Jonny Hart Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 (edited) Being in the sticks and about 8 miles from the exchange, 'the best' Internet speed we get is 16Mb download and 1Mb upload. So I bought one of Elon's Starlink Internet dishes aka Dishy McFlatFace. I now have 250Mb download speed and over 20Mb upload! https://www.instagram.com/p/COS2XRnl3RR/ I had it running in less than 5 minutes from unpacking. Seriously impressed. For anyone worth considering, its worth knowing that: 1. You must have a clear 'Northern Sky aspect' with 100 deg clear view of the sky. There is an App to check your outlook. 2. The system is 'Beta' and you are asked to expect a few outages and varying speeds. I've only had the thing a few hours and so far it has been solid. Time will tell. 3. Hardware was £439 ish. £89 / month unlimited data. Dish moves - its 59cm across. 4. I am trying to figure out how to 'load balance' this with my BT broadband to cover any dropouts. Edited April 30, 2021 by Jonny Hart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy121 Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 Thats a typo right 😳 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterK Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 £809 per month does sound rather spendy 😱 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted April 30, 2021 Author Share Posted April 30, 2021 2 minutes ago, andy121 said: Thats a typo right 😳 The speed no 250Mb, the monthly cost was a typo - £89 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phill Posted April 30, 2021 Share Posted April 30, 2021 £89 a month and I thought my Virgin media at £44 was a lot. Still, I suppose if you don't have another choice it is what it is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted April 30, 2021 Author Share Posted April 30, 2021 3 minutes ago, Phill said: £89 a month and I thought my Virgin media at £44 was a lot. Still, I suppose if you don't have another choice it is what it is. Standard Internet speeds here aren't fast enough to have reliable IP phones or use wireless IP with mobile handsets. I should now be able to use the Internet for all calls, which will more than pay for the monthly bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverWT Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 Highlights another one of the compromises between town and country living. I get angry and demand a discount if my Virgin speed drops below the normal 220/20 (actually pay for a 200 package), for more than a few hours! And begrudge paying £38 a month. If I stumped up around £50 a month I could get 500. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted May 1, 2021 Author Share Posted May 1, 2021 (edited) 1 hour ago, SilverWT said: Highlights another one of the compromises between town and country living. I get angry and demand a discount if my Virgin speed drops below the normal 220/20 (actually pay for a 200 package), for more than a few hours! And begrudge paying £38 a month. If I stumped up around £50 a month I could get 500. Mark Having lived in both city and country, I know which I prefer! Another thing, the more people that the fibre serves, the slower it will get. Since city dwellers will stick with fibre, I can’t see this ever being an issue for the satellite stuff. For me, it’s a business expense. The extra time and clunkiness of just one slow or failed video upload on our old system has been costing way more than £89 to administer. Edited May 1, 2021 by Jonny Hart 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverWT Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 59 minutes ago, Jonny Hart said: Another thing, the more people that the fibre serves, the slower it will get. True to some extent, but the reason I had some issues was that they were undertaking engineering work to increase the capacity. I would guess that most of the properties in my locality are already connected to fibre so probably already somewhere near saturation already (both in number and use during "lock down", with all the working/schooling from home). The user density also makes it commercially viable for the various IPs to keep improving speed and capacity. Bigger problem is "WiFi" wars with the IP supplied equipment all defaulting to the same congested channels and interfering with each other, although that is still easy to get around with better equipment and selection of optimum channels. It gets a bit like an arms race, as I can see the neighbours adding extenders/boosters to their networks to try and solve their issues. I've gone for an extra couple of routes and mobile devices switch between my three 2.4G and three 5G signals as they move, full coverage in all room and outside, even to the garage 60 meters down the garden. Static devices are ethernet connected where practical. Mark Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
njpcarrera32 Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 16Mb download is excellent for copper. We get 4Mb at best, and regular crashes. Have a mobile router for work with 40 Mb download but keep hitting the data limit with all the Teams video calls. no way I would pay £89 a month though, that’s the same as the monthly butcher’s bill. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
World Citizen Posted May 1, 2021 Share Posted May 1, 2021 Our village hasn't even got gas yet but my BT Broadband is 46Mb download and 18Mb upload Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted May 1, 2021 Author Share Posted May 1, 2021 1 hour ago, SilverWT said: True to some extent, but the reason I had some issues was that they were undertaking engineering work to increase the capacity. I would guess that most of the properties in my locality are already connected to fibre so probably already somewhere near saturation already (both in number and use during "lock down", with all the working/schooling from home). The user density also makes it commercially viable for the various IPs to keep improving speed and capacity. Bigger problem is "WiFi" wars with the IP supplied equipment all defaulting to the same congested channels and interfering with each other, although that is still easy to get around with better equipment and selection of optimum channels. Mark You were saying something about the ‘compromises’ of living in the city/country? 🤣 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pollenstein Posted May 2, 2021 Share Posted May 2, 2021 sounds like a great solution for remote areas; thanks for the review Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
andy121 Posted May 2, 2021 Share Posted May 2, 2021 Deffo a good solution for business. For example my work is very far from the exchange and all the hardware is very old as its difficult for openreach to access. This would be a good solution and much cheaper than a dedicated line Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted May 3, 2021 Author Share Posted May 3, 2021 Our main problem here is that the overhead lines are really poorly routed through trees. We’ve had the line to our house replaced at least 4 times. Every time it’s windy we lose the phone lines or internet and every time it was a saga to get the engineer round. Not anymore! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
enidthefrog Posted May 28, 2021 Share Posted May 28, 2021 Hi all, Interested to hear how you get on with latency. Our old satellite system was fine for streaming but useless for voip and gaming for that reason We are in darkest SW France and struggled for years on ADSL of under 2 Mbps down. 2 months ago we changed to a 4G wireless router (Orange call it an Airbox but most ISPs have something similar) and we now get a reliable 120Mbps down and 36Mbps up. All for an extra €10/mth. We are limited to 200Gb per month but that's enough for us and we can topup if needed. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GaryH Posted May 29, 2021 Share Posted May 29, 2021 Make sure there isn't a single tree in the way ! 🤔 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jonny Hart Posted May 29, 2021 Author Share Posted May 29, 2021 Ping speed is 30ms. You must have line of sight. Download the Starlink app and use it to check. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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