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I took down my Starlink dish (but haven't cancelled) (jeffgeerling.com)
213 points by JamesSwift on Feb 3, 2022 | hide | past | favorite | 245 comments



I get it. If you already have internet, then Starlink is not for you. There are lots of questionable design choices (particularly in version 2), it's picky about placement, etc. etc.

But if your other choice is HughesNet or its competitors, that throttles you after 15 GB (2 days of non-streaming usage for me), or 50 GB, the Starlink "shortcomings" are irrelevant. With Starlink, if you can get it, and if you can site it without blockages, you have "real" internet. Reasonable speeds and no caps/throttling.

The massive over-subscription (presumably by people who have no functional alternative) suggests it serves a need.

Just not a need for people who have a non-DSL wired alternative, like Jeff Geerling.


My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away.

Back when preorders started, it wasn't obvious how slow Starlink would be to expand, and it also wasn't obvious transfers wouldn't be a supported feature for many months.

Even so, my cousin also signed up in hopes to get Starlink, and 11 months later her date was moved from 'late 2021' to 'late 2022'.

And yes, I've tried many address hacks to see if I could get my dish moved there, none have worked.

They shouldn't have dropped the 'beta' moniker last year if the service is truly so far from its final state (IMO).


Disclaimer: I am a very happy Starlink customer that has no other option for internet besides terrible LTE.

Starlink never originally advertised the ability to transfer service or even sell your hardware. It was very clear from the beginning you had to use it for the address you provided, and their communication was very clear to that effect.

You are definitely correct that logically you should be able to sell your kit, transfer service, or just move with it (Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV). But you took that logical end result and set your own expectations based on assumptions that were not aligned with reality.

You are not in the target market, of course you’re going to be frustrated.


>(Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV)

Mobile antennas will also require separate FCC approval.


That just seems crazy. Why?


The FCCs primary concern is devices not interfering with each other. Part of that is cutting up areas geographically and by spectrum, so you know that the 100MHz FM station in one area won't over lap with another's and both can transmit. My guess would be that mobile transmitters are required to fill out paperwork about how they won't interfere anywhere in the US. I could be wrong though.

"Requires separate approvals" does not always mean that approval is hard to get. It might require a version of the dish that doesn't do something v1 or v1 and v2 current do however.


Movement shifts spectrum so theoretically it may require bigger guard bands and slightly different paperwork. OTOH, I doubt SpaceX allocated spectrum is tied to a any particular location (as opposed to say - within country bounds), considering it's satellite communication.

Starlink itself cares about positioning to avoid overcrowding and also any satellite tasking/scheduling/whatever.


> even sell your hardware

If you can't sell it, is it really yours?


You can light it on fire or chunk it in the trash without consequence, so… kinda sorta?


Several ISPs charge you a 'connection fee' to get some weird locked down hardware, and if you close your account it becomes useless.


What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...


Due to the design of satellite based internet they are fundamentally limited on how many dishes they can support in a certain area while still achieving advertised bandwidth rates.

There is a very, very high probability that if they allowed people to move starlink transceivers/dishes around that a number of areas would end up with higher concentrations than wanted, and starlink would have a lot of angry customers.


I can just imagine what Burning Man would look like under a sea of Starlink dishes and still no one can get bandwidth.


I wonder if a minimal location change rate or policy would work? If if your coordinates don’t change often enough then you get rate limited gradually down to a HughesNet rate. Want mobility? Then it’s 1/10th the speed while you’re outside your home region. Stay in a region long enough and you get the worst rates or a change of region. Oh and charge differently for different regions.


It's a low orbit satellite, which limits the amount of coverage for each satellite. And currently (without the sat-2-sat laser link), there needs to be a ground station also in range. If his cousin's house isn't close enough to a ground station, it just doesn't work. That's why Starlink is allocating based on addresses.


This range is not 70 miles, it may be 300+ miles. My location in eastern Europe currently can connect to ground stations in Poland and Turkey (600 miles apart).


Right. But if you live near the edge of coverage, say 280 miles, and your friend lives another 70 miles out, he could be 350 miles from the nearest base station. I know this is an oversimplification of the issue. But maybe the friend would be connected to a different ground station, that happened to be full.


I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others.

SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of SpaceX with respect to starlink.


> But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map.

There is nowhere in the lower 48 where starlink has no satellite coverage, I believe there are still areas where they have not built out ground stations though, and since most of the satellites don't have laser links to talk to other satellites (due to issues with their original lasers not fully burning up on re-entry - now fixed) they need to have a ground station under the same satellite as the customer.

They also have limited bandwidth to any one satellite, so they need to limit the density of their customers. Satellites move up and down lattitudes, but at any one time the density of satellites is higher at higher latitudes, so they should be able to serve more customers there.


You're just arguing nuance & semantics.

For an ISP that uses satellites, ground stations are equivalent to satellite coverage. It doesn't matter how many satellites they have, if there isn't a ground station to connect to you don't have coverage.

Inter-satellite links also don't do anything useful if you don't have enough ground stations. Even if you had a ground station with infinite bandwidth there is no way a single satellite can have the entire network linked through it. It's a really neat thing to have a single voice channel connect through a constellation from somewhere like the southern Indian ocean, but you can't really run 100+ mbps pipes like that.

This is completely different than something like a military communications satellite where both ends of the connection are communicating through the same satellite. The 48 states could be totally in the dark (no power, no comms) and a military communications satellite still functions fine.


I wasn't arguing, I was just adding nuance. Now I'm arguing though.

The nuance between ground station coverage and satellite coverage is extremely important for understanding spacex's business plan, which is relevant to your comment since you were saying "I don't really understand the business plan of SpaceX with respect tostarlink", with the implication that it doesn't make any sense. The difference between ground station coverage vs satellite coverage is the difference between "we're still building out the infrastructure, but we have the hard bits in place" and "this business model never scales because we need to launch way more satellites just to have basic coverage over the continent". It shouldn't be surprising that they're not done scaling the ground infrastructure, but that's not an impediment to their long term business model, because it's not the expensive bit.

> Even if you had a ground station with infinite bandwidth there is no way a single satellite can have the entire network linked through it.

This is a straw man, no one ever suggested that the entire network would be linked from a single satellite.

Rather the primary purpose of inter-satellite links is that you can expand coverage to areas away from ground stations. You route the traffic to a nearby groundstation (or better, a groundstation close to it's destination) with bandwidth available.

> but you can't really run 100+ mbps pipes like that.

Yes you can, I don't have numbers for starlink's inter-satellite links, but in general that technology is at the ~10gbps / laser link range, each satellite has 4. Light travels through space faster than in fiber, so if routed intelligently this actually lowers ping too.

> This is completely different than something like a military communications satellite where both ends of the connection are communicating through the same satellite.

Ironically, this actually describes how the current system works (as long as you treat the endpoint as a groundstation, and not an IP address somewhere on the internet).

The future system is more robust, even if there is no "other end" to talk to locally, spacex will (with inter-satellite links) be able to route you to an "other end" anywhere around the globe.


> This is completely different than something like a military communications satellite where both ends of the connection are communicating through the same satellite.

Tell us you know nothing about military satcom without telling us you know nothing about military satcom.


Well given that I worked on military comms for over a year I'd say I'm pretty knowlegeable.

Let's see, this system predates even my birth: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fleet_Satellite_Communications...

It's still in use as recently as 2009, by pirates however. Newer systems include some form of conditional access to prevent anyone with the gear from using them.


I mean, OK, sure, but even Milstar Block I (mid-1990s tech) had a crosslink capability. And Milstar has already been folded into the the AEHF program, and the ESS program is already on track to replace AEHF.

It's a bit like saying "a bicycle is different from an automobile, because automobile frames are made from wood", and then pointing to a Morgan to prove the point.


A lot of it has to do with satellite orbits, and basically the constellation is just far from complete.


Due to the orbits, the northern US has the highest concentration of sats. Specifically I think if you use the Washington-Oregon border and extend that line across the entire US that's roughly where the highest concentration is. That said, I think they already have full coverage in the entire lower 48.


I don’t understand though. His cousin is 70 miles away, are the satellite coverages that small?


The satellites just relay signals from a customer ground station to a Starlink-owned ground station. That ground station has a wired Internet connection.

So coverage at your house is dependent on you and a Starlink ground station being in the ground track of some Starlink satellites. Because of their low altitude it's entirely possible for your house being in the ground track of satellites but the nearest Starlink ground station being outside.

At some point in the future Starlink satellites will have laser communications between each other. Then only one in that group needs to be able to see a Starlink ground station and the others can route customer signals to it.


It’s about the base station capacity, in theory. Though it seems super unlikely that an address that’s only 70 miles away would be on a different base station.

This will change dramatically once sat-to-sat laser comms are fully online as it will put more base stations “in range”.


I'm not so sure about that. At 200 Km altitude that the footprint of the satellite wouldn't be all that large depending on the phase array arrangement. It might not be able to swing that far sideways and still get enough signal strength. These antennas don't move physically, the use phase based signal steering (black magic to me).


Spacex business plan: Sucking tax payers money maybe ?


The point is that it's better than what anybody 5 miles outside of the city core can get. Local and state governments won't allow wireline competition, so this is the best we can do.


If you have no alternative, you get reasonable internet (100+ up/20+ down) with no data caps or throttling. It's a big step up from a hotspot/LTE connection (if you can even see the cell tower).


