I am now officially living in the future 😀 Several weeks ago, I registered for the Starlink “Better Than Nothing” Beta program, and much to my surprise, I received an email the next day telling me I had been accepted.
If you haven’t heard of Starlink: it’s high-speed internet service that is delivered via hundreds of tiny satellites way up high. The service is designed to provide high-speed service to more “remote” areas at first, and most of the beta users are in places such as North Dakota, Montana, and Idaho – often in areas outside the reach of cable internet that have had to rely on HughesNet or ViaSat, for instance.
I signed up, placed my order, and five days later the box arrived – it included the satellite dish, the router, and super-simple installation instructions.
There was some delay getting it installed as I pondered the wisdom of DIY – climbing on the roof, using power tools, etc – so I opted to find someone actually capable of doing it right 🙂 So today, the little satellite dish (“Dishy McFlatface”) was finally installed, and HOLY COW – my internet speed went through the roof (pun intended)!
That screenshot of the Spectrum speed is a bit lower than it averaged – to be honest, I have been pretty happy with Spectrum for many, many years. But ever since a nearly day-long outage in October, the service seems to have gotten a bit slower – not WAY slower, but enough to notice. And I also noticed more temporary outages – didn’t last long, a few minutes, kept getting dropped. But since my job and hobby literally depends on connectivity and speed, I figured it was time to look for options.
As far as performance: I have to download many videos every day – most of them range from about 100MB to 300MB. Downloading them via Spectrum usually took between about three and six minutes, and about (estimate) one in five of them would abort and I would have to try again. Once I hooked up Starlink, videos were downloading flawlessly in about 30 seconds.
And connecting Starlink was so simple – seriously – once it was plugged in, I gave my new WiFi network a name, set a password, and BOOM! Connected our phones and computer to Starlink in less than 60 seconds, and it was awesome.
As for price: it cost $500 for the main hardware (dish, router, wires/cables), and another $24 for the “volcano” roof mount. After that, it’s $99 per month. Here’s a photo of the very-cool looking router:
I’m still keeping Spectrum as a backup service, because as noted – Starlink is still officially in “beta” mode, and there are reports of occasional (but very brief) service outages.
BTW – I contacted Jack Of All Trades for the install – the owner Chris and the two people who installed it could not have been more friendly and capable. They had it installed and operational in 75 minutes, did a great job. 10/10, will definitely hire again!
