I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later.
My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to 150-200 Mbps (which is awesome for downloads). Latency is consistently in the low 30ms. I get some downtime every day, so it really is a "beta" like they say. I have a backup WISP.
Setup was literally take dish out of the box, insert into tripod (included), plug in cables, connect to the wireless routers SSID and activate with the starlink app. After that I put the included router into storage and plugged in my Protectli[1] running CentOS. Everything works great. My only complaint is the CGNAT, but given the difficulty associated with procuring IPv4 addresses, it's understandable.
This is OT but can you share a little bit more about what it's like living in East Idaho? I grew up in Boise and now live in Chicago but with the way things have been going lately I've been considering moving back, and there's a real appeal to living in a smaller town in the eastern part of the state (my dad was from Twin Falls). Internet access is always a bit of a concern though, which maybe Starlink ameliorates? Sorry to be so off-topic but you're the first person I've seen on HN from eastern Idaho!
We actually launched a service that provides you with a public IPv4 address and a /56 IPv6 block over WireGuard. It bypasses CGNAT and provides unblocked ports, including port 25. The cheapest plan starts at $8/month. Here's a link!
Besides Starlink, I'm curious to hear more about your Protectli. Why do you like it so much? What can it do, that you can't do on your own computer with some scripting and such?
Hows the gimble, I read its auto stabilizing is that true? And how well built is the dish, do you think it can handle long periods of constant wind exposure of 15+ knots
I've been contemplating putting one on my boat for use while at anchor. There is constant movement but its horrible
So, how do you use these devices in an SD-WAN active/active configuration? What is your unified VPN solution that lets you use both upstream channels simultaneously?
Wow, I'm impressed! I thought it would take more than a decade to implement when it was announced, but it's here and it works. Just amazing.
100/16 Mbps is pretty decent I guess, hopefully it doesn't go down as the number of users goes up. The latency is great imo, 40ms using satellites? I don't think anyone has achieved that before.
A bigger dish would not lower latency but may increase signal strength leading to better throughput. But it's not a simple parabolic antenna. It is the first consumer oriented phased array antenna tracking the satellites as they move across the sky, so that would increase the antenna cost even more.
Starlink sats are low earth orbiting (about 250 miles away). The really high latency sats that people used to use were geosynchronous sats that are parked about 30,000 miles away, and the round trip delay between earth, bird, earth.
Its fantastic, can't wait until this is available where I live. Currently paying $200+ a month for 20Mbps from local wireless company.
2 miles North from here there is AT&T fiber and Comcast available, 5 miles South there is Comcast (150Mbps) but I'm in a small community of homes where only options are satellite or fixed wireless.
The latency may well be better than landlines in some cases. For instance, data from an edge cache in your city will be faster than starlink. But data from china? Starlink may win.
I wonder if it could improve gaming/video conferencing with people far away.
The cell grouping is interesting. A colleague likes the outdoors, so he's preordered one for his Suzuki Jimny, to mount on it. I wonder if Starlink are considering this use case.
I haven't been able to preorder mine, because we're planning on moving out from the city to a small village next year, but the Starlink website requires a street address.
Our villages are quite primitive, no street names (I think it's cos nobody's thought of it). So, the nearest town where there's street names, is quite far.
I was feeling uneasy about using it as an address, this article sort of cements that concern.
I have 50/50Mbps fiber, but reckon we could still be served by 20 down if needed. Exciting!
Part of the issue is that Starlink cells are going to be very limited in capacity for the foreseeable future: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/analyst-probes.... Cowen suggests that Starlink "should eventually be able to serve 485,000 simultaneous data streams in the USA with 100Mbps speeds or 1.5 million streams with over-subscription." That's in late 2026 or 2027 when Starlink has deployed around 12,000 satellites (they're at about 10% of that now). If a bunch of people decide to bring Starlinks to a popular area, the cell for that are simply won't have the bandwidth to support all those users. Imagine people going to Burning Man with lots of Starlinks or bringing their Starlink when they go on vacation. It's not meant to be a portable WiFi hotspot. I'm guessing that portable use might cost more since Starlink has to assume that you might be taking up capacity in places where bandwidth is more scarce.