IMO they are just getting you used to the idea of what is normal. Then they gonna introduce $500/month “mobile” plan that many sailors will swallow like a bargain!


..they did this a few days ago. You nailed the price point, too.

Notably, this is only about twice the cost of a high speed "business" internet connection from the cable companies in a high density area. Regular Starlink is priced at about twice a high speed "consumer" internet connection, so the premium seems reasonable for the available-in-austure-areas part.

I do hope they end up coming out with a version for RVers that has the lower throughput but allows arbitrary roaming.. but I do understand putting roaming on a premium plan first, since it plays such havoc with per-cell capacity planning.


Is the cell capacity planning required since there are no laser interlinks or it's going to be forever like that?


That's within the feasible distance for a point to point wireless bridge. If geography permits - which is not that likely. Not cheap, but might be better than alternatives.


If my handy online calculators are working correctly, 70km distant would require a 300+ ft tall tower on each side for that P2P bridge. Just to deal with the curvature of the earth and not counting for anything else that might be in the way.


It would likely have to be more than one hop, yes...


What happens if you just take it there and plug it in?


The dish won't work since it knows where it is via GPS and where it is supposed to be. There is a little bit of tolerance in where the dish can be moved, but certainly not 70 miles of leeway.


Ha, reminds me of the tiny 3G picostations you could get from your mobile operator for a while when 3G was in its infancy - if you said you had really poor signal at your home, they would send you a small 3G station you could use in your home and which used your own internet for data and calls....but the hardware had a GPS built in to make sure it was never moved from the address it was assigned to(otherwise you could take it say, abroad, and make calls with your own numbers without paying for roaming - not that in that specific scenario paying for roaming would have made any sense anyway).


The geo tieing makes more sense as a product of spectrum regulation. If you move the Pico station they might not even own the resulting local spectrum.


> hardware had a GPS built in to make sure it was never moved from the address it was assigned to

There are also 911 implications.

https://cdn.ymaws.com/www.nena.org/resource/collection/1F053...

If you move it, and call 911 - how does the carrier determine the address where the call originated?


ATT's product along this line was a complete failure for me. I didn't have a street address at the fixed (albeit remote) location, and there were no street addresses I could pretend to have within its tolerable radius. They had no way of enabling the device without it being near a street address.

The technology would have worked just fine, they just couldn't fill in their E911 entry with anything that would work.


If you were to take it abroad your provider would also not have a license to use the frequencies it needs.


So, some cars have a decent antenna/hardware for 4G/5G to WiFi bridge; would it make sense to have a picostation inside the car as a repeater?


I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?


Yep - https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsun...

IP would be absolutely trivial to spoof so that's not a proof of anything really.


My static IP geolocates to a town 50 miles away. So unless it's some list that has good accuracy i wouldn't think so.


The one I had years ago did have GPS, I was told the reason was for accurate 911 locating. It was a hassle because we were trying to use it in an office and the GPS antenna needed to be near a window.


>Are you sure it had GPS?

AFAIK even regular cell sites have GPS for timing purposes.


The GPS was also required for time sync for interconnectivity with the cellular network, to my understanding.


> There is a little bit of tolerance in where the dish can be moved,

There is so little tolerance that people are finding the dish only works say, in their driveway because the dish's required location is based off mapping data that puts a certain address at certain coordinates, regardless of where the house is (which might be set back considerably from the road.)


He’s got a video where he tried this and was unable to get it working.


Yeah, that was my first thought. After reports of success from people mounting it to the roof of their RVs I thought you could move it anywhere you wanted.


You can physically move it wherever you want, but you have to hope that there is an opening available in the "cell" at the new location, otherwise, you've got a paperweight.


Each Dishy is assigned to a specific ground station, so you can freely move it around as long as it's 'close enough' to that ground station. (I don't know the distance by memory..) There's a way to ask Starlink to switch your ground station, which is what people with the RVs are doing.


You should have done more research before signing up imo.

I have synchronous gigabit wireless internet from Sail Internet. It has pretty much all the same issues you mentioned about Starlink except the last one, but I'm not making a video to complain about it.

Engineering involves trade-offs, and it's just a reality.


Curiousity and frustration would have me moving it anyway. Have you tried?


Jeff had an episode where he took it out to his cousin's farm, and it didn't work there.


> My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin

This seems like a gripe very particular to you and not generally relevant.


What happens if you just take your dish over to your cousin's house and try using it?


what happens if you have to move to another area they serve? Do you still have to wait for them to reactivate it, or you have to throw it out and buy a new one? Can't you just say you now live with your cousin?


What happens if you move places?


Early adopters have early adopter problems. Are you genuinely surprised Starlink doesn't support something they didn't claim to support and that most users don't even need? Complaining about "beta" labels, which everyone knows are meaningless?

FYI: I unsubscribed because of this video (previous to it showing up on HN). It's obviously disingenuous clickbait. Look at the title alone. And it even goes into a pointless discussion about Elon Musk that has nothing to do with Starlink itself. Lots of good technical YouTubers avoid this crap. I was surprised you felt the need to engage in it. I'm not mad, just disappointed :-)


I don't interpret it as complaining or disingenuous. It feels like he's sharing his experience and says a lot of positive things about it. But it just turns out it can't do what he intentionally bought it for.

I was genuinely informed by the experience.


But your gripe seems to be centered around something they never claimed as a selling point initially.

Just because they do not have the coverage of other satellite systems does not mean it is still a beta.


> If you already have internet, then Starlink is not for you.

We bought a property in a very rural area in mid 2020. One of the hard requirements was verified high speed Internet access.

Our home has good performing Comcast. But I also pay $100/month and have a Dishy on my roof. Fortunately our home is very tall and we're able to get about 95% visibility, since our home is in the middle of a forest.

Why am I paying an extra $100/month? Because our Comcast has outages. It's not surprising since we're at the end of miles and miles of above ground cable that has hundreds of trees pushing up against the wires and poles.

I'm a pretty well off 'tech person' so an additional $100/month to cover a few hours of use makes sense.

(Wireless coverage is terrible around here, so that was never a backup possibility.)

I'm pretty convinced that Starlink is not only going to revolutionize many people's lives, but it's also going to be a cash cow for SpaceX, in large part funding their Mars ambitions.


It would be no surprise to hear, I think, that a lot of us on this forum are well off 'tech persons'.

Internet scores higher than running water for me on prioritization, but I still couldn't bear to waste the resources to have a sat uplink for the 1-2 days a year comcast goes down. Taking a slot from somebody that actually needs it feels off to me too. It would only likely be worth it if your particular area has abnormally bad comcast uptime.

That said, we just purchased a beautiful rural property with a wonderful house, and will rent it out until starlink or fiber( local company is 1-2 years out) hits it. So maybe I'm just sore that people are taking starlink slots when they absolutely don't need it and its 2 years out =P


All fair points, thank you. And congrats on your property!

The comcast outages are far above anything that's 'normal'. And honestly if it was just me, as a decades long 'devops' person, losing network connectivity briefly every few days and for tens of minutes or longer multiple times a month would not be too bad. But my wife does zoom/video professionally all day every day with paying clients, so when comcast goes to crap it's very important for her to be able to reconnect over starlink ASAP.


> so when comcast goes to crap it's very important for her to be able to reconnect over starlink ASAP

Have you looked at something like Firewalla and multi-wan setup? https://help.firewalla.com/hc/en-us/articles/360051575473-Fi...


Thanks for the link! I have considered such technologies, and I'll probably end up implementing one at some point. It's on my TODO list. (:

My wife reports that she's able to switch WIFI from Comcast to Starlink in a matter of seconds, which doesn't actually break the video chat session. Not ideal, but not terrible.


My parents have it - first to do load balanced DSL, and then later to do DSL fail over for Starlink. Both of those features were critical during the virtual schooling timeframe and having enough bandwidth to support two school zoom sessions and household usage.

When discussing it with some of the sysadmins that I work with, they had a "hmm... interesting" thought with it - the configuration for it compared to the dual wan router setups that they have for their home labs is (from their standpoint) much easier.

The issue isn't so much a "can you do it" but rather a "how much time do you want to invest in designing your own setup?"


Sort of how Iridium made tons of money? I'm skeptical of it being a cash cow since for almost everyone LTE makes more sense (technologically, not necessarily any specific plan..). There aren't THAT many people living in the woods...


Starlink is a game changer if you don't have decent wired broadband. We had about 1 Mbps download and were the last house on the road who could get it. Then we didn't even have that. Verizon hotspot was "ok" but data was expensive so you had to watch your usage. Starlink isn't perfect--had a couple of days downtime over Christmas--but basically it works fine with 20+ Mbps bandwidth.

With the prior DSL, I couldn't have worked from the house in a meaningful way. (My AT&T wireless is also very marginal.) Now I mostly could.


Similar situation but I switched to T-Mobile. I have a Starlink order but it got delayed 6 months. At this point, I'll just cancel it because T-Mobile Home Internet is a game changer.


