Starlink Better Than Nothing, Beta tester!

I mainly hope one day it offers some competition to the big isp's they absolutely suck

My isp is cox the name fits them way to well to be conicadental lol

a reply to: Hypntick

Oh you will be able to get it - guaranteed.
Im located in Northern Ontario, Canada.

originally posted by: Macenroe82
Expect data speeds to vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.

As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically. For latency, we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021.

The Starlink phased-array user terminal, which is more advanced than what’s in fighter jets, plus mounting tripod and wifi router, costs CA$649 and the monthly subscription costs CA$129.”

Spectrum has a monopoly in my area. I can choose between:

Spectrum: 100 mb/s for $90 a month
Verizon: 5 mb/s for over $100 a month (why????)
Hughesnet: crap

Spectrum is bad. They charge way too much for what little speed they offer. There are places in the USA with better and cheaper Internet service.

I'm surprised that Starlink will be even worse than Spectrum. Holy #. I thought it was supposed to be something revolutionary.

Well Musk thinks his Tesla electric cars are revolutionary too, but they're too expensive for anyone except the rich to drive. He also thinks his rockets are revolutionary, and they keep blowing up.

I guess American "genius" isn't what it used to be.

a reply to: peskyhumans

The $100 a month for Starlink is the beta cost, from what I understand they're going to have a price decrease once adoption levels are higher. Even for $100 a month, it's honestly worth it to me as I imagine they'll get closer to 500 Mbps by the time they're fully deployed.

originally posted by: Macenroe82
a reply to: Bigburgh

Thanks BB!
Yeah, I’m currently paying $190 a month for net and house phone, in Northern Ontario.
So in the long run, it will be cheaper
The upfront cost of $806 sucks, but it looks like that’s with tax.

Holy crap!! I don't have home phone but my $70 odd a month for 150 Mbs down and 20 Up from Teksavvy seems like a steal now!

I hope when the U.K. gets it it’s cheaper than that,I pay about 34 quid a month for my fiber internet and phone

a reply to: Macenroe82

Not yet, I registered in Spring and hoped I would be invited to beta test it.

But seeing that it may cost 100€ monthly, my interest is fading.

Well, I was hoping the delivery would be a lot sooner.
I can expect the unit to arrive in 2-4 weeks.
That’s kind of silly.
I can order a cheap car part from China and choose the worst shipping method and still get it within 2 weeks.

I checked my email this morning and I have a confirmation email saying my unit has shipped!!

originally posted by: interupt42

originally posted by: Phage
a reply to: interupt42


I don't think comcast is satellite direct internet.
I don't think starlink will get close to the performance of cable. But it can be got where cable can't.

No comcast is not satellite nor is the performance of satellite going to be able beat performance of comcast in the near future.

However, my distaste for comcast is so great that I would be willing to jump ship and pay more for less just to give comcast the F U and not have to deal with them.

Cant stand them as a company or being their customer. Had to get the FCC involved once to settle an issue with them and I actually pay more for less service for them , because I cut everything back to only internet.

When I had cable with them it was a constant battle with false charges, plan changes, and their support sucks beyond checking if you rebooted the modem.

^^^ This x1000

I have the same sentiment for Cablevision/Optimum here in the Northeast.

Since moving into our new home 4 years ago, the price has doubled. Finally this month I'd had enough, and executed the "I'm calling to disconnect.....(but tell me all about your latest customer retention plan!)" play. It's a filthy business all the way around, and I don't relish having to essentially play chicken with my ISP every 2 years to maintain a reasonable price for Internet (and phone service I don't use).

Should the day come where the cable company calls my bluff on this, I don't think I'd have another choice other than about facing and signing right back up as a "new customer". The competing service from Frontier is DSL with 30Mb down/5Mb up plan; not going to cut it here. Amazingly (!!!) no other competitor ever seems to make inroads here in southern CT and IIUC Eastern Westchester NY. No Verizon. No fiber alternative. I've looked into enhanced 4G plans, and don't think they'd suffice, nor does Verizon offer them at my address. I live in small-ish city too, this is not a question of accessibility. It's almost as if....the ISP service areas around here had been......pre-arranged and dived up among the providers. Hmmmm.

Starlink is the hope of something new crashing the Cablevision/Verizon party, and providing a somewhat viable alternative to break their monopoly, drive prices down, and who knows, maybe actually turn into a viable service choice. Google had made a run at this by trying to build out municipal ISP servics, but was fought bitterly and relentlessly by the ISP lobbyists and cartels. Haven't heard much about this in the news lately. I am sure right now the Terrestrial ISPs are assessing this new "challenge" and how they can sabotage/beat it back to preserve their price fiefdoms.

The [up|down]link speeds seem ok to me, as long as they don't wildly fluctuate. I'd rather have a steady 50-60Mb down than quickly ping-ponging between 50-100Mb. Any increased latency could be a problem for me, as streaming video/audio data can mask latency but when you're typing character by character on tty's in say Chicago or London, delays can be painful.

OP, thanks for posting this; looking forward to updates on the service!

a reply to: Macenroe82

So, I’m submitting my payment tomorrow when I get home and will hopefully be rolling with StarLink shortly.

Your gain is Astronomy's loss , Musk and those who are following behind are intent on blinding sensitive ground based telescopes.

The 197 radio astronomy dishes of the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in South Africa will sit within a radio-quiet zone the size of Pennsylvania where even a cellphone is forbidden, to preserve the array’s views of the heavens. Yet that precaution won’t save the telescope, due to be completed in the late 2020s, from what may soon be overhead: tens of thousands of communications satellites beaming down radio signals straight from the heavens. “The sky will be full of these things,” says SKA Director General Phil Diamond.