One thing I would also point out about Starlink is that they only guarantee that you'll be able to use the $500 dish (plus $50 shipping) for 12 months before being forced to replace it. Starlink is new tech and I'm guessing SpaceX wants to be able to upgrade things without maintaining support for less-efficient, older equipment. I don't expect them to force upgrades on people on a whim, but they do spell out that the $500 dish might not be allowed on their network a year after your purchase. I don't think they want to make customers unhappy, but I think they want to make sure they can upgrade their network without getting sued for not supporting expensive customer-purchased equipment forever.
Can I travel with Starlink, or move it to a different address?
Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to all users within a designated area on the ground. This designated area is referred to as a cell.
Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be scheduled to serve your Starlink and you will not receive internet. This is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary geofencing.
Sounds like some sort of authorization comes down from the satellite, and they don't want to have to push all authorizations from all satellites. Which is odd for a full duplex service. Searching around google suggests a "cell" is roughly a 4.5 mile radius circle, and you probably aren't in the center. So movement would be pretty restricted.
I imagine they'll eventually have more expensive plans available for mobile/roaming applications, but obviously you want a well spread base load to avoid saturating any one area. It sounds from some of the other posts like they also do a bunch of active assignment/handoff stuff as the satellites pass, and that gets a lot more complicated once you're also accounting for moving ground stations.
Interesting edge case of no street names (which in retrospect is not an edge case at all given the use case for remote users!). Wonder why they haven’t allowed GPS coordinate input?
Aside: The router design is as impractical as it is futuristic. The thing would fall over if you looked at it sideways, and the solitary LED on the front was hard to see unless in a dark room or looking closely, straight at it. Hopefully a 2nd iteration will be better!
I suppose that's a minor nit, given what Starlink delivers, though. I'm curious how practical it might be for on-board aircraft wi-fi. That's a space that could use a leap in bandwidth/tech, as FAA certification makes it difficult to keep equipment current. I'm curious if tracking is hard since the satellites and the "ground station" are both moving around...the aircraft on all axis points.
I have Starlink and am in a wooded part of New England. I mostly agree with freedomben's points. All I will add is I still use my cell phone hotspot (Verizon -- only carrier that gets a modicum of service where I am) for Zoom calls or similar. Starlink is definitely fast but too many hiccups for video calls.
Edit: More musings. There is a push to get broadband in our area within the year. If that happens and Starlink's service remains the same, I will cancel Starlink. For me continuous connectivity is much^3 more important than speed.
In my experience, Starlink isn't suitable for many uses right now without some kind of wan bonding(speedify, speedfusion, etc). I currently have two cellular modems + Starlink bonded with some routing rules forcing connections(streaming) directly to Starlink. Since I installed in early March, it has improved significantly and I will probably switch the default routing rules to use Starlink and only use the bonded connection for ssh and similar.
Overall, I am very pleased and looking forward to the continued improvements.
Our Starlink connection (backup WAN) recently switched from a New York ip to one near Chicago. I think we've switched to a downlink station that is geographically closer and we're getting better pings and, possibly, better throughout (needs more testing).
The service is expensive, but it's been a fun way to "participate" with all the exciting stuff SpaceX is working on.
I’m in rural NZ and I can’t wait for Starlink to be available here (it says late 2021 for my area)
I have been trying to get the local ISP to install their system for 6 weeks now, their service is just terrible. Installers don’t answer the phone, they make promises they don’t keep, I have the keep hounding them, and the ISP itself has a monopoly position so they are abusive in pricing and customer service because you have no alternative :(
There is nothing more frustrating than having money to pay for a service, the desire to have it, and the company who’s selling just being abusive and totally useless. (Example: before I got involved they were selling my elderly parents 8,000$ in unneeded networking equipment they told them was required)
I’ve been using Starlink for a few months now. It’s great for the cost.
One annoying thing is their super non-standard and kind of broken network setup if you want to use your own router. They have two subnets with different IP ranges (cgNAT and local) on the same Ethernet link. You have to do some weird manual routes, interface resets, and dhcp client configuration if you want things to work reliably.