I did exactly this. Started using T-Mobile Home Internet (5G "trashcan" modem) back in 21.02 (same month I ordered Starlink); TMHI service has gotten progressively better since that time. 21.12 I received my Starlink ultimatum ("if you don't cancel in 14(?) days we're sending your HW and billing you $100's more") and I decided TMHI @ $50/month (yes, completely unlimited) was sufficient. Also Verizon now has competing 5G and LTE offerings, so I figure worst case I (who have NO wired ISP option) at least have a strong backup plan. As another redundancy: everyone in my household has migrated to Visible cell phone service, which provides unlimited (but throttled at 5-10 Mbps) hotspot which we use maybe 2-3 times per month when TMHI service gets sluggish.


I thought about switching to one of those mobile internet providers, but it wasn’t available in my area, which I don’t quite understand. My providers network is certainly available, as I use it on my phone daily. Maybe it’s using some different band?


My location “didn’t have coverage” as I live at the edge of my town followed by Murdoch’s ranch next to me. I talked to the rep to the point of just let me try it as there’s nothing to lose. They already provide full refund on the product for the first 30 days. At the beginning the signal and speeds were shit(using trashcan). I installed a couple of MIMO antennas. Now, I have 30Mbs up/down consistently. I believe 5G is gonna be a game changer for rural areas. It’s just easy: plug it, turn it on, use it. No technicians, no wiring (if you don’t use antennas), no fixed place in your house.

Also check cellmapper to check for near by antennas and bands. More info in r/tmobileisp


I suspect availability of 5G or LTE "home internet" service is gated by not only signal strength but also by the vendor's assessment of their (tower, backhaul?) capacity in the locale.


It's definitely not just about coverage, but also about how much capacity they have in an area. They don't want to overload the network given that home internet users will use a lot more data than mobile users. Likewise, they don't want to sign up people for them to have a bad experience, cancel service, and spread bad word of mouth.

T-Mobile has been managing how many people they sign up in an area. Sometimes T-Mobile's home internet is available in your area, but then they get a certain number of signups and it becomes unavailable in your area until they're able to increase capacity or customers cancel. It's possible that it was available in their area and others signed up for it.

AT&T is only offering service in very limited areas and it seems like they're mostly trying to replace their DSL connections that they don't want to upgrade to fiber.

Verizon's service is currently pretty small scale, but they're looking to grow it. Again, it will be limited areas because no one wants to overwhelm the network.

Even if you have good phone service, there's a big difference between someone using 10GB on mobile and someone using 500GB as a home user. Signing up 10 home users could be like adding 500 new phone users in a small area. That can be a lot of traffic and they don't want to start seeing their mobile users cancel service because home users are clogging up the network. So they want to roll it out a bit slowly, especially as they increase capacity over the next few years with midband 5G.


How "unlimited" is the T-Mobile Home Internet package?


In my experience it's been totally unlimited. I try not to abuse it, but when I re-image my desktop, Backblaze will end up uploading multiple terabytes (even though I've inherited the backup state and the drive/directory structure is identical). I've never had a single issue.

The Home Internet service is 100% deprioritized compared to postpaid cell phone data, so they really are selling "excess" capacity.


What about a small coop ISP? If you manage to use electric or telephone posts deploying fiber and getting a carrier is doable, at least here in Spain.


Some towns in the US have done this, but it isn't without difficulties.

Just looking at a satellite map of Spain, I see La Langa. It seems like it has very few people, but they all live in a small town center. Looking at Uclés, it's the same: tiny place, but everyone is living in the town center.

Let's look at Potomac, MD in the US. The roads are sprawling with giant houses all far apart. That's a lot more distance to run fiber to get it to each house. Potomac is a rich suburb of DC and has fine internet (it's still dense enough for that), but the US keeps sprawling. Look at a satellite view of Pike Township, PA. There's a lot of houses with huge distances in between and no discernible town center.

> If you manage to use electric or telephone posts deploying fiber and getting a carrier is doable

I think this can also be an issue in the US since place might not have easy/cheap access to those utility poles. Title II carriers in the US get cheap, regulated access to utility poles. That's traditionally been your phone company. I believe the FCC tried reclassifying broadband as Title II under the Obama administration, but it might have been reversed under the Trump administration. If you're someone that already has access to the utility poles, you don't want more people getting cheap access to them.

Even if you have access to the utility poles, you can face difficulty. As noted, you aren't wiring up a town center, you can be wiring up places with a huge amount of distance between people. Even if that isn't a problem, property owners might want new cables buried. Even when power lines are above ground, sometimes they're underground from the street to the house. Many houses might be set back from the street by 50 meters so it can be a larger distance. You can have a 300m road with 3 houses on it each with a 50m set back from the street.

That's not to say it isn't possible (and some towns have created coop ISPs), but costs add up. Uclés has 140 people in it, but everyone seems to live within a 250m radius of the city center. That seems pretty easy to wire up. Pike Township, PA has 1,700 people that are incredibly spread out. That seems a lot harder to wire up. It's not impossible, but it seems harder.


For those of us outside US, how far from the urban area you have to be to not have good LTE and/or fiber internet? (Also, does Amazon deliver in those places?)


It's hard to answer something like this. Even for Europe, it's hard to answer something like this. There's a big difference between Inverness in Scotland (47,000 people in the city and 63,000 in the urban area) and London. Are you measuring from the city center or from where things drop off to farmland?

In Europe, cities often drop off into farmland very abruptly. You have built-up areas and then very abruptly farmland. In the US, you can have suburbs where there's 1 house on an acre (4,000 square meters) going for a long time. Even 1 house every 2-4 acres (8,000-12,000 square meters) isn't unusual.

If you look at a satellite map between cities in the Netherlands, you can see that there isn't any sprawling houses between Rotterdam and Utrecht. Places like Oudewater exists, but it's dense. It might not be as dense as larger cities, but people don't have enormous plots of land. You can easily walk to neighbors and shops. In the US, a lot of people live in areas where it can be 5 miles to get to shops.

In the US, people often have the issue that the wired internet doesn't go up their street which might be a couple miles with only a handful of houses. In the US, they might face costs getting it from the street to their house because their house is set back a hundred meters from the road. This isn't super typical, but it's typical enough that it effects a lot of people.

I think part of the issue is that there is no real demarcation between the urban area and outside it in the US. I can look at a satellite view of a city in Europe and clearly discern city vs farmland. In the US, a lot of rich people left the city for suburbs where they could set land use policies that kept lower income people (and often minorities they didn't want around) out of their town (and out of their schools and out of their tax base). They still wanted to be able to commute into the city, but often passed laws mandating minimum lot sizes, minimum setbacks from the street for houses, and emphasized local control to prevent housing they deemed undesirable from being made. These places have fine wired internet.

But they kinda slowly melt into progressively more rural places rather than having a clear demarcation. The US's emphasis on cars and a certain cultural idealism around rural life means that there are people that want to live semi-rural while not really having a rural lifestyle or job. They just drive farther and cheap fuel and subsidies make that possible.

The lack of coherent land use policies means that the area where people consider themselves as part of an urban area can keep expanding. Maybe a developer wants to build new housing. The city and suburbs don't want more housing and so the developer picks a piece of land just past the last suburb. It's another 15 minutes from the city by car, but with skyrocketing housing prices, there are probably going to be some people who think it's a reasonable trade-off. What's the difference between an hour commute and an hour and 15 minute commute? Why shouldn't I trade 10 hours of my life every month for a larger house?

A lot of European countries have greenbelts around their cities where you aren't allowed to do a lot of development. It prevents things like the US suburbs which initially were thought of as 5-10 miles outside the city and now often go all the way to the next city creating a giant area that people commute from.

But these suburbs aren't the problem. The thing is that the suburbs then meld into really rural areas - but those really rural areas aren't that far from the suburbs that rich people live in and commute to the city from and those suburbs have big-box stores like Walmart and Target and they have high speed internet. If you live in a rural area that's 5 miles from such a suburb, you think "I'm not in the middle of nowhere! I'm just 5 miles from this place that has a Walmart and high speed internet and a supermarket!" If you're 5 miles outside a city in Europe, you're in farmland - but very often the houses all seem to be on one main road even through that farmland rather than up winding roads that lead nowhere (other than a few people's houses).

In the US, because there's this gradual drop-off in density, there can be this "why not just a little more" mentality. "Why not just a little farther out to get a tiny bit more land? It's working for the suburb next door that's just a tiny bit denser."

And a lot of Americans want to live in a rural area with acres of land, but in a commuting way. US policy often supports this choice - fuel prices, road subsidies, same-price delivery by the postal service, and billions spent trying to give them modern communications choices. That last one is key for this. The US is offering billions for rural internet and Starlink is going after that money.

Starlink is partly happening because the US government put a large amount of money available to anyone creating rural broadband options. The US Postal Service makes sure that rural areas can still get their deliveries.

I think "how far outside the urban area" is a hard question to answer because it's hard to answer where the urban area is in the US. The issue is that there's a lot of people that live in pretty rural areas in the US. Amazon and other deliveries are available. LTE and often even 5G is available, though often not with enough bandwidth at the moment to supply home internet (though companies are looking to change that). A lot of places with low density have fine wired internet. But when there isn't a clear demarcation of urban vs rural, there's still going to be a place where certain things stop, but people are going to wonder about the cut-off: I'm just outside the place that has broadband and it's only 15% less dense here.

I think that's the big thing. You might be 50 or 100 miles outside the city, but the gradual reduction in density while still being surrounded by non-farmers can make you feel like you're still a part of non-rural life while your neighbors and shops get farther and farther apart. Good wired home internet usually extends well away from cities in terms of miles (though often with annoying monopolies), but people really spread themselves out in the US.