The rocket company SpaceX has already launched hundreds of Starlink satellites, the first “megaconstellation” intended to provide internet service to remote areas. The satellites have aroused the ire of optical astronomers because of the bright streaks they leave across telescopes’ fields of view. Now, radio astronomers are worried, too. This week, SKA released an analysis of the impact that Starlink and other constellations would have on the array. It finds they would interfere with one of the radio channels SKA plans to use, hampering searches for organic molecules in space as well as water molecules used as a key marker in cosmology.

The team calculated that satellite transmissions will lead to a 70% loss in sensitivity in the downlink band. If the number of satellites in megaconstellations reaches 100,000, as predicted by many, the entire band 5b would be unusable. SKA would lose its sensitivity to molecules such as the simplest amino acid, glycine, a component of proteins. “If it was detected in a planetary system that was forming, that would be a very interesting piece of information,” Diamond says. “This is a new area that SKA is opening up.” The band could also contain the fingerprints of water molecules in distant galaxies, a tracer that cosmologists use to study how dark energy is accelerating the expansion of the universe.
www.sciencemag.org...

a reply to: SleeperHasAwakened

Amazingly (!!!) no other competitor ever seems to make inroads here

Yep the is the same for majority of users in the US and the his the only way they can stay in business and still be hated by their customer base. They (Verizon,Att,Comcrap,etc) have created an Oligarch where they either agree to to stay out of each others turf and or they have lobbied local gov't to make it impossible for competition to come into their turf with fast internet speeds . Even Google succumbed to their local gov't noncompetitive strong holds in local gov'ts.

hopefully Starlink becomes good enough for me to give the FU to comcast.

a reply to: interupt42

I'll be right there with you.

a reply to: interupt42

High ?

20-40ms is lower than most DSL connections. I used to support both fixed wireless and satellite BB and 200-400ms was definetly not outside of "normal" depending on your location.

40ms is incredible for a dish that can be placed almost anywhere and is fast enough for competitive FPS gaming.

a reply to: TheResidentAlien

I read up more on their FAQ, and this is pretty intriguing.

The existing satellite Internet service is provided by geostationary satellites orbiting at 35,786 km (22,236 miles). At such a high altitude signal propagates at least for 477 ms through space (if user is at the equator, longer at higher latitudes). First Starlink satellites will be orbiting much lower at 550 km (342 miles) making significantly lower latency possible.

If I understand right, they achieve the latency figures they're advertising (let's just see when the "rubber meets the road") by positioning the Starlink satellites waaay lower than traditional sat ISPs. So without a series of geostat satellites, that would seem to require a greater number and physically larger footprint for the satellites, to maximize line of sight time (I surmise the sats that much lower in orbit rise and fall on the observer's horizon pretty quickly).

They eventually want to get the latency down to 10ms, according to the FAQ!

o_O

originally posted by: TheResidentAlien
a reply to: interupt42

High ?

20-40ms is lower than most DSL connections. I used to support both fixed wireless and satellite BB and 200-400ms was definetly not outside of "normal" depending on your location.

40ms is incredible for a dish that can be placed almost anywhere and is fast enough for competitive FPS gaming.

Compared to cable modem and fiber its higher, but like i said im willing to give them a try just to tell comcast and their datacap to f off

Well, it's up, it's running, and....
It sucks.
No I'm just kidding.

I experience internet down time in my area.
I went from having internet available 24/7, down to twice now going to use the internet at normal business hours and the internet was out.
Granted it only took 20-30 minutes for it to come back online, but it's the fact I had to wait that time to get the information I needed.
my kids were able to do their online school work uninterrupted, So that was a bonus.
I know those down times are going to soon become a thing of the past with more launches, but I figured it was something I would mention for those interested.

As for speeds.,, yes and yes.
I was unable to play my Xbox games on my Ipad via remote play until now.

I can fire up the iPad two hours way at work, goto the Xbox app, launch remote play. It will turn on my Xbox at home, boot up cyberpunk and I can play it on my device, with what seems like zero lag.
It's no different than playing on my home console.
That is very cool in my opinion.

I bought an oculus quest 2, and was worried about multilayer games with my crap net speed.
Now, I have no worries - unless it of course blacks out while I'm playing.

But yeah, I'm happy with it and I know it's only going to get better.
The upfront cost sucked, but I waste money like Drunken sailer on the worst of days.
So having something decent to show for it is okay with me.
Plus, my friends are jealous I got it.
It's a win, win.

a reply to: Macenroe82

As soon as they open up to the 35th parallel I should be able to get it. No response back on the beta email or application yet however. They did mention opening up more by the end of this month. I tried to reason with AT&T, as my new house is close enough for their fiber access, but would need trenching down the easement on the side of the road. I offered to cover the cost, which would open it up to my neighbors as well. They wouldn't hear of it. I even asked for a cost to rent tower space so I could put a microwave dish up, couldn't get a response either. So on the 18th they'll be installing whatever their most basic package is, which I think is 25/2 at $50 a month, since I'm not under contract I may ask the guy to run 3 lines as that would be acceptable until StarLink is available.

a reply to: Hypntick

You shouldn't have to wait long then.
I'm on the 49th parallel. And as I said, a few black outs.

You being on the 37th shouldn't have to wait too long.
I think this beta period is for 44th to 50 something.
But it may open up at anytime.

Please, please let me get rid of Comcast. Signed up for 100-200 getting 35 AHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!