[encantotom]

starlink low orbit sat internet is something us rural folks have been waiting for.  and soon to be on airplanes and mobile for rv and truck use.  

i signed up on the waitlist last year.   and to my surprise i got my setup about 2 months ago.  

where i live there is no cable, fiber.   i have a phone line and used dsl for the first year or so but i was getting 1-2meg down.  and slow up.  

then small local companies started doing point to point wireless out here.  i used one and it better than dsl.  but has slow capped upload and i have a home server and lots of security cameras.   no goo

changed to the other local wireless company and it worked good for a couple of years.   a lot of intermittent outages and speeds went between 5 m to 50 m depending on time of day.  

now comes starlink......better than nothing beta as they call it.  they tell you it will have outages and even give you an app that helps you position the dish and tells you how long of outages and for what reason.   

i typically get outages of a few seconds to a few minutes averaging about 5 minutes a day.   much better than what i was getting

now for the upside.......i typically get around 25-50ms latency and on average about 100 -120m down and 15-30 m up.  today i had one speed test that was over 300m down.  

for 500 bucks you get the dish, the tripod (which i used until i mounted dishy on the pole), a starlink router, power brick for all of it.  

the dish and router are POE.  

we ran a shielded 75ft cat 6 cable from my equipment room to our grocery store room where the cable from the dish comes in from outside.  did have to put a hole in the wall and you can see i put a hot water heater disconnect box (i took all the guts out).....well, forest put it on....

got a schedule 40 galvanized  2 3/8 post and put it 30 inches in the ground.   it aint going anywhere.  

ran 1 inch liquidtite flex conduit from the dish to the house.  to run the cord in.  buried it about 6 inches deep.   had some young boys come over and dig the hole and trench....i aint no dummy

the dish is poe powered and rotates and moves in elevation to find the sats.  it even has a heater to melt snow and ice.   not a problem here as it was nearly 120 here today.  

they claim they will be doubling the speeds within the year.  

so, i know those of you in the city this is not something you will use, but for us country folks this is amazing.  and soon to be for rv's too.

i pay 99 a month for service and no caps.  

i was paying nearly that for much less service.  seems that rural folks pay more for less when it comes to internet.  

tom