No Amazon doesn't deliver in rural areas (central Kansas, USA, anyways), if you mean Amazon trucks/drivers. However we can still get Amazon packages just fine via UPS, FedEx, or the US postal service.

Actually I've only seen an Amazon delivery vehicle one or two times...


The hype a couple of years ago was at a fever pitch. Starlink was going to replace all forms of internet with space-ey goodness. Millions of people getting 100mbps for $50/m on cable who just didn't like the cable company's call center reps were clamoring for Elon to save them from their predicament.

I was working in the ISP space, and we did some rough back of the envelope calculations which showed that Starlink could only ever service a very low population density, based on the radio spectrum fundamentals.

Now people are realizing the obvious- it's an incremental improvement over other satellite internet options. It's great for people in very rural places, but if you are in or near a town of any size, you likely have a better option available.


I don't think the general hype was that Starlink would replace existing ISPs everywhere. It was always understood that this product was for rural/remote areas that don't have direct lines for internet connection.


That was totally the hype. I had multiple friends, living in SF, telling me how they'll finally ditch Comcast and use Starlink. I also had other friends telling me how SpaceX is going to bankrupt all ISPs in the world, and they'll make trillions of dollars in revenue. And even here, in comments to this very article, you can still find people waiting for Starlink, to lower down their internet cost, while they live in suburbs of big metropolitan areas.

Anything that's coming from Musk has a huge hype, for better or worse.


Even though Musk was saying that it's not really meant for cities and wouldn't be a serious competitor there?

"the SpaceX CEO argued that Starlink won't be a major threat to telcos because the satellite service won't be good enough for high-population areas and will mostly be used by rural customers without access to fast broadband."

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2020/03/musk-...


> Starlink was publicly announced in January 2015, with bandwidth to carry up to 50% of all backhaul communications traffic, and up to 10% of local Internet traffic, in high-density cities. CEO Elon Musk said that there is significant unmet demand for low-cost global broadband capabilities.

Source - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink

It's typical Musk - announcing something that sounds super cool and impossible, because it's impossible. Ad later quietly scale it down to something still pretty cool, but nothing like it was presented initially. And ride the hype as much as you can in the process.


Elon Musk often makes contradictory statements. He's more recently said that Starlink has received 500,000 pre-orders and that, "Most likely, all of the initial 500k will receive service. More of a challenge when we get into the several million user range."

Some of this might be coming from real-world experience with the network and an update on previous incorrect assumptions. Part of it might be simply making bombastic claims.

Right now, Starlink hit around 100,000 customers with 1,700 satellites. With the full 12,000 satellites we'd then expect 700,000 customers. That might change given that the satellites aren't geostationary and they haven't launched in many countries, but to hit a million customers in the US, they'd need to increase the number of customers per satellite significantly. Maybe there are improvements they can make that we don't know about, but it seems like Starlink's advantages are in making cheap rockets and cheap satellites - which is very cool, but they likely don't have radio advantages.

Starlink is also thinking about an additional 20,000 satellites so it's possible that they'll just keep increasing the number of satellites. Still, if they're seeing linear gains, that's still a relatively small number of users even with 32,000 satellites (and even the 12,000 is 4-5 years away).

https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20210510/08050146767/elon-...


Well, at least in my case there was some hope that it would set a floor for internet service in larger towns where the local cable/telco monopoly just milks the customers for $100+ a month for really subpar internet service (I pay about that for 20Mbit upload from the cable co, the DSL provider can barely do 2 up 40 mbits down for roughly the same price). Where as a couple miles away the DSL provider strung fiber to compete with google and the price is less than they would charge me for said crummy internet.

The joke here is that the lucky few percent of people who can get fiber here have two choices, but the rest of us are stuck in the 1990s. And this is a dense area, far more dense than 100 miles W of here in the little towns of population 1k that can also get fiber from their local telco co-op.


That density means there is no way that Starlink will be able to service more than a couple percent of your town any time soon.


I know a surprising number of Starlink customers who are paying more for slower service compared to our incumbent ISP (Comcast). This seems to have been a very common part of the hype. I get it, there have been times in the past that I've used fixed LTE to avoid Comcast, but I actually think I was still paying less and getting faster service on fixed LTE as compared to Starlink.

Notably these are all of the Starlink customers I know despite living in a region with vast rural areas... I've heard from a couple people I know out in the country that they are stuck on the waitlist. I think Starlink may have prioritized urban areas first for whatever reason (just higher customer count presumably).


"Incremental" is not the right word when you go from 700ms latency down to 30ms


The same could be said of critical reviews of HughesNet. Its value is usually in being the least bad of a limited, very bad options. That doesn't make the critisism any less valuable.

Say I'm considering moving to a rural location. One of my barriers to moving is the quality of my internet access. Along comes this fancy new Starlink service and I might be tempted to think "problem solved". But reviews like this allow me to anticipate problems with the service and reconsider moving altogether.

If Starlink is the least bad of your bad options, then this review probably just isn't for you.


> 15 GB (2 days of non-streaming usage for me)

I needed to run mostly on LTE tethered connectivity for a couple of months, and 30 GB a month of data was more than enough for my daily development process, and background youtube music mixes (at lower bitrates).

Unless you're rebuilding containers/redownloading dependecies daily, 15 GB of data should be pretty reasonable.


> 15 GB (2 days of non-streaming usage for me)

This sounds exceptionally high. What do you do that uses so much?


There are a lot of data guzzlers in a modern household... seriously, the proliferation of high-speed broadband internet has had massive consequences for everyone not enjoying that luxury.

The worst offenders are social networks like Twitter, Instagram and Facebook, especially if you have video auto play enabled. Because almost everyone has an ultra-high-DPI screen these days, they expect high video and image quality, and that's a lot of data.

Next up are media sites: auto-playing videos again, followed by "normal" advertising and actual content. Just for popular papers and media: A single (!) page load of the front page of Germany's respected newspaper Süddeutsche clocks in at 7.7 MB, Spiegel has 6.6 MB, tabloid BILD has 10 MB. US NYT is 9 MB, Fox News is 6MB, CNBC 8.7 MB. Even relatively plain Stackoverflow's front page clocks in at 2 MB.

And then, there are all the updaters (looking at you, Windows Update), the other phone-home telemetry and analytics stuff, even more ads side-loaded by modern "smart TVs"...

Where the fuck have we gone wrong? Is there any chance to get "the old" Internet back without putting everyone in advertising in jail for a decade?


Perhaps I over estimated. I know that my 15 Gb hotspot allocation only lasted a few weeks (days was perhaps too strong). I used two carriers to get 30 Gb. But one MacOS upgrade (on one computer) and the allocation is gone.

And then there is Zoom.

I think that it is difficult to estimate one's internet usage if you can go somewhere else when you need do to something big. If 15 Gb is your only allocation, for home and work, it doesn't last long.


Probably 4k video content ?

> The download size of a 140-minute 4K video, for example, would be approximately (14 GB x 2) + (.233 GB x 20) = 33 GB or .233 GB x 140 = 33 GB.


he said non streaming.


That’s not even a full Xcode update nowadays!


What if you move, do you have to buy another kit??


If you can get high speed, low latency, affordable internet access another way then Starlink probably isn't for you.

We've just moved to a place where our only other option was a £400 a month leased line delivering synchronous 100Mbps. For less than a quarter of that, Starlink gives us roughly 120-150Mbps down, around 7Mbps up, and pings around the 30 ms mark. Upload is slow but workable for now.

It's easy to complain for clout when you don't actually need the service. But if you don't have another affordable option, Starlink is remarkable. I keep having to remind myself that I'm running a business from my rural home via space.

And, sure, there are elements that aren't perfect (the cable on our dish isn't replaceable unless you want to manually splice wires, but reports on the Starlink subreddit say that Starlink will send you a new dish if the cable gets damaged). The power draw is around the same as a fairly typical lightbulb from 20 years ago, so I can totally live with that.

I know it's frustrating for people who can't get Starlink, especially if they know someone who wants transfer their dish to them, but that's the price of avoiding oversubscription.

If you can take the Starlink dish off your roof and still post your videos complaining about Starlink then you were never the target customer anyway.


>> The power draw is around the same as a fairly typical lightbulb from 20 years ago, so I can totally live with that.

Since you mentioned pounds, I just want to address the power consumption part.

At averaged 100W power usage, the system will use 2.4kWh of electricity every day. In UK the energy prices are absolutely exploding - with the government estimating that the "average" consumer will be paying 28p/kWh of electricity from April. At that price, you are talking £20 a month in JUST ELECTRICITY to keep the system running. That's more than some basic broadband offers in this country on a per month basis.

Yes I know that's not an option for you. But damn, £20 worth of electricity a month just to keep my internet router running? That's crazy.


Yeah, I get that it's not insignificant but it's not just a router, it's also uploading my packets to a fast moving object around 340 miles away. I'd like for it to be less but I'd also like for Openreach to put a green cabinet near my house and give me VDSL.

To put it in context, my PC isn't on 24 hrs a day but it's almost certainly drawing at least 250W for the 9 or 10 hours it is on. It's just a cost of working from home.


