yah, it's a pun)! Average is better than 75-80 Mbps down, around 20 up, topped out about 180 Mbps down, 80 up.

I have Dual WAN failover enabled, so when SL craps out, my old system kicks in. Love it! And when the beta ends and the stability increases and the snow leaves so I can put Dishy where I want...even better.

[Azure]

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said the company’s Starlink satellite internet service “will double” speeds to customers “later this year,” as it continues to build out the global consumer network.

“Speed will double to ~300Mb/s & latency will drop to ~20ms later this year,” Musk said in a tweet on Monday, responding to a user who showed speed tests ranging between 77 and 130 Mbps.

In a following tweet, Musk added that Starlink will reach customers around “most” of the Earth by the end of 2021 and is expecting to have complete global coverage “by next year.”

He emphasized that Starlink, like other satellite broadband services, is intended for customers in “low to medium population density area.”

“Cellular will always have the advantage in dense urban areas,” Musk said.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/22/elon...this-year.html

On reddit, most of the users who are tracking the outages over long periods of time are saying the system has consistently gotten better.

[Samonadreau]

Originally Posted by taxbuster

Starlink user here in rural BC. No WISP worth using here (and I've used them all at one point or another.) I built my own radio system using Ubiquiti radios to relay signal to me from a local town about 26 km away. Works well, if somewhat bandwidth limited. It's rock solid and has been in place for 6 years. Typically 15-30 down, 15 up.

Starlink: less stable during the beta (I can't use corporate VPNs because I drop too many packets at the moment) but for everything else...stellar (yah, it's a pun)! Average is better than 75-80 Mbps down, around 20 up, topped out about 180 Mbps down, 80 up.

I have Dual WAN failover enabled, so when SL craps out, my old system kicks in. Love it! And when the beta ends and the stability increases and the snow leaves so I can put Dishy where I want...even better.

This is my plan too. Have a second wifi router set up with 2 WAN ports Primary will be Starlink, secondary my Telus hub. When its stable enough i will cancel Telus.

[Azure]

Users are reporting longer downtimes but some speed increases up to 300Mb/s.

One of the investors in Starlink also said that each launch of 60 satellites adds another TB/s of bandwidth.

Have yet to see the supposed congestion that we are expecting as more countries / users come online.

[1_Flames_Fan]

I would say at this point in the beta there are still a lot of random disconnections and downtime for me personally. I've had it since December 2020. I wouldn't say the downtime is very long or anything but if you are an online gamer you will likely be pretty annoyed getting disconnected all the time. Have other people had a similiar experience?

[Robo]

I can't afford starling right now but I phoned xplornet and asked what they can do to keep me a customer they are taking 25 percent off my monthly bill for the next 6 months so I'll take that hopefully in 6 months starlink will be out of beta and more stable for gamers and I can save up till then

[1_Flames_Fan]

Originally Posted by Robo

I can't afford starling right now but I phoned xplornet and asked what they can do to keep me a customer they are taking 25 percent off my monthly bill for the next 6 months so I'll take that hopefully in 6 months starlink will be out of beta and more stable for gamers and I can save up till then

Nice leverage play. I do that with my Sirius XM every 6 months too.

[LIP MAN]

Originally Posted by 1_Flames_Fan

Nice leverage play. I do that with my Sirius XM every 6 months too.

I should ask what you pay. I HAVE to get a deal on it here.

[taxbuster]

...and here in the middle of Everywhere, BC where not many people live and Starlink is doing well, what shows up in my mailbox today? A mail (addressed!) from Telus telling me that they are installing Pure Fibre in my area "soon" (May-Oct)....I was just about to buy a 40' mast to improve my SL reception and get a clear view of the sky. Sigh, I hate Telus, but I just don't see how I can't take them up on that.

SL speeds are indeed increasing, at least on the download side. Most times now I'm 100 Mbps+ (highest is 180 Mbps so far), but upload still pretty much sucks at around 20 Mbps. Given that I move some large files and work on remote servers, upload counts for me as a big thing, so on Fibre I'll have (more or less) symmetrical speeds.

The only thing that chaps me about Telus is that if I get Optik I'll only be able to get BC TV, where right now I have Bell satellite - with an Alberta address - so I get all the Flames games! :-)

[Lubicon]

Nothing technical to add but over the weekend I got my first visual of the Starlink satellites in the night sky. Gotta admit the spectacle was both fascinating and also made my mind wander. For anyone not familiar a normal satellite is easy to spot at night, it is a single point of light that looks like a star and moves across the sky eventually disappearing . Sunday night I was headed in for the night and was sky watching as it was a clear night and the sky was black (very little moonlight). I say a string of lights in a straight line (25-30 lights in total) moving across the sky. Thought at first it was something burning up on reentry but when it lasted more than a few seconds it was clear it wasn't. They I thought military as I've seen formations of planes but a straight line and too many lights to make sense. So then you get the WTF and some end of days type thoughts before my daughter did a quick google and we figured out it was Starlink.

Not sure if this is temporary and they will spread out in a final pattern or if this is how they are intended to stay.

When you see it for the first time it is a fascinating sight.

[photon]

They'll spread out over time as they move to their designated orbits.