Linus checks out Starlink

[Ianab]

Charging for "long distance" is now just bonus profit for the phone companies. Even if you are on an old copper line as soon as it gets to your local exchange it's converted to digital and sent over the internet. It basically costs the phone company the same to connect you with your neighbour, or some guy on the other side of the country.

[SwampDonkey]

Yeah, a big bonus.

[firefighter ontheside]

Its called Ooma.  My wife has it at her office and it works just fine for her, but she has regular internet and not starlink.  I'm quite sure it is going to work fine.  Starlink has been really good since the beta period was over.  We did notice a reduction in speed when the Ukraine war started.

[Ianab]

Ukraine shouldn't have affected speeds in other parts of the World. The individual Sats provide a link between the user and a nearby ground station, but they have to be line of sight to both of them.  When they are over the US, they are talking to US ground stations that hook into the rest of the Internet locally. Likewise as they pass over NZ.

But a lot more ground stations have been installed this year, so more traffic through each sat means slower speed. Even so it's generally above the promised minimum, but varies with the time of day (amount of use) and the changing satellite positions. 

[firefighter ontheside]

It was probably just a coincidence as to why our speed suddenly slowed and we had some interruptions in service, but it coincided exactly with Starlink providing internet service to Ukraine.  As an American with deep Ukrainian roots, it actually felt a little good to think it was helping the Ukraine a little that my internet was slowed.  

We got the Ooma installed last night and the phone is working.  We have to wait for our phone number to be ported so that we can use it with Ooma.  Currently we have some other number on the Ooma phone.  I picked up the new phone and called our ATT number and it worked.  Supposedly it could take several weeks for the number to be ported, but Cindy said when she did it at work it was the next day.  Once the number is ported, we can connect the new Ooma router thing to our house phone lines and will have a dial tone to all our phones.  Of course I have to unplug the wire coming into the house from the outside first.

[SwampDonkey]

My ISP site here says up to 14 days, they give you some kind of temp number. I'm not on Starlink, just info from ISP site.

[Ianab]

At a guess it's a Govt regulation that says they have to port the number within 14 days? Of course the Telco will wait until day 13 so they can charge the extra days. The changes are electronic and should update through the system in a few hours, once they have actually been made that is. 

I know changing from copper to fibre / TCPIP (with the same telco) only takes an hour or so.

[SwampDonkey]

When we were on Bell FibreOp, they own the telephone lines and were the ISP both, there was no wait other then what ever it took to type something in. Had it the day I got connected to the internet. No idea what the wait time is unless they have to come to the site. These days to hook up a land line could be a week wait for them to show up. And they never set up appointments. They think we are just sitting around waiting for them. Never was like that years ago, was a crown corporation then. Prompt service.

[btulloh]

I started using Ooma about a month ago.  It only took about three days to get my old number ported.  Working fine.  No issues.  I'll be interested to hear it works on a Starlink connection.

[firefighter ontheside]

I just talked to each member of my family on the ooma phone.  My wife said that for a moment I broke up a bit.  That could have been my cell phone, because the signal is not great in my office at work.  Even if it breaks up minimally I can live with it for $6/month.  The sound quality was great.  They all sounded normal.  

[Ianab]

It seems Starlink now has the laser based satellite to satellite system working. Previously the birds had to be able to see a ground station to relay down to. But with the inter-sat coms working, if they can't see a base station they can relay through another sat that can. This opens up the system to REALLY REMOTE places, and it's now available on Pitcairn Island. If you have never heard of that it's not a surprise, because it's a dot of an Island 1/2 way between NZ and Peru. Previously they had an old style fixed satellite link for the whole Island and if they needed a video call they had to turn everyone else's internet off to get enough bandwidth. 

One of the most isolated places on Earth finally gets high-speed internet | Stuff.co.nz

They had been able to use Starlink to help out Tonga after the volcano cut their undersea fibre connection, but I assume that was because they were close enough to Fiji or Samoa that had a base station and still had working fibre. Now that Tonga has it's cable back the dishes have been reallocated to the outer Islands that previously had no internet.   

The other advantage of this is they can sell connections to airlines and cruise ships and connect them from the middle of nowhere as well. That service goes for BIG $$. 

[SwampDonkey]

Starlink is offering the hardware for $199 in some areas, not all. I checked and it's not offered for that discount here. Even though they sent me an email.

[firefighter ontheside]

Wow, that's a good deal.  Still loving Starlink!

[Ianab]

They are offering $199 deals here too. I think the catch is you have to sign up for "x" months, and the contract rate is a little higher than if you purchase the hardware up front. A cheaper upfront cost and an extra $10 a month is probably still a fair deal. 

Our mobile Telco has just signed a deal with Starlink to provide mobile phone coverage from sats, to a regular cellphone. Initially it will only work for txt messages, due to limited bandwidth, and phones will still be connected to a ground tower if one is available. If it's not, I assume it uses "roaming" to move to a satellite connection. They plan to expand it to voice and data in the future, as capacity is increased. Like Starlink it's not designed to replace ground based cellular, just fill in the blanks on the coverage map. 