> almost certainly drawing at least 250W

You should throw a meter on it and actually check. My recent-ish Ryzen 2600 desktop, 1070 GPU, and 27" monitor use <100W when not doing something like intense gaming. Even then, under intense gaming its often between 300-500W of usage. YMMV, obviously.


If he has older monitors or multiple monitors that can be significant load. My older Dell Ultrasharp 24" monitors are around 80-100 watts each last I measured.


For comparison, my US bill is currently 9.5c/kWh, which is 7p/kWh. Your UK price is 4x that of mine! The SpaceX office where the dish was designed is just down the road from here, so I can totally see the engineers thinking "What's the big deal, it's only 100W? That's a few dollars a month."


> Your UK price is 4x that of mine!

And just to drive the point home: this is not the last price increase we will see. It will rise another 50% in October and probably won't fall much until 2024.


In California we pay an average of 25-35c/kwh.


Agree 100%. My community is in the DC metro area and despite our relatively ex-urban setting, the corrupt local and state government has failed us. Subsidies badly misspent and monopoly policies that stifle land-based competition. Probably 25-30% (thousands of households) have no access to true broadband, just unreliable DSL from a bankrupt provider that once put our state representative on payroll. We're all clamoring for Starlink.


Starlink won't work well for the sort of sprawling exurbs you live in, fyi. It can't support a very high density of dishes due to RF bandwidth limitations.

Starlink's key markets are fairly spread out rural areas, not infrastructure expensive exurbs and suburbs.


Exactly, terrestrial wireless (i.e. LTE) is the correct technological solution for anything denser than rural.


£400! Wow. I pay 36 euros for 500mbps in the south of Europe.


In a rural area where the telco had to blow a dedicated fibre line specifically to your property?


A lot of this is poorly informed. The reason many places can't get service isn't the number of satellites, it's the number of ground stations. The satellites don't communicate with each other, only ground stations, so there have to be some near you that the satellites can see for the entire time they're over you (either one very close to you or several farther away but surrounding you), or your signals don't have anywhere to go. The next generation of satellites will be able to communicate with each other, but they haven't really started launching in earnest yet. It may have to wait for Starship.

The proprietary connector is annoying but the antenna needs 100+ watts. Power over Ethernet doesn't support that, so the antenna connector can't use standard Ethernet. If the router additionally had a standard Ethernet port then it wouldn't be weatherproof, which was clearly a design goal. They should really have done some kind of weatherproof housing for an Ethernet connector. I expect they will on the next version.

Kessler syndrome is not going to happen because unlike their competitors SpaceX intentionally put all their satellites in very low orbit where the atmosphere naturally cleans up any debris within a couple of years. That's something uniquely enabled by SpaceX's low launch costs because it limits the useful life of the satellites, requiring frequent replacement. But it's worth it.


> Kessler syndrome is not going to happen because unlike their competitors SpaceX intentionally put all their satellites in very low orbit where the atmosphere naturally cleans up any debris within a couple of years. That's something uniquely enabled by SpaceX's low launch costs because it limits the useful life of the satellites, requiring frequent replacement.

I haven't researched Starlink much before, but if the target satellite count is 10k (some say 30k?) and replacements are needed every 24 months, this suggests that to keep Starlink running they need to deploy an average of ~415 satellites every month, forever. Some quick searching suggests a cost of $250k/satellite[0], for a total monthly bill of over $100M. I must be misunderstanding, because that seems pretty pricey, and it excludes launch costs, which they say are ~$30M. Maybe everything will be cheaper by the time the constellation reaches 10k satellites.

[0]: https://www.teslarati.com/spacex-starlink-satellite-launch-s...


The planned lifetime of Starlink satellites is more like 5 years. The 30k constellation will be launched by Starship. Starship's cost per launch is planned to be significantly less than Falcon 9 (due to complete and rapid reusability) with 10x the payload. With so much extra mass the satellites can likely be cheaper. That $250k number is totally made up, and I'm sure the actual cost has dropped or will drop dramatically as they really ramp up high volume mass production of the next generation, which has never been done on anything approaching this scale for satellites before.


A year or two ago I stayed in an Airbnb with the literal worst DSL connection I’ve ever run into, just dog slow, took literal minutes to load a modern website. I have to imagine the benefit of Starlink is when your alternatives are so bad that it’s like having no internet access at all, it looks pretty good.

But many people aren’t dealing with that, meaning that when you have better options, something like Starlink no longer looks all that necessary.

But users who are in a position where real internet is a real luxury due to location, Starlink still has value, even if it’s obviously not perfect. Especially when compared to satellite internet options that are comically slow even compared to cable modem connections that were common more than a decade ago.

Good critique, Jeff.


Article looks and sounds like clickbait. One of the fundamental aspects of starlink is the internet access and speed you will get. That doesn't seem to be covered here. You took down your starlink because you couldn't transfer it to someone else, are afraid of the damage starlink is doing to astronomy, and you don't like the design decisions about the new dish that you don't even have? Sorry, this doesn't make any sense.


I don't think it's clickbait at all. The concerns about power usage, proprietary connectors, and lack of ethernet or WiFi 6 seem spot on.


Regarding power usage: old lightbulbs used to be 100W, but now I get to high speed internet by connecting to low orbit satellites at my rural property... I'm not going to complain about 100W.

Propriety connectors: it's not a laptop which i need to connect to many things. I set it up and leave it.

Lack of ethernet: sure, that's a legitimate problem for me... $20 fix.

Wifi 6: as author said, Starlink isn't fast enough to utilize Wifi 6. If author wants Wifi 6 connected devices within the home, that's not Starlink's issue.


Sounds like you are more informed after reading the article. Therefore, it's not clickbait.


I think it is clickbait because I believe nearly all the complaints aren't valid. "I bought a new Lamborghini and it failed after 100 meters!", then in article we find out he brought his Lambo to an old logging road.


I covered that last year in my 4 month review (and linked to that post in the article as well): https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2021/spacexs-starlink-revi...


I agree, it's very "SEE THIS INSANE DESIGN FLAW IN STARLINK"-esque. And the design flaw is "They elected to use weather-proof proprietary connectors, instead of letting me crimp my own CAT6


Waterproof RJ45/fiber/USB/UHF RF/anything is not new. Completely waterproof and weatherproof broadband wireless access point is not new, that's what cell tower equipment are. Those had been around since late 20th century.

Now, a proprietary, weather hardened, friction fit, outdoor connector that repurposes USB-C? that's user hostile new.


Starlink is not the first device to use CAT6 outdoors. There are plenty of existing RJ45 options.


But there are no 100W ones.


Another tell is that the performer in the video assumes an exaggerated facial expression for the thumbnail image, a common practice in click bait videos.


Exaggerated emotions are just a way of marketing your video to viewers. It's good marketing.


Isn't clickbait good marketing? I don't like it, but I'd say it is good marketing.


It’s typical click-bait YT style: you keep watching and watching waiting for “it” to drop and then the video is over, your time is wasted, and someone made a few millicents or whatever.

I’ve learned nothing new except that there is a custom cable that is somewhat expensive to replace.


TFA doesn’t talk about what you think it should talk about, so it’s “clickbait”? Granted, “YouTube Face” never helps bolster one’s legitimacy, but what part of the headline did not meet expectations? By your own description, the article delivered.


I've had Starlink in Rural AR for 10 months now.

I have it currently set to "failover only" on my Ubiquiti device, as it's snowing sideways and there is a tremendous (read: 30%) amount of packet loss at the moment.

I don't yet know how to do automatic failover due to packet loss on a UBNT device, but that's what I'm looking up this afternoon.

Anyways - I have 3 ISPs, with two of them being LTE. One is the unlimited ATT iPad plan, since I have a router that currently identifies as an iPad (so modern) with the other being TMobile home internet.

Up until this snow storm, I had both of the LTE connections in failover only mode, using Starlink exclusively since about November, when there was an update that stopped the "disconnect all active sessions every ~45 minutes when I lose physical sight of the satellite I was connected to" problem. I guess that was when sat to sat communication came online in my longitude.

I will also note that my IP has been static on Starlink for about 2 weeks now, which is the longest it's ever been. It's still CGNAT, so multiplayer game hosting is mostly out, unless the game handles it. Most don't.

Overall it's a decent thing, but I would recommend at least one backup ISP for those rural or thinking of going rural. LTE Hacks group on Facebook can help you tremendously if you are considering buying a place outside the range of normal wired connections.

It's kind of funny that snow took it down 1 day after I started looking at the premium option, which I'm considering if I can get my workplace to pay $300 per month, with me covering the other $200. Kind of dulls the excitement for that...


If you're running an Edgerouter I imagine you could have something setup externally to measure packet loss and then if it gets high enough automatically SSH into the router and force it to failover. Of course you'd also have to setup some sort of routing scheme so the external system could then return back to the connection when packet loss went down.


It sounds like you have a nifty setup, but I’m surprised you would consider such a high price for your third connection. Why is it worth so much in your case? For the price, you’re approaching the amortized cost of burying miles of cable, which could be an option for people who are only a short distance from wired infrastructure.


Well, if I can get my cost for the premium Starlink to $200, I would drop the TMO home internet.

Right now I'm paying $99 for Starlink, $23/mo ATT, $50/mo TMO. Hardware costs were $450 for the router and LTE modem (EM160g) and roughly the same for (what I know know to be the gen 1) Starlink.