Not here to disrespect anyone using it or seeking it, just commenting that with many cities worldwide mid way through fiber upgrades I worry this will be used to deprecate in ground investment in optical.
I know a lot of people can legit say "fiber is never coming to me" but the NBN debacle in Australia comes to mind as a politicised capital investment failure (they dropped FTTP for a mixture of copper, optical, wifi GEO sat and coax depending. I got fiber. It's great.)
The UK is another place where national broadband roll-out could freeze on this if the market bifurcated. Or NL with KPN not yet complete on a national fiber deployment.
High Bandwidth and 30ms RTT is awesome. This is stellar tech (sorry)
Lots of US metro areas trapped behind the consequences of the ma bell breakups, RBOC, cable TV and local laws forbidding Google fiber deals. Its the politics which ruined optical not cost really. Starlink shouldn't be such a rational choice for a metro area and it says a lot about capital investment that it is.
Pacific Islands, rural and remote, city fringes with no viable alternatives, this is mega cool. Cities with infrastructure, It's a signal of some major failure this is going to be so popular.
NZ ufb crown holdings, the signal got strong if you were too far away from the big towns it was years off. I can relate to any kiwi wanting this tech. It would suck to be seeing people up the road getting ufb and being off the planning horizon.
Same with my oz mates who aren't on NBN fiber. If you're on the optus GEO sat stuff, this is going to rock.
I really hope StarLink completely replaces CenturyLink DSL. CenturyLink DSL 30mbps DOWN and 5mbps UP, real world speed is 2mbps DOWN and 512mbps UP. Never goes above this speed. CenturyLink DSL is a complete rip off. Costs $45 and they charge for the modem $10. $55/month total I would be willing to pay $99/month if it had at least real world speed of 30mbps DOWN and 5mbps UP ^_^
It's interesting that the post and at least one comment has mentioned intermittent outages. I understand that this is a beta product however can anyone speculate what might be the cause? Is it because there's no yet enough satellites in the constellation or is it that the rotation of the constellation is still be tuned or something else?
[+] [-] freedomben|5 years ago|reply
I'm in East Idaho. Currently my dish angles itself to the north. It rarely moves itself north/south, and slightly moves east/west throughout the day. I've read that right now it locks onto a single satellite, although they're adding multi-satellite support later.
My speeds are inconsistent, and interestingly they start slow (around 60 Mbps) but after a couple seconds they'll get to 150-200 Mbps (which is awesome for downloads). Latency is consistently in the low 30ms. I get some downtime every day, so it really is a "beta" like they say. I have a backup WISP.
Setup was literally take dish out of the box, insert into tripod (included), plug in cables, connect to the wireless routers SSID and activate with the starlink app. After that I put the included router into storage and plugged in my Protectli[1] running CentOS. Everything works great. My only complaint is the CGNAT, but given the difficulty associated with procuring IPv4 addresses, it's understandable.
[1] I love this thing. Highly recommend: https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B0741F634J/ref=ppx_yo_dt...
[+] [-] stochastician|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rubatuga|5 years ago|reply
https://hoppy.network
[+] [-] teh_klev|5 years ago|reply
For many of us that's reasonably fast ;). In the UK, FTTC provided over POTS (often BT or some form of unbundle), the top end is 80Mbs/20Mbs.
I don't know what you'd expect with cable provisioned areas supplied by the likes of Virgin (DOCSIS).
[+] [-] simonebrunozzi|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 7e|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] DecoPerson|5 years ago|reply
My opinion of Starlink and what it means for the world was being completely reshapen until I read your comment again!
[+] [-] notaplumber|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] LimaBearz|5 years ago|reply
I've been contemplating putting one on my boat for use while at anchor. There is constant movement but its horrible
[+] [-] 0x426577617265|5 years ago|reply
Is the upload/download speed the same? Does your public IP frequently change?
EDIT: Ah -- CGNAT. Missed that part.
[+] [-] Fiahil|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bryzaguy|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] spookthesunset|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bradknowles|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] yhager|5 years ago|reply
How about video/audio calls? does Wi-Fi calling work well?
