Starlink Broadband
Discussion
anonymous said:
[redacted]
At a guess their connection is going to cost about 10 grand - they’ve got 0.6 miles of lane to trench and lay fibre into, they started on Monday, they’re still there. It makes no economic sense at all for UK government to pick up the tab for someone living in the middle of nowhere. If Starlink works as expected (and Musk doesn’t go bust on the way), then it will simply be pervasive - you’re on Earth, you can have internet. The end.
anonymous said:
[redacted]
I have been predicting the demise of hardwired broadband for sometime. I think BT and the like have been quite shrewd in not spending fortunes rolling out fibre, it will be 4G/5G wireless (and now satellite) that will be the main way the majority of users will consume internet. rxe said:
If Starlink works as expected (and Musk doesn’t go bust on the way), then it will simply be pervasive - you’re on Earth, you can have internet. The end.
Don't forget Blue Origin also have an FCC license to build out a 3,000+ LEO satellite internet system (and I think they have to get at least half of those launched in the next five years or the FCC permit becomes void) - possible that they will be able to leverage the AWS behemoth as a competitive edge.China is going to be tricky - the Chinese government isn't going to give up control over the internet infrastructure their own population is using, and they can flat out refuse to give Starlink, Blue Origin etc a spectrum license to operate in China, and make possession and/or operation of a disc an offense, but unless they can produce their own LEO system then getting their rural population connected is going to be a slow, ground-based affair (at the end of last year, only 55% of the rural population had *any* internet access, let alone broadband) - although the CCP may take the view that rural workers should be out in the fields all day rather than posting stuff on PH and watching YouTube, and focus on getting the urban population connected. The irony being you might see the high-end Chinese technology manufacturers churning out dishes for Starlink and Blue Origin which the workers could be arrested for being in possession of outside of the factory.
eharding said:
megaphone said:
Does anyone have a link to their T&Cs, contract, pricing? I can't find anything.
If you enter an eligible address at https://starlink.com, and click through to order, the T&Cs (currently labelled as Beta for the UK) are available at the bottom - https://www.starlink.com/legal/terms-of-service?re...No contracts (yet) - you buy the dish (expensive, but all indications are that in beta at least the hardware costs a lot more that they're charging for it) - and then a £90 monthly fee, with 30 days notice on either side.
eharding said:
Don't forget Blue Origin also have an FCC license to build out a 3,000+ LEO satellite internet system (and I think they have to get at least half of those launched in the next five years or the FCC permit becomes void) - possible that they will be able to leverage the AWS behemoth as a competitive edge.
China is going to be tricky - the Chinese government isn't going to give up control over the internet infrastructure their own population is using, and they can flat out refuse to give Starlink, Blue Origin etc a spectrum license to operate in China, and make possession and/or operation of a disc an offense, but unless they can produce their own LEO system then getting their rural population connected is going to be a slow, ground-based affair (at the end of last year, only 55% of the rural population had *any* internet access, let alone broadband) - although the CCP may take the view that rural workers should be out in the fields all day rather than posting stuff on PH and watching YouTube, and focus on getting the urban population connected. The irony being you might see the high-end Chinese technology manufacturers churning out dishes for Starlink and Blue Origin which the workers could be arrested for being in possession of outside of the factory.
China and other oppressive regimes will have a problem with this. I would imagine that over time, the dish will become simpler and more based on commodity hardware, so that “possession” will be really hard to pin down.China is going to be tricky - the Chinese government isn't going to give up control over the internet infrastructure their own population is using, and they can flat out refuse to give Starlink, Blue Origin etc a spectrum license to operate in China, and make possession and/or operation of a disc an offense, but unless they can produce their own LEO system then getting their rural population connected is going to be a slow, ground-based affair (at the end of last year, only 55% of the rural population had *any* internet access, let alone broadband) - although the CCP may take the view that rural workers should be out in the fields all day rather than posting stuff on PH and watching YouTube, and focus on getting the urban population connected. The irony being you might see the high-end Chinese technology manufacturers churning out dishes for Starlink and Blue Origin which the workers could be arrested for being in possession of outside of the factory.
My suspicion is that SpaceX are so far ahead in this game that the rest will give up. Blue Origin don’t even have a rocket that can launch satellites at scale, while SpaceX is banging 100s up in one go on reused hardware. By the time Blue Origin get up there, it will be commodity service at commodity price - IMO the price of access is about to plummet across all channels - certainly in the US, where internet connections seem to be crazy money.
rxe said:
At a guess their connection is going to cost about 10 grand - they’ve got 0.6 miles of lane to trench and lay fibre into, they started on Monday, they’re still there. It makes no economic sense at all for UK government to pick up the tab for someone living in the middle of nowhere.
If Starlink works as expected (and Musk doesn’t go bust on the way), then it will simply be pervasive - you’re on Earth, you can have internet. The end.