I had no idea they rolled out a gen 2 Starlink that's even more restricted than the first one. Ah well.

When I was in NORCAL and wired, I was on business internet that was $190/mo, so that's about what I'm accustomed to.

I have no idea what it would cost to wire my house. I'm miles from any infrastructure.


You should look it up - some farmers decided to lay down their own fiber (also for the neighbors) - access to tractors helps !


CGNAT ?!? Huh, I would have expected Starlink to be IPv6 only...


The Internet does not work without IPv4.

It’s either CGNAT or ponying up $60 per IPv4 address.


This an interesting aspect to me because it means even the lowest quality, poorest run, failing infrastructure ISP has nearly liquid assets of about $30 million USD if they have half a million customers.

That's a staggering amount of money & it isn't locked up in assets like real estate.


Not just ISPs, some other companies (IBM ?) and universities managed to get huge address chunks early on for pennies.

This scarcity creates perverse incentives, I'm surprised that the governments aren't doing their job in first forcing new hardware to be IPv6-compatible, then later forbidding new hardware to be IPv4-compatible, like they did for digital TV tuners and low consumption light bulbs... maybe because the lobbying is pushing in the opposite direction in this case for the aforementioned reason ?


And yet ever more people only have IPv6... and last I checked IPv6 server support is around 99% these days ?


You are very, very mistaken.

Only 28% of Alexa top 1000 sites support IPv6.

Very, very few, if any, consumers of commercial ISPs have only IPv6 access.


On the following page it shows an IPv4 address with IPv6 "Not detected". I have ipv6 enabled on my edgerouter.

https://whatismyipaddress.com/


starlink radomes to keep snow and cats off the dish next?


No built-in ethernet, so WiFi-only? And no WiFi 6? Proprietary $60 cable?

Woof.


That's not correct. I haven't quite got all the way through the article, but yeah - not correct. It has wifi that you use to manage it, but it also has an ethernet port that you can use. I have it as one of 3 internet devices at my home in rural Arkansas. I would turn off the wifi entirely, if they allowed me, for less interference.

The cable is kind of a bummer, but at least it's super high quality. I wasn't too happy about having to use a giant step bit to drill holes, as I wasn't about to cut the ethernet jack off the end of it when I ran the cable in the attic.


That's how the first version router was (the one I have). The new 2nd gen router has WiFi (ac), but Ethernet is not built in. You have to buy an extra dongle that costs $20 and goes inline to the dish.

The new router does have a bypass mode, so you can get around using it at all (though it still needs to be plugged in as it's the PoE source through the proprietary cable). The reset method is a bit weird, since it doesn't seem there's a button. I think you have to plug and unplug it three times within a certain time period.


I had no idea they launched a v2. I wonder why they would regress so much. The obvious answer is cost... but they have to know how much people want good internet service in remote areas, right? I'll pay for it and I know I'm not the only one.


As mentioned in the article, though, how much could the added cost of an Ethernet connector be?

That can’t increase the BOM that much, right?


Taking a wild guess here:

Standard PoE+ is 30w, and even the newest PoH maxes out at 90w. The new hardware draws more than that, so Starlink made up their own PoEish standard with proprietary cable/connectors. The $20 dongle is probably a custom PoE adapter. The good thing about this setup is you only need a single cable run up to your roof.

Adding an RJ45 jack directly to dishy might actually complicate the construction. For one thing, it's a weatherproofing issue. But now you have two ethernet ports and need a switch, which needs software management. It's not just a few pennies on the BOM.


> Adding an RJ45 jack directly to dishy might actually complicate the construction

It wasn't an additional jack on dishy. It was an additional jack on the router.

See here for an example of the router: https://www.androidcentral.com/sites/androidcentral.com/file... One of those ports connects to the Starlink (through another box which provides the POE), and the other is labeled `aux` and is available for LAN.

My understanding for the newer routers is there is now only the single port. The router itself doesn't appear to be weatherproof'ed in any way, and already needs to be installed indoors, so I think it'd just be the cost of the RJ45 jack (and whatever internal differences for the router).

It just...seems like it cannot be much of a cost savings.


Surely whatever SoC they're using already has the capability, so yeah, it's probably a few $ at most. I bet they figured they'd save money because of people's shitty wifi setups in their gargantuan exurban homes.


In that case, I truly have no idea. You're right, it's weird.


We're talking about a typical 1 Gbps (non-PoE) LAN port on the router, so you could plug in another computer hardwired (or a switch).

The jack is pennies, and the rest of the chips to support the extra Ethernet interface are still readily available. Version 1 of the router had a LAN port (labeled AUX).


The whole point of the new dish is to cut cost:

- They integrated the power supply into the router. Cuts the cost.

- An ethernet port and a physical switch with all its required component costs money. If SpaceX determines that only one digit percent (very likely) of its customers use the Ethernet port on the router (or don't use the router, both of which is detectable from SpaceX PoV), then the ethernet port becomes a good target to remove.

- Same story with the cable from the dish. It's most likely that the cable, plugs and connectors for that cable costs less overall. Also note that there is not PoE standard that allows 180 watts, so they essentially had a non-compliant port that could potentially cause issues in some scenarios. For instance, the ethernet inductor module on the PSU board for the first version is rated for lower current than the dish needs at its maximum power usage so the components are essentially running on the edge of their spec, probably why some PSUs were failing (see reddit). In addition, by making the cable non-standard ethernet, they've eliminated a potentially large number of support requests of people adding extensions to the already at-the-limit cable and wondering why it doesn't work.

As for why you can't transfer your account: you have a service that's in high demand and low supply. It'd be irresponsible of SpaceX to allow one person to sign up for 10 services, then sell the equipment at higher price to a 3rd party and transfer the service, while those who really need the service have to wait longer.

It's good to sit down and think why certain product decisions are made, instead of assume "user hostility" right off the bat.


Starlink is definitely demonstrating that there is demand and a willingness to pay.

Part of me wonders if it will suffer the same fate as Iridium - terrestrial service came in and took the market away. Especially if the rollout continues to be so slow.


Already happening here in Nova Scotia.....https://internet.developns.ca will serve 1.5GB fibre to 95 % of homes and business by 2025. They want to do another plan after to reach the last 5 %.


Well if that happens that's great.

I think there will always be some sort of market for it if they can get ships/planes onboarded.


Terrestial roll out will also be slow because there is little financial incentive to do it.


So he says that he wanted to give the dish to his cousin. Then he describes all the bureaucratic barriers he faced in that plan. But what happens if he just places the dish there? Does it immediately give an error on first connection, or doest it get banned later?

I understand that the limit is because Starlink is oversubscribed in the cousin's area, I'm just wondering where the limitation is enforced.


> But what happens if he just places the dish there?

That's exactly what he tried a few months back. It didn't work (no connection was possible IIRC). The service was basically geo-fenced back then and still might be.


Did he say that in the video? He never said so in the article, and its absence is conspicuous.


I mentioned it in the previous review (just linked from the article). If only it were that easy :(


From what I gathered from the video is that it doesn't work there because there is no converge. Those 70 miles might be just outside the coverage area. I guess if you are right outside one of these circles https://starlink.sx/ it won't work


Regarding the number of proposed starlink satellites:

The constellation is proposed to be approximately 10,000 satellites.

I wondered how this compares to the number of US commercial flights per year. The FAA claims it handles 45,000 flights per day [1]. If we assume each aircraft has 5 flights per day and spends half it's time on the ground, then we might guess there are approximately 4,500 aircraft flying above the USA at any given instant.

The USA is only a portion of the globe, let's say it's 1/50 of the global surface area, and let's assume starlink satellites are distributed evenly across the sky. From this we can guess, there will be approximately 200 starlink satellites above the CONUS at any instant.

So the starlink constellation will be about 5% of the problem that commercial air traffic is.

[1] https://www.faa.gov/air_traffic/by_the_numbers/


Except they aren't evenly distributed. Stargazing skews to nighttime hours while air traffic skews to daytime hours. Not to mention coastal vs inland densities.

That is an interesting comparison though! And it'd be cool to compare with more nuanced assumptions - maybe even factor in how contrails affect things in addition to the 1:1 satellite:plane maths.


Also most airliners follow fairly standard routes between cities. Starlink satellites, by nature, have to be evenly distributed.

Each one is also visible from a larger patch of ground because it's 300 miles farther away than a plane.


$240 per month for internet, wow. I didn't realise things were that expensive for people living in remote areas.

I'm currently paying ~$40 (converted from EUR) per month for a 100Mb/s fiber connection.


We pay 180 USD a month for a phone line and DSL from Century Link. This connection is 1.5 mbps down and 500 kbps up in practice (advertised speeds are higher). Starlink has been a game changer for us.


> 180 USD

Damn... hope your wages make up for this man.


It's crazy, in a lot of rural areas ISPs know they can charge the moon for terrible service and they justify it by saying how hard it is to service remote locations... at least for some 4G is a new alternative that is more readily available than Starlink.


CHF 64.75 (~71 USD) per month for 25 gbit synchronous [1] here in Zürich, Switzerland. The cost now is hardware. The Fiber infrastructure in the city is mostly operated by the state electrical company. Anyone can provide service over it.

[1] https://www.init7.net/en/

[2] https://www.speedtest.net/result/c/df4123cf-5f0e-40f2-bf71-f...


25Gb ?! Symmetric? Wow.