[+] [-] crocodiletears|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] HeadsUpHigh|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bserge|5 years ago|reply
100/16 Mbps is pretty decent I guess, hopefully it doesn't go down as the number of users goes up. The latency is great imo, 40ms using satellites? I don't think anyone has achieved that before.
Would a bigger dish work better or not?
[+] [-] Gwypaas|5 years ago|reply
A bigger dish would not lower latency but may increase signal strength leading to better throughput. But it's not a simple parabolic antenna. It is the first consumer oriented phased array antenna tracking the satellites as they move across the sky, so that would increase the antenna cost even more.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phased_array
[+] [-] zikduruqe|5 years ago|reply
Starlink sats are low earth orbiting (about 250 miles away). The really high latency sats that people used to use were geosynchronous sats that are parked about 30,000 miles away, and the round trip delay between earth, bird, earth.
[+] [-] house9-2|5 years ago|reply
Its fantastic, can't wait until this is available where I live. Currently paying $200+ a month for 20Mbps from local wireless company.
2 miles North from here there is AT&T fiber and Comcast available, 5 miles South there is Comcast (150Mbps) but I'm in a small community of homes where only options are satellite or fixed wireless.
[+] [-] gameswithgo|5 years ago|reply
I wonder if it could improve gaming/video conferencing with people far away.
[+] [-] esaym|5 years ago|reply
The idea of low orbit satellites for internet has been around at least since the late 1990's [0]
[0]:https://tinyurl.com/9frjxbhz
[+] [-] nevi-me|5 years ago|reply
I haven't been able to preorder mine, because we're planning on moving out from the city to a small village next year, but the Starlink website requires a street address.
Our villages are quite primitive, no street names (I think it's cos nobody's thought of it). So, the nearest town where there's street names, is quite far.
I was feeling uneasy about using it as an address, this article sort of cements that concern.
I have 50/50Mbps fiber, but reckon we could still be served by 20 down if needed. Exciting!
[+] [-] mdasen|5 years ago|reply
Part of the issue is that Starlink cells are going to be very limited in capacity for the foreseeable future: https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2020/09/analyst-probes.... Cowen suggests that Starlink "should eventually be able to serve 485,000 simultaneous data streams in the USA with 100Mbps speeds or 1.5 million streams with over-subscription." That's in late 2026 or 2027 when Starlink has deployed around 12,000 satellites (they're at about 10% of that now). If a bunch of people decide to bring Starlinks to a popular area, the cell for that are simply won't have the bandwidth to support all those users. Imagine people going to Burning Man with lots of Starlinks or bringing their Starlink when they go on vacation. It's not meant to be a portable WiFi hotspot. I'm guessing that portable use might cost more since Starlink has to assume that you might be taking up capacity in places where bandwidth is more scarce.
In terms of preordering, you can order without a street address. Starlink's website says, "Can't find your address? Try a Plus Code with City" (and links to https://support.google.com/maps/answer/7047426?co=GENIE.Plat...).
One thing I would also point out about Starlink is that they only guarantee that you'll be able to use the $500 dish (plus $50 shipping) for 12 months before being forced to replace it. Starlink is new tech and I'm guessing SpaceX wants to be able to upgrade things without maintaining support for less-efficient, older equipment. I don't expect them to force upgrades on people on a whim, but they do spell out that the $500 dish might not be allowed on their network a year after your purchase. I don't think they want to make customers unhappy, but I think they want to make sure they can upgrade their network without getting sued for not supporting expensive customer-purchased equipment forever.
[+] [-] tyingq|5 years ago|reply
It sounds like they don't support a roaming base station for now. From the FAQ: https://www.starlink.com/faq
Can I travel with Starlink, or move it to a different address?
Starlink satellites are scheduled to send internet down to all users within a designated area on the ground. This designated area is referred to as a cell.
Your Starlink is assigned to a single cell. If you move your Starlink outside of its assigned cell, a satellite will not be scheduled to serve your Starlink and you will not receive internet. This is constrained by geometry and is not arbitrary geofencing.
