Tom you been here rural but have Comcast cable 1000 mbs down speed 300 up is $100 a month I still have VoIP landline because cell service is so bad … NO cell service with out WiFi Dish, phone wire or fidium not stable enough to work on Daughter graduated high school last year so Covid freshman year; high speed was mandatory classmates without would drive to our home to download assignments or town library or town offices gave out WiFi passwords
I got Starlink last spring. Love it. We were on line-of-sight microwave 20mbps for $100/mo. Starlink is $120/mo for 200+mbps. Take my money!
We're nowhere as rural as you are. That's for sure, but we are in between towns and most services won't go out to us. Still waiting on att fiber, but that might be a while. It's already been a couple of years. Through spectrum, we had 300 mbps Internet and now it's just been no cost upgraded to 400 mbps for $50 a month, but that's bundled with cell phones. I could get even faster Internet, but it's not necessary. To think when I had att slow dsl Internet we only had like 8 mbps, and that was on a good day when youyr lucky. That was when we started to stream TV. Pretty tough to do with that slow dsl internet.
My internet was down again 4 days this time til a service tech was in my area. I have threads around this board when I was previously thrilled to get this radio to tower internet instead of Dish Network or Hughes big dishes which cost a ton/month and very slow, DSL not available, but those big dishes were never out for more than a few hours. This company let me sit without phone, tv, internet almost 4 weeks in just over the last year all combined. Constant buffering since the temp fix a year ago Jan or March (that would be the "temporary" radio they put on the ground after the tech hurt his leg and Doctor said not to go on roofs. that radio has died twice in the last 3 months). WWW likes to watch tv and podcasts after work and some on weekends, he brings home the bacon to pay this company every month and doesn't appreciate the spinning buffer circle. Service Tech fixed me up today, new electronics, but I'd already it with days on end without phone from faulty equipment and had WWW order a Starlink ( I couldn't without internet or phone or I would have done it), should be here tomorrow or next week. It's Fed Ex'd, self install and activated. $0.00 equipment charge then $120/month. Currently I pay ~$85/month but with more recent falls I want a phone available if needed as well as I have kiddo bus to WWW's shop since I can't track the school bus (as in I don't want to wait at the bus stop if they are 30 minutes late which is not uncommon, also WWW and kiddo change plans on the way to school too often so I end up sitting out at the bus stop forever without being able to call or them calling me). Any advice for install appreciated, I'm apprehensive since it's a rectangle (reminds me of ceramic seconday burner baffle in a wood stove) on the roof that'll be subjected to the winds we get here.... And my poor roofer husband that has issues with roof penetrations will be screwing it down
Is that the correct name for when I try to describe the radio pointing at a tower that I have currently?
wildwest realize this does not have to be on roof. It just needs unobstructed view of sky You could put it on a mailbox post.
I shoulda bought in when they had crazy deals. Seems like they had early adopter 'forever' deals IIRC. Oh well.
I just set mine in the yard for now, I have to crawl under the house & drill a hole to run the cable thru then up to the tv room. It’s ran redneck style thru a window right now. I will eventually put a post in the ground & mount it to the post. There was a sale on Starlink for our area of $149, we just got the “lite” plan for $80 month. With just 2 of us we should be good to go. So far it has worked great.
What's the difference in the plans? I heard someone say one time that the prices were different based on the location and the amount of users in the area, but not sure if that's correct...? I've also seen some vids on a portable one. Are they all 'portable' if you don't actually mount it to something, or are there specific and different versions?
I attached mine to the eve with an optional mount. The cable then enters the attic through the wall under the eve. No roof penetrations this way.
We are starting our third year with Starlink, after getting a deal in March of '23 for $199 CAD for the equipment. I hate using the term "game changer" but in this case (as regards Starlink), it truly is. I live 30 miles south of Ottawa and up until Starlink, the only option was a beige WiFi receiver on a 40 foot tower. I was lucky to get 10-20mbps down and 5-7mbps up on a good day. Downtime was a regular occurrence. Then along comes Starlink, and I get anywhere from 100mbps to over 200 and over 20 up with usually 20-30 ms ping time. That is with 5 computers, 4 cell phones and a couple tablets going all day-everyday. Video streaming (or Zoom) is no problem at 1080p and, even though I'm no gamer, my son is and he online games regularly. I have the Starlink dish on a tri-pod (from a previous WiFi reciever) on my roof with an unobstructed view and it really only goes out whenever a bad storm comes in. However, after a few minutes and it reconnects and all is good until the next bad weather event. The only thing that is "better", would be a dedicated fiber line but that is very unlikely to happen as there is absolutely no interest, from the telcos, in bringing fiber outside of the major cities. If I ever need to go higher, I still have the 40 ft tower and that would put the dish well over any obstructions. I won't be doing that, as my knees start knocking at the third rung of the ladder.
There is what is called "rain fade" but that is usually at the start of a downpour and quickly passes. The dish has an internal "heater" which is just that the dish automatically boosts the wattage to melt off any precipitation that is collecting on the dish, as in snow. I haven't noticed any issues with cloud cover, but then I am a long way from Florida hurricanes.
Package delivered last weekend, he screwed it up , plugged it in and it works! I feel a bit bad, the radio to tower company replaced everything the most recent visit and it's working again but they my account slip through the cracks too many times. My one concern is that a microburst will destoy it like the weather station we had years ago. I emailed Starlink yesterday to see about getting an extra terminal. Or I suppose I could open a new account and get another free one, but I'll zero communication til it's delivered.
I've had my dish for close to 3 years, and that means 3 years of snow/ice rain and the usual nor'-easter's (or sou'-wester's?) that blow every March or November. Not to mention the "light show" storms we get in the summer and the flippin' wind storms that brings. The little beggar still works as good as the day my son put it on the roof. edit: Oh and we have the second gen dish, that means it actually points itself at the satellites and it never budged in the wind.