I guess that's a benefit to a small relatively wealthy country?

My question would be, what do you have to even _use_ that much bandwidth? I have 1Gb/50Mb asymmetric and my Ubiquiti router can't really saturate the down stream. Sure, I could invest in a more powerful router, but in normal daily use we never even get close to max bandwidth.


It's only the city and places that got lucky enough to have been connected via Fiber by the state owned phone company. There are still areas with garbage connections at a high cost.

The reason the city has such a good fiber connectivity is because of a vote a few years ago that pushed this. It cost a lot of money but was worth every bit IMO.

I hope something like this gets pushed for the whole country. I see it as core infrastructure like electricity and unlike cable or copper it is way more future proof.


https://broadbandnow.com/national-broadband-map is informative.

Select max speed and then go zoom in somewhere rural and see "1Mbps to 25Mbps" and then switch over to min price or provider counts...

There aren't a lot of options in rural areas and running wire to the spot is expensive.


That's because it's not. The cost isn't $240 by necessity. They're knowingly overpaying for Internet access (they have multiple connections, they're not even using Starlink for example).

I'm paying $34 / month in a small city in the middle of nowhere for 200mbps in the US.


$140/month to get the most upload bandwidth possible at my house (35 Mbps through Spectrum).

Then $99/month for Starlink (for now, at least).

Meanwhile a few blocks away a friend has 500 Mbps symmetric access for $50/month.


Time to build a wireless link to your friend :)


Seriously though this is achievable with consumer hardware[0], as long as you have line-of-sight or close enough to it.

[0]: https://www.amazon.com/TP-Link-300Mbps-dual-polarized-direct...


And check out Ubiquiti and Mikrotik for more hardware that does this sort of thing.


Yeah most of my experience is from Ubiquiti and Mikrotik about 10 years ago. I was going to recommend Ubiquiti but it looks like the bar (and price) is even lower now.


@geerlingguy that would be a great video idea if possible


How is 5G or LTE service in your area?


Good article, ones like these need to become the canonical reviews. Lots of stuff for the Starlink engineers to be embarrassed about.

But the real embarrassment is the satellites. They should been covered in an antireflective coating, the kind you can get for $20 at any hardware store. But the engineers didn't bother, even though they knew about Iridium flares:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satellite_flare

Why would they make such a simple, obvious mistake? Let's look at some options:

A) They didn't know (casts doubt on the competence of the engineers and the adequacy of their engineering process)

B) They couldn't solve it (I just did, this is a red herring)

C) They didn't care (casts doubt on their relationship with science, environmentalists and members of the public who don't want to see satellites when they look at the stars)

D) They wanted people to see the satellites in the sky as free advertising (ding ding)

Corporate greed runs the show now. And other countries will copy this bad behavior because once again, a US corporation didn't lead by setting a good example.

If we want to see real change in the world, we need to start by NOT supporting bad actors. Don't buy Starlink. Tell your friends why.


With the recent loss of the 40 SpaceX satellites due to the solar storm, I'm thinking now that I may have written my comment in haste.

I grew up in a region with exceptionally low light pollution, staring at the stars and Milky Way in awe, and feel great sorrow for people who don't get to see them. The idea that there will always be a satellite glaring somewhere in the sky now, diminishing that sense of natural wonder, is one of the great tragedies of the modern world IMHO.

But I'm not going to sit here and tell people what to buy. Starlink has great tech, and I do want everyone in the world to have affordable internet access. It's up to each of us to do our own research and vote with our dollars for products that are sustainable, equitable, etc. I think we all want to do better and fix our mistakes, rather than live in the shame of any dishonorable behavior we may have had in the past.


Recently got Starlink. From 10Mbps/0.5Mbps to 150/10 is a god send. I'll gladly pay for the extra power consumption.

I have some sympathy for the astronomy crowd, but I wonder if its inevitable. And is world wide broadband more/less important to society than having to correct for light streaks?

The router debacle is just ridiculous though. All of the networking tech being used is so ubiquitous, why not include a damn ethernet port. I just received my ethernet adapter 2 months later and... it doesn't work. Tried multiple configurations including straight into a PC - nothing. to top it off my support ticket was closed without any response... so my $300 mesh wifi will just sit on the shelf while half the house gets poor connectivity.

Overall its exciting to have decent internet and not live in a city. The future of it is exciting too -especially the space laser links. Imagine a situation where you can hop directly to a ground station on or very nearby a data center. A lot of people saying Starlink is great if you don't have access to something better, but Starlink may end up being the "fastest" internet available.


Destroying the night sky is only inevitable if people choose to use Starlink and similar services. Considering most people use the internet for cat pics, porn, and mindless entertainment not sure the trade off is worth it.


While most people use internet for porn, the same people also most likely use internet for work and business. It's not like your browser is locked to Pornhub.com.


I live in Australia, which is divided into two regions: those where I can get internet better than modem speeds, and those in which I might ever hope to afford to purchase a home. Starlink will make one of those areas a subset of the other, and for that I remain ever hopeful it works out.


I don't understand why cable connections are so bad when there is DOCSIS 3.1. Is it that the cable provider just has such a limited link on their end that people are getting speeds sub 100mbit? Are they vastly over provisioning their networks?


There's a few factors, all of which are in some level of change right now.

1) Cable providers in major markets (urban ones) are offering gbps service and often slightly faster (1.2gbps) now, at rates that I would say aren't great but are not terrible, in my case about $100 a month. Unfortunately that gigabit is downstream only. So high DOCSIS speeds are happening, just not as universally as you'd hope.

2) One of our biggest cable giants, Comcast, has a legacy channel planning problem related to the older Motorola STBs guide and on-demand delivery that prevents them reallocating additional channels to DOCSIS 3.1 upstream for the time being (those channels are in use by the Motorola STBs which don't support anything else). This results in a hard 35mbps upstream limit for most Comcast customers. Unfortunately the route to fixing this is to replace all of the older STBs, which Comcast is slowly doing but this requires getting customers to turn in their old one and pick up a new one... you can imagine how hard it is to get everyone to do this, even offering incentives.

3) DOCSIS 3.1 can achieve gbps+ speeds over an admirably long range but not for a very high customer count. So cable providers are transitioning their HFC network over time to a "node+0" architecture that resembles DSL with serving area DSLAMs... basically they are eliminating distribution amplifiers from the cable network and replacing them with compact field nodes (CMTS and head end) using fiber uplink. This essentially becomes a "fiber to the curb" architecture with cable last mile (more like last thousand feet in urban areas). It needs to be done mainly to reduce the number of customers on each CMTS to reduce contention, and sort of as a requirement for full performance of the DOCSIS 3.1 high speed upstream channels, but as you can imagine this large-scale change to outdoor plant is expensive and time-consuming, although it seems largely complete in a lot of cities.

4) As you get customers on very fast service plans backhaul at the node becomes a problem. This is mostly being addressed through installing new fiber backhaul routes for the new nodes, but in more suburban areas can be a big limitation.

5) All the TV on the cable takes up a lot of bandwidth and makes channel planning more difficult even with the abstraction in STBs. This is why major cable providers are starting to shift towards an IP-only "over the top" architecture where they deliver IPTV over DOCSIS instead of "real" cable television. This will help but once again requires all new STBs.


In my case, Spectrum has decided that they want a flashy "gigabit tier", so they provision everything as download bandwidth (940 Mbps), and then only assign 35 Mbps upload.

I'd pay extra for business class service, but it doesn't even help, it's the same speed just with some more guarantees and a stable IP.


This is why when I found out Fios was available in my area I immediately called. I paid for the highest consumer tier of Spectrum available in my area but the upload speeds were still capped to awful levels (20mbit, at max). I'm not actually getting the symmetrical 1gb/s I pay for with Fios either, but it is worlds better than anything Spectrum would offer me.


It's the same in my area. I have 200/10 now for about $78 month. I don't need more than 100 Mbps down under any circumstance. I would pay nearly $200/month to get on the 940/30 plan here. I don't really feel like paying more than double to get internet that is still painfully slow.

Also the DOCSIS network in my area is such low quality it isn't reliable anyways.


Yeah ever since the pandemic started, speeds average closer to 700 Mbps down (which is still about 3x more than I've ever really needed...). I would gladly pay the same amount for like 100 down/100 up, but then Spectrum couldn't call their service "Gigafast".


Upload speed shenanigans is what pushed me to pursue Comcast's "business tier" gigabit pro fiber and the last 3 or so years have been pure bliss. Unfortunately it's limited to locations right around the corner from fiber so yet another reason I might live in the same place forever, or at least until cheap symmetric 5 gig or more starts becoming the norm.


This is ultimately what drove me away from Spectrum (along with some absolutely piss poor routing that introduced massive lag).

$95/month for 400/20. I don't need all of that download bandwidth, but I could use a bit more upload bandwidth.


Starlink does much the same, no? The median Starlink upload appears to be 14Mbit/sec, per Ookla/Speedtest.


HFC is a mess. It's not worth it to keep improving it. Here in Spain HFC providers are rushing to lay fiber because it's not only more competitive for real speeds, but because maintinance is much easier and cheaper.

The savings come in the form of real state, the "last mile" widens a lot, many of the elements of the network are passive so you save up energy too, and you can cram up much more people/€ spent.


