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Comment by wombatmobile | Hacker News Reader

I've been thinking about working from a van. The main thing I'm undecided about is whether satellite internet would work out?

I've read mixed reviews on whirlpool and other forums.

I understand minimum latency is 650ms. What's that like for videoconferencing?

Presumably I'd need an articulated dish so I can recalibrate every time I stop. Anyone had any experience with those? They cost about $2000. Can they be secured, or are they likely to be ripped off from time to time?

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Starlink[0] is made for you. It's a constellation in low-earth orbit, so latency is far lower than 650ms (current users are getting around of 30-60ms.) The current iteration must stay within the "cell" it's assigned to, which is only a few miles wide. But in the future, there will be a version available that'll work almost anywhere in the world.

[0]: https://www.starlink.com/

Depends how remote you want to be. Your username suggests you're not living in Western Europe. But a (directional, especially) 4g antenna outside your vehicle can still go quite a long way, compared to cell phone tethering. You'll probably have to buy a 4g router also. I guess the lot would set you back less than AUD200.

A router may be ~200, but I imagine monthly plans for unlimited are over 100/month from a traditional cell provider.

This seems very expensive. How do you set up the monthly plan more efficiently?

Trying to get a 100$ bill down to 50$ seems like premature optimization on van life.

I can't answer that, I'm afraid, I know very little of the Australian context, only estimated a router/antenna price based on a slightly conservative conversion of the price where I live.

You might look into the new Space X satellite internet. Right now they’re geo fenced to an area but if you move once every few months, it might be feasible to change your service address.

Certainly the thing to use in the near future would be starlink. 50-150 mbps and <100ms ping. Right now they're only advertising their service for fixed locations, but if you park the van in one place for a while it might work out just fine.

We use Viasat at our farm and it's acceptable but kind of slow and has a long ping. I'm really itching to get starlink which they've projected will be available at our place later this year.

So it’s possible to videoconference with viasat’s long ping? Unpleasant, or unusable?

Yep it's possible. We have two connections - viasat and a fixed hilltop wireless and I can't remember which one was active when I last had a video call, but my partner has video calls daily and I know he's done it when that connection was active. But I can't recall how pleasant it is.

Try tethering a cell phone first. It’s the simplest thing that might work. You will always be solving problems as they come up. And they won’t be what you thought was critical before you left.

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