Posted on 01/25/2023 5:17:31 PM PST by eyeamok
Ok, so I live in the mountains, we barely have electricity and no other utilities of any kind, no phone,cable,...I have been using an unlimited mobile hotspot I got from Calyxinstitute.org for the last few years. It was on the Sprint network, but T Mobile bought Sprint and screwed it all up, Now it SUCKS, so I started looking for another ISP and decided to go with Starlink.(3 months ago)
I ordered it and it showed up 2 days later, I installed it over the weekend, my only real complaint is about how large the plug is from antenna to router, it required me to drill a hole 1 1/4" in diameter to fit the damned 90 degree plug. Once hooked up it took about 5 minutes for it to Self Align, loaded the App on my tablet and setup user/password for router and it was ON and UP!!
during this time I had never received any emails for confirmation, but the CC I used got jacked the day after I ordered it so the recurring bill wasn't going to go thru. I tried resetting on their site, dozens of times, sent support tickets, nothing worked never got anything, I run my own Mail Server and I never put all the records in my DNS because I never needed them, but I think they didn't like my email with no DMARC or SPF records, I finally I sent an email to SpaceX and got a reply, all they did was tell me I would get an email with a link to reset password, Never got anything but I didn't give up trying. then I went into the DNS and set all the records right, Finally when the credit card they had on file failed the second time, they sent me an email with a link top setup my account. I was able to login and fix everything.
They have NO CUSTOMER SERVICE of any kind and you can't call them if you have a problem. So don't screw anything up when you order it. However I am thoroughly impressed and pleased with the systems speed and operation, it really works Great and I would highly recommend it for others in my position. It is $110 per month and you have to buy the equipment up front for $600 also. But it is Absolutely worth every nickel, no blips, no hiccups, no Problems of any kind.
You only need a clear shot with about a 30 degree swing to get the signal, I have noticed my antenna only moves aout 10 degrees ever, it is due north for me at about a 45 degree angle up. Too bad you couldn’t make it work
My cable doesn’t come off the rectangular antenna they gave me, I would have had to disassemble antenna to get inside where it would have been soldered to the connections, SO I had no choice, I just put a junction box outside and a blank phone jack in the house. It came out just fine
It sure does. Ask me how I know.
It works best if you’re a Ukrainian.
If so, then essentially you get it for free.
It’s available for roughly Mountain and Pacific time zones. It’s worth considering once it’s available here.
I have the rectangular dish and it does indeed detach. Look it up on YouTube if you must.
Understand your situation. Good luck. However I can’t relate. I live in the suburbs and I have many choices for internet service at a lower cost and other entertainment options. To each his own
I’m opposite. Got Sirius in early 2000s, everything was great until the merger and my original Sirius unit died. I lose signal constantly when I have large southern objects these days. Could never find a definite cause, my best guess is new units recieve from the XM satellites which are further south.
They have changed then because mine doesn’t come off
I’ve had it at a family property in western PA for about a year with excellent results.
I would love to get it, but WV currently doesn’t have coverage.
I think the topography may have something to do with it - most of us have hills blocking at least some part of the sky unless living on top of a hill/ridge. Almost all the roads follow rivers/creeks so that’s where the houses are - in the hollers, to use the local vernacular.
Maybe, at some point, once the satellite density increases, we’ll be able to have eyes on at least one consistently. That’s my theory anyhow.
They didn’t change it. It’s still the same. You just haven’t figured it out. Check this out.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/rTEDENw0ck8
Also, they sell replacement cables. How would one replace the cable when damaged? Mine was damaged by my dog, I ordered the replacement, unplugged the cable from the rectangular dish, connected the new one, and boom! Internet.
Yes it does. there is a release for it. EVERYONE thinks they don’t come off. but they do.
it’s available nationwide including alaska but there is a waiting list so the network does not get overloaded. as more satellites come online they are adding more customers.
Starlink is good in the short term but it, like so many of Elon Musk’s scams, will have problems on the long term, or at least when the billions from Fed Gov subsidizing it are halted.
First, your speed and ability to use the internet is dependent on (1) the number of users simultaneously using those Sats, (2) the number of Sats in orbit.
In the latter case, Elon needs Sats to be going up into orbit pretty much constantly in order to cover the whole globe and to replace the Sats that fail. The Sats, per Elon, fail at 3-5 year mark, and probably fail a lot faster than that due to Elon’s typically infamous shitty engineering. (As an aside, supposedly, they’ll fall out of orbit on their own, but I suspect this is another one of Elon’s lies since many of the Sats have already failed and are still in orbit and likely will remain so for years. This is a problem because Elon’s Sats (1) interfere with Earth-based astrology and our ability to detect incoming meteors, (2) increase the possibility of catastrophe in our low earth orbit, possibly leaving us Earth-Bound for decades to come due to massive amounts of debris). So every 3-5 years, and probably sooner than that, they will need to be replaced with yet more Sats. And this isn’t like 1 or 2 Sats like the other Satellite internet companies use. This is about 30,000 Sats when Earth is fully covered, so tens of thousands—maybe even hundreds of thousands of Sats will ultimately be shot up to orbit around Earth in the coming decades if Elon gets his way (he’s at 2,000 right now and is only approved for 4000). I believe I saw a chart that showed that Elon, all by his lonesome, has quadrupled or more the number of Sats in orbit.
Currently Starlink is dependent entirely on Fed Gov to pay for all of this, using grants given to cover rural areas for internet. At the same time, however, Elon isn’t actually being successful anywhere else on Earth aside from maybe the military use of Starlink in Ukraine. At $110 bucks a month or thereabouts, the vast majority of Elon’s users are in the USA/Canada.
Returning to #1, #1 ALSO requires more Sats to be pumped into orbit. The more people who use the service, the slower your speeds will become. Assuming Starlink becomes as big as Elon has claimed (it won’t, but if it did...), to maintain high internet speeds, Elon must continue to pump out more Sats, both to replace the Sats that are decaying, as well as to cover the usage of new customers.
The problem is that Elon’s business model at this point begins to look like a Ponzi scheme. New users must continue to enter the service in order to pay for the Sats and all the other stuff he sells at a loss (like the dishes themselves). Meanwhile, if Starlink is actually successful, more Sats must be shot into orbit to cover the userbase. This is impossible because no matter how good Starlink is, it’ll always be cheaper and better for someone in a major city to use regular home internet options. Starlink can never compete with your home internet provider no matter how shitty AT&T or XFinity gets.
My prediction is that Starlink will eventually go bankrupt and someone will buy up the company and likely use it as a very niche type of service for rural areas only. There will be less Sats in orbit and your speeds will be slower.
In the meantime, I have no interest in giving Elon a dime of my cash due to all the provable lies he’s told about every business he gets involved in.
WV has coverage, it doesn’t have availability but people on the waitlist will always get service before someone who isn’t on the list.
There is always the option of getting the Starlink RV kit, it works anywhere in the country but it is subject to deprioritization when the network is congested.
Got it. you have never used it so you are making assumptions..
government cut him off a while ago, that is why he said he was done giving the ukraine free internet, but I think he back peddled on that..
I have had it for over a year now, it has constantly gotten better for us as more and more birds are launched.
Mid-Upstate New York has it available. A buddy of mine in the rural hills 20 miles east of Ithaca has it and loves it. Took him an hour or so to set up and he was getting 100+Mbps immediately.
It would really be awful to be stuck on this wretched planet and lose all connection with Starfleet Command.
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