>> These connectors are dumb, and I can't think of a good reason they exist. There are ways SpaceX could improve networking hardware, but proprietary non-standard connectors ain't one of 'em.

Did he ever think they might be weather proof? Looks like some rubber seals on those connectors. You know, since the dish is outdoors and has to deal with rain, sleet, or snow. I certainly wouldn't put a standard RJ45 on it.

I'd like to have Starlink at my condo, do they care if I split costs with a few neighbors? Do they have group plans? It seems like having higher usage from a single terminal would be better for them vs having multiple terminals.


Weatherproof RJ45 fittings are well established and used by most outdoor CPE. I do assume that Starlink figured their connector design was easier to use (the typical weathertight ethernet ferrules are kind of fiddly), but it seems like a poor choice overall considering it's going to make installation a lot more complicated since the cable needs to be fished with connectors on. It seems like a decision that was made to benefit consumer "jammed through the window" install to such a degree that it will make professional installation significantly more difficult, especially that right angle connector is never going to be fishable through smurf tube the way an electrician would install it, and it'd require a huge hole to drill it through the siding the way a cable installer would. That's the big advantage of modular connectors: installers have the tools to terminate cables, so they can run the cable sans connector.


It seems cable is still ordinary twisted pair, so you can just cut it, add extra waterproof connection box and use modular connectors...


I ran our satellite internet service out of Iraq when I was deployed there* - I think it was HughesNet or Bently Walker. It was one of the only ways to get unfiltered open source internet at the time, which was a requirement for our mission, and a nice bonus for us in general. Compared to no internet, satellite internet is pretty good. Compared to anything else? Take anything else.

*To be fair this was also like, 10 years ago now, and Iraq sucked anyway - but I'm pretty sure bandwidth needs for general internet usage haven't gotten any lighter since then so I suspect the performance is just as atrocious as I remember.


Ya I helped switch someone from Hughes to the v2 Starlink, it is night and day difference, and actually costs less(Hughes was like $140 for the shittiest internet imaginable)


Funny, I cancelled but haven't taken it down.

Anyone looking to buy a useless Starlink terminal?


In many areas cell data is a better choice.

When I lived in a bus I traveled to almost 30 states and spent most of my time in rural areas like national forests. Finding a good signal was a lot easier than you might expect. Get the right hardware with an external antenna and high speed coverage is good in most of the country.

Finding a good plan can be tough. If you can get a good T-Mobile signal they have unlimited plans for a reasonable price. AT&T has data plans that are $1/GB. There are grey market resellers that offer unlimited SIMs at an inflated price.


If you are in a city, but can't get wired Internet (I'm in downtown Chicago), I would recommend trying T-Mobile's Home Internet before you go for Starlink. T-Mobile's "Trash Can" router is a bit flakey, but the speeds are great and there are no limits. Plus, no installation, just plug in and go. For $50 a month, it's really a steal, IMO.


This quote really stands out:

"Many countries, including the US, have a lot of inequality when it comes to Internet access and affordability."


Why? Were cats sleeping on it?

There were recent reports that cats just liked to sleep on the dish in very cold weather as they are self heating.


Regarding the second LAN port and proprietary cable — standard RJ45 ports are not waterproof, especially if they’re delivering almost 100W (the max load of this new dishy). I expect that plays into the decision making here; also, selling a phase array antenna plus power supply plus WiFi router for $500 is actually pretty cheap.


You're totally correct about RJ45 not being waterproof, but a point made in the video, and one that I whole-heartedly agree with, is that there's no reason this needs to be a proprietary cable. They could still have made a new more waterproof cable/jack, but opened the spec and/or allow other manufacturers to build them.


There are ways around it: You can put the RJ45 inside a water-tight screw-together housing, or at least use a standard plug design -- the best option being a waterproof variant of an IEC metric screw sized connector like M12:

https://www.mcmaster.com/networking-equipment/micro-m12-scre...


My biggest complaints were:

1. Used more power than all my other appliances/devices combined. 2. I dropped signal every few minutes. Didn't impact streaming/downloads but did make calls basically untenable. Given my work, this made StarLink a step back despite the dramatic increase in speeds.


The pre-order queue might not be a thing anymore. At least for me, I ordered the antenna in January 2022 and got it the same month.


100W continuous draw is around $15 a month in power alone - this buys you unlimited 5G in many places around the world.


Believe me, if I could buy unlimited 5G (or 4G, my phone is old) for $15/mo here in the US I'd be doing it.

I'm paying $10/mo for 1GB.


Yeah most places charge based on what people can afford, not based on competition.

Hence Starlink in South East Asia is priced so high up that it's basically useless for 99.9% of population.


This article was from the perspective of someone who doesn’t need Starlink.

They already have (pricey) fast internet.

Starlink isn’t for them. It’s for idiots like me who live far enough out of town that nobody wants to run cable or fiber to me.

I’ve literally offered to pay for “whatever it takes” to AT&T and Comcast on several occasions only to be told it’s just never going to happen.

I don’t like Elon Musk, what he stands for, how he manages companies, staff or social media. But I’ll throw fists with anyone who wants to talk poorly of Starlink.

My only option for internet was 5mbit/768k. Now I can play FPS and stream 4k video to multiple screens simultaneously.

Until we as a nation (USA) start investing in telecomm infrastructure Starlink is going to be as good as it gets for me.


Why the custom connectors though?


I object to Starlink because it ruins the night sky for astronomers.


hiding cat5e in proprietary connectors is low.


I've had starlink for probably a year and a half now. It has steadily improved, gotten more reliable, and is more able to avoid trees (I alas am not in an open plain).

I used to have 10 seconds of blockage every 5 minutes.

Now I get some blockage every... 5 hours?

I also have a 5G modem appliance that I used to use for stuff like Zoom. It actually is LESS reliable than the Starlink now.

Do I do massive bandwidth downloads or serve websites? No. I am the typical consumer usage.

Is the expense worth giving the finger to the cable company? Oh yes.

If I got around to getting rooftop solar and storage or a backup generator, then I'd be protected from a grid failure. That appeals to me, but then again going off-grid is an obsession of the typical aging male techie in America. I think it's the new "going republican when you were liberal young": instead you go pseudo-libertarian.


Why inject worthless politics talk into your otherwise fine comment...


“Then there are other people reading who think he's the commensurate con-man”

Does anyone actually think this about Elon? Think what you will about the guy’s persona, but it seems undeniable that he is doing big things in the world (and outside of it).


I think "con man" is a bit too strong, but he does have a history of making promises that either slip significantly (misses deadlines by years) or end up not playing out at all. There are various reasons I can imagine for that, from naive optimism, to marketing or wanting to motivate people.


Elon isn't a con man because he actually delivers but there is a streak running through him that doesn't seem to care if he deceives people as long as he reaches his higher goals.

He's not a 'nice guy' in my book.


There are definitely a lot of people who think this. Go on twitter and search for "TSLAQ". There are people deluding themselves that Tesla isn't actually shipping the number of cars they claim.

Maybe 7+ years ago you could try to make that claim and not be a laughing stock, but it's very odd at this point.


But there is proof of at least one instance of them claiming to deliver more cars than reality.

https://www.drive.com.au/news/tesla-australia-admits-it-sale...


Tesla constantly lies about its numbers. Even this week there was news from Australia, about inflated number.


There is no doubt Elon has haters that will loudly proclaim that everything he does is a scam. Just read any Youtube comment section where he appears.

Are they as prevalent as the people who think his feet can't touch the ground because they are too holy? I don't know, but I do know they exist.


OT: does this use of "commensurate" make sense, or did the author mean "consummate"?

commensurate: corresponding in size or degree; in proportion.

consummate: showing a high degree of skill and flair; complete or perfect.


Well, it did seem to be the popular perception before the first Tesla came out and the first SpaceX rocket landed again...


Its interesting to me how the customer service mindset between Elon's companies and a company like Amazon is so opposite.

Amazon has a almost militant drive to optimize customer experience, will take anything back, will do just about anything to please their customers. They state so.

Tesla, Space X in the form if starlink, solar city all seem to have pretty piss poor customer service and experience. They get away with things you'd never tolerate from your local grocery store, car dealership or ISP. But we hold them up on a pedestal and say it's a necessary evil, part of the process. Why do they need to hold onto millions of dollars in pre-order fees from average people when they have so much investment from the rich that they could use for that purpose. It's because he isn't selling products anymore. He doesn't make his money when the product ships, he makes it when he announces a new vaporware product, collects pre-orders and stock benefits from the hype and press, and then never delivers on the actual product. Its no matter to him, by that time he has already made his money and cashed out.

The only difference between Theranos and Elon's ventures is that his ventures hot the bottom 25% of the goals and timeline so its not a total lie. At the same time, it's also not totally honest.


Theranos couldn’t deliver reliable tests using other people’s equipment, let alone the magic box they pretended to have invented. Their claims were pretty much impossible to fulfil.

There are Teslas driving on the roads. Starlink is serving customers. SpaceX is delivering payloads.

Like him or loathe him, Musk has delivered multiple times.


Percentage wise though. How many times has he delivered as promised on time vs. how many times has he not. It's got to be close to 25/75 right?

I agree, he has delivered on about the bottom 25% of his promises.


> The only difference between Theranos and Elon's ventures is

that Elizabeth Holmes is in jail for fraud and Elon Musk signs and delivers on deals with NASA.




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