Sounds like some sort of authorization comes down from the satellite, and they don't want to have to push all authorizations from all satellites. Which is odd for a full duplex service. Searching around google suggests a "cell" is roughly a 4.5 mile radius circle, and you probably aren't in the center. So movement would be pretty restricted.
[+] [-] mikepurvis|5 years ago|reply
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[+] [-] tyingq|5 years ago|reply
Wow, he's right about the shape of the router. It also looks like it forces the ethernet cable in front if you want to be able to see the LED, and the cable itself is pointed downward: https://preview.redd.it/42rc9fkqwnw51.jpg?width=960&crop=sma...
I suppose that's a minor nit, given what Starlink delivers, though. I'm curious how practical it might be for on-board aircraft wi-fi. That's a space that could use a leap in bandwidth/tech, as FAA certification makes it difficult to keep equipment current. I'm curious if tracking is hard since the satellites and the "ground station" are both moving around...the aircraft on all axis points.
[+] [-] poisonborz|5 years ago|reply
Not familiar with Sat gear, but this number seems extremely high to me for just powering an antenna (and some motors occasionally)
[+] [-] eigenschwarz|5 years ago|reply
Edit: More musings. There is a push to get broadband in our area within the year. If that happens and Starlink's service remains the same, I will cancel Starlink. For me continuous connectivity is much^3 more important than speed.
[+] [-] justinwp|5 years ago|reply
Overall, I am very pleased and looking forward to the continued improvements.
More on my setup, charts, etc here: https://jpoehnelt.medium.com/upgrading-to-starlink-bc6d4cd7e...
[+] [-] snurfer|5 years ago|reply
The service is expensive, but it's been a fun way to "participate" with all the exciting stuff SpaceX is working on.
[+] [-] malux85|5 years ago|reply
I have been trying to get the local ISP to install their system for 6 weeks now, their service is just terrible. Installers don’t answer the phone, they make promises they don’t keep, I have the keep hounding them, and the ISP itself has a monopoly position so they are abusive in pricing and customer service because you have no alternative :(
There is nothing more frustrating than having money to pay for a service, the desire to have it, and the company who’s selling just being abusive and totally useless. (Example: before I got involved they were selling my elderly parents 8,000$ in unneeded networking equipment they told them was required)
Save me Starlink!
[+] [-] wyager|5 years ago|reply
One annoying thing is their super non-standard and kind of broken network setup if you want to use your own router. They have two subnets with different IP ranges (cgNAT and local) on the same Ethernet link. You have to do some weird manual routes, interface resets, and dhcp client configuration if you want things to work reliably.
[+] [-] rocqua|5 years ago|reply
Perhaps the unit needs to be pre-programmed on where to look for satellites in a way that changes when the unit is moved?
[+] [-] ggm|5 years ago|reply
I know a lot of people can legit say "fiber is never coming to me" but the NBN debacle in Australia comes to mind as a politicised capital investment failure (they dropped FTTP for a mixture of copper, optical, wifi GEO sat and coax depending. I got fiber. It's great.)
The UK is another place where national broadband roll-out could freeze on this if the market bifurcated. Or NL with KPN not yet complete on a national fiber deployment.
High Bandwidth and 30ms RTT is awesome. This is stellar tech (sorry)
Lots of US metro areas trapped behind the consequences of the ma bell breakups, RBOC, cable TV and local laws forbidding Google fiber deals. Its the politics which ruined optical not cost really. Starlink shouldn't be such a rational choice for a metro area and it says a lot about capital investment that it is.
Pacific Islands, rural and remote, city fringes with no viable alternatives, this is mega cool. Cities with infrastructure, It's a signal of some major failure this is going to be so popular.
NZ ufb crown holdings, the signal got strong if you were too far away from the big towns it was years off. I can relate to any kiwi wanting this tech. It would suck to be seeing people up the road getting ufb and being off the planning horizon.
Same with my oz mates who aren't on NBN fiber. If you're on the optus GEO sat stuff, this is going to rock.
[+] [-] 1timewonderacc|5 years ago|reply
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