I’m starting to see IP addresses in comments via “starlink”. I don’t usually pay attention to them. “starklink” got my attention.
I can’t tell much about anything from those IPs, but the make me wonder.
Anyone here using Starlink who cares to share their experience with it?
I marveled at how Starlink is now providing also comms for the ISS and other craft that go up (and come down, often now, softly).
Occasionally back home on a clear night, I could spot starlink chains whizzing along.
What a change from my childhood when spotting a satellite was amazing.
Now, using my phone’s star app, I see all the stuff up there. Wow.
So, anyone?
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Father, l live in a rural area of Pennsylvania and l put up with a slow DSL connection for some years. I went with Starlink a bit over a year ago when it became available to me and it has worked well. My only complaint is the cost of the equipment, which must be purchased up-front, and the monthly fee isn’t cheap. Overall l’m satisfied with it.
As someone who does IT for farmers, Starlink is amazing. The speed and latency is great and if I wasn’t in a city with a fibre connection, I’d have it. Unfortunately local fixed wireless companies can’t really compete with it and I hate to think about all the evil things Starlink can be used for in the near future.
Blanketing the world in near instant wireless communication. Makes one hope for a Carrington Event if things get too out of hand.
I don’t have Starlink, but with cruise ships and airlines switching to it, it is a significant improvement. While much of the point of a cruise ship is to disconnect from the world, it was nice this last January to know that we had a bucket of minutes on the ship’s Starlink service to quickly check email, weather, texts, etc. The criticisms that I hear are 1) it can drive astronomers batty, and that some of that is mitigated with less reflective versions, 2) it won’t ultimately scale if there are too many people in a single area trying to use it, and 3) it is obviously more expensive than a 5G wireless provider (T-Mobile/Verizon) that provides fixed wireless internet, a fiber provider, a cable provider, etc. T-Mobile has their trial ongoing for texting in collaboration with Starlink until it goes live in July, and they have promised that someday there will be satellite data and calls without needing an expensive sat phone. I think we’ll come to a point in the next 10 years that as long as you have a clear view of the sky, you’ll always have cell coverage no matter where you are on the globe. You may pay roaming fees or higher costs to use satellites, but the ability to not need a special sat phone is coming soon.
We just got Starlink last week. I had expressed an interest in it ever since the bad stuff all happened in N.C. Also, our rural relatives have it and love it. Anyway, my husband thought the cost was too high. Recently, however, our local internet cost just kept creeping up so much. It was getting to like $137 or so monthly. So, then he looked into Starlink again and they are offering a lower cost one. I think it’s like $80 or so. It’s a bit slower at peak times or something but who cares as it’s way faster than our terrible local provider. Our internet had been so slow and so poor lately. Now it’s wonderful. So fast and no issues. My husband installed it. (As an aside he just me that when he called to cancel the other service that lady offered him a deal for around 30 something dollars. He told her that it only made him angry with them because he called when it was $122 and asked if there was anything they could do and they said no.)
I live on a Greek island. I have been using StarLink for a year and it’s fantastic! I bought the StarLink kit online (it’s ships from Germany) for 250 EUR and pay 40 EUR a month for about 250 Mpbs downstream. It’s reliable, rarely down. The monthly rates vary per country. You need an unobstructed view to the sky.
Being the inveterate network hacker going back to the 80s, sounded like an interesting technology, and to be honest, I’ve always had a hankering to have more than occasional access to aviation databases, near real time (nrt) traffic awareness, and weather updates while flying. Yeah, I get the latest and greatest aero databases from the wifi at the FBO before I leave, and there are online back end services to alert folks via txt based on my flight plan progress as tracked by ATC.
Figured, what the heck…I’d try it as a portable access point. Temporarily mounted it in the back window of my 172, ran the power cables (well, my inspector/mechanic with my assistance did…), linked up, synced my iPad and phone wifi…and off I went.
Traffic pips appeared in my Foreflight display, text messaging via wifi worked, and the weather radar (remember, this is all somewhat delayed, but not as bad as if I was out of contact with cells or wifi for an hour or two at the time) was close enough…not enough to thread through cumulonimbus, but better awareness in my estimation. Didn’t try making a wifi or Signal call, but pretty sure it would have worked.
I know, not the cutting the cord for home use idea, but it was a test experience. Will I keep it past owning the plane? Probably not, but for now, it was a neat way of pushing the tech envelope at 7000 feet over CT on my way to New Bedford.
(and, no, I didn’t attempt to read Fakebook or stream Top Gear UK while threading through the clouds…but pretty sure if I had a passenger, they could…)
We used Starlink last summer at the cottage in Canada. Very strong signal. As this somewhat remote spot with no other web access available this has worked out quite well. Signal never dropped and quite strong. Would record to anyone.