[Sixacresand]

I'm still interested in Starlink.  The last time I looked at the map, coverage of the SE United States is light.  So, I'll wait.  In the meantime HughesNet upped my max data from 75 gig to 200 gig for no extra charge.  It is still too slow and intermittent to use to stream.  

[RetiredTech]

  We've been on Starlink for several months now. We're about as rural as it gets here in Pickneyville, Ms. Our one room store and post office closed many years ago. We are on the best effort Starlink plan and it works well for us. We cancelled Dishnet TV. No problems streaming TV over internet. It has to be pretty bad weather to interrupt it. Interruptions are usually very short. I haven't done a speedtest in a long time, but streaming to two tv's and browsing the web is no problem at all. Plus no data cap. I lived with Viasat and Hughes internet service for years. Starlink wins hands down.

[beenthere]

Agree on the Starlink service. I went on "best effort" in December '22 and moved to residential in April '23. Very fast speed, 10-15 times faster when compared to the max of 12MBps on our old underground copper phone line. 

[Sixacresand]

I see where Starlink has filled in coverage for a little patch over middle Georgia where I live.  I was ready to send in my application and credit card info to sign up and get on their waiting list.  

Then I see crews hanging Hi Speed Fiber from the poles in front of the house.  I checked into it.  So now I'm waiting a few months for the Fiber:  Unlimited data,  100 mbps for $50/month or Two gig speeds for $100.  Plus they offer a land line telephone, which has not been available to us in over 10 years. 

[firefighter ontheside]

That's a much better deal than Starlink.  I'm still very happy with starlink, even though the price has gone up.   They will never run data out here.

[RetiredTech]

  I don't see them ever running fiber to beautiful down town Pickneyville either. Starlink has been solid for us since day one. I moved our house number from AT&T to a Visible cellphone a couple years ago. It's $25 a month compared to almost $70 for AT&T's service.  AT&T got to to the point that they couldn't keep the phone working more a few weeks at a time. Then it would be out for another week or more waiting on repairs. They still send me flyers wanting me to sign up for their wireless and/or satellite service. No Thank You.

[SwampDonkey]

Regular phone line here to the house, very reliable. Will never own cell. Internet is reliable, from tower. I'm just on the basic, fast enough to stream on 2 devices. Do have data limit, but have never used more than 70% a month. I have 50 Mbps now, can get 100 with unlimited data. Don't need it.

[beenthere]

Happy with Starlink, as getting fiber to the house (1/4 mile) would be $30,000.  Not sure why, but that was what the phone co. told me to replace the copper line here now. 

[SawyerTed]

Very satisfied with Starlink 

Switched from ViaSat internet and DirectTV to Starlink about 3 months ago.  My cost is now 1/3 of the two other services combined.  We have Amazon Prime and only pay additional for Netflix.  Otherwise we use free streaming. 

Very satisfied with speed, weather performance and cost of Starlink.  We live in a rural area on a paved secondary road that is a main artery esst to west in the county.  BUT no communication cable but twisted pair phone cable runs on our end of the road.  That's a drawback of being the only house for .7 mile here.  The communication cable ends on either side of our property.  

Tried to get cable, tried to get the phone company to do something and tried to get the county wireless provider to do something.  Cable company quoted a price of several thousand dollars. Others said no service is available in my area. 

I offered to run 2,000 feet of cable per the cable company specs.  No dice only their contractor could do it and their quote was crazy expensive.

So satellite service was my only option. 

Starlink setup was simple.  My biggest issue was the permanent mount for Dishy using the supplied mount.  Finding a spot to roof mount it where it would be near vertical was a chore.  They should supply a more universal mount. Of course, they sell other mounts at an additional cost.  

[firefighter ontheside]

I used an old satellite dish mount for dishy.  We dropped our landline phone service and switched to Ooma voip with starlink.  Works just fine.  ATT was costing us $70 per month.  Ooma costs like $5.  We were able to keep the same phone number.  When we switched, we had to use a new phone number until our old number could be ported and then after about 2 weeks we got the number back.

[Ianab]

AT&T got to to the point that they couldn't keep the phone working more a few weeks at a time. Then it would be out for another week or more waiting on repairs

The Copper lines here are only being patched up currently. None are being replaced. I guess if a pair in a cable goes bad, they have spares from the now disconnected lines that are still OK. But very close to some urban areas just being switched off. Once an area has fibre 100% available, and 95% are hooked up they can put the hard word on, and say it WILL be disconnected on X day, here's your options. 

I must stop and get a picture of one of the mail customers setup. They have a locally based microwave setup now. Not as fast as Starlink on a good day, but they have a local mesh of small microwave repeaters around the province. They might put a solar powered repeater on pole on a hill, give the farmer a discount on his internet bill, and beam signals to 5 neighbours from that pole. Lets them get into the more isolated valleys out East where they have no other option but satellite. The big Telcos won't put up a cell tower for 5 houses, this company will install MIFI, and bounce the signal off their other small towers, back to civilisation. 

But anyway, Murray has this old plough sitting out in the front of his house, as a quietly rusting lawn ornament. With a microwave dish mounted on it. and I'm guessing a cable running 50m underground back to the house. It just struck me as a mix of old and new. I'm sure his wife will have ordered some more stuff online, so I will be back there this week and will stop and get a pic