You would have thought that putting money into mobile broadband would have been the way to go for rural coverage (4G LTE is actually pretty good if you have coverage and the longer distance variant of 5G would have improved data speeds even further) ... yet reception is quite often appalling outside urban areas. No idea what they thought they were up to ...If Starlink works as expected (and Musk doesn’t go bust on the way), then it will simply be pervasive - you’re on Earth, you can have internet. The end.
The fact that it's taken companies setting up networks of hundreds of small LEO satellites in order to give coverage out in the sticks in an otherwise populous, developed country, is an absolute joke.
geeks said:
Amateurish said:
I live out in the sticks and just switched to mobile broadband. £100 4G+ router + £23 a month unlimited data with Vodafone gives 100Mbs+ speeds.
Not all sticks are that well covered though...You can get a rough idea for your area here
https://checker.ofcom.org.uk/mobile-coverage
Edited by Heres Johnny on Wednesday 3rd March 15:36
The kit will arrive this week, so I need to think properly about whether it will work or not in my house.
It’s a tall building, five stories, so neither garden is going to have an unobscured view both North and South, which means I’ll need to put it on the roof, which in turn means running power to it.
If it can handle a South view only then it’s easier, as it can go on a roof terrace.
Does anyone know if I’m going to need to rely on the satellites in Polar orbits from London?
It’s a tall building, five stories, so neither garden is going to have an unobscured view both North and South, which means I’ll need to put it on the roof, which in turn means running power to it.
If it can handle a South view only then it’s easier, as it can go on a roof terrace.
Does anyone know if I’m going to need to rely on the satellites in Polar orbits from London?
Gman20 said:
Are they taking orders from businesses? I thought it was just domestic at the moment
Signed up using personal name and company credit card. The site says mid to late 2021. When you are stuck with dog slow DSL in the countryside and 3/4G that is restricted for whatever reason, you clutch at every straw!
Northernboy said:
The kit will arrive this week, so I need to think properly about whether it will work or not in my house.
It’s a tall building, five stories, so neither garden is going to have an unobscured view both North and South, which means I’ll need to put it on the roof, which in turn means running power to it.
If it can handle a South view only then it’s easier, as it can go on a roof terrace.
Does anyone know if I’m going to need to rely on the satellites in Polar orbits from London?
I'd suggest downloading the Starlink app to your phone, if you haven't already - this will overlay the required clear area onto the camera view.It’s a tall building, five stories, so neither garden is going to have an unobscured view both North and South, which means I’ll need to put it on the roof, which in turn means running power to it.
If it can handle a South view only then it’s easier, as it can go on a roof terrace.
Does anyone know if I’m going to need to rely on the satellites in Polar orbits from London?
The dish uses a single custom POE cable, so no need to run any additional power lines. The supplied cable is 100 feet long. It might be worth getting the local TV and satellite installers to work out how a roof mount might be arranged (and they'd probably be curious to see the kit, so some quid pro quo might be in order). Note you can order the 'Volcano Roof mount' via the Starlink customer portal, although there are mounting holes at the ends of the supplied tripod feet you could pass fixing screws or bolts through. I ordered the Pipe mount as the dish is out in the garden, and it turned up in about 5 days.
Looking at the current Starlink coverage map, the UK seems to have constant coverage as far north as Liverpool - further up than that then there as significant regular gaps.
Leithen said:
Signed up today after our tech consultants flagged that it was available. Could be a game changer for us in rural Perthshire.
Is there coverage that far North yet? I think at the moment all UK connections go through a base station in France, and you need line of sight to a satellite that also has line of sight to the base station.RizzoTheRat said:
Leithen said:
Signed up today after our tech consultants flagged that it was available. Could be a game changer for us in rural Perthshire.
Is there coverage that far North yet? I think at the moment all UK connections go through a base station in France, and you need line of sight to a satellite that also has line of sight to the base station.Im in the North West (wigan area) and my kit is on its way.
makes my head hurt I live between two towns and i get 11mb FTTC,
Virgin is at the end of the road but they have no interest in cabling to our cluster of houses,
4G is ok, but fluctuates too much - 60mb at night barely usable in the day.
Im an IT consultant and work from home, I am so excited its going to be a game changer. If i could get Virgin or FTTP, or even a decent FTTC speed, would I bother? probably not but my scinario is exactly what this is designed for.
Even better we are talking about moving house and now internet will NOT be an issue.
Elon ... Take my F***ing money.
makes my head hurt I live between two towns and i get 11mb FTTC,
Virgin is at the end of the road but they have no interest in cabling to our cluster of houses,
4G is ok, but fluctuates too much - 60mb at night barely usable in the day.
Im an IT consultant and work from home, I am so excited its going to be a game changer. If i could get Virgin or FTTP, or even a decent FTTC speed, would I bother? probably not but my scinario is exactly what this is designed for.
Even better we are talking about moving house and now internet will NOT be an issue.
Elon ... Take my F***ing money.
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