Starlink Review: Broadband Dreams Fall to Earth
theverge.com
theverge.com
I'm in rural NW Arkansas and I have two LTE providers plus Starlink. I'm not even using bonding - tons of things support multiple tcp streams, and those that don't it's worthwhile to have each ISP be fairly strong.
Worst case my speed tests will show 150mbit / 20mbit. Best case it's 300mbit / 90mbit. I do have the Starlink connection on a 5 second watchdog, so I will see 5 seconds of nothing when things aren't ideal, before the connection is retried over one of the other ISPs.
My ping is high due to my location. I "hit the internet" in typically Dallas, TX, ~300 miles away. Sometimes it shows me in Colorado, Minnesota, Kansas, and Tennessee. It depends on what the LTE providers want to do with me!
What possible reason could they have for banning this? They put "sexually explicit" in with a list of things that are completely different, morally speaking. I know what's moral and what's not is up for argument but, despite all the other negative things I could say about Elon Musk, prude is not among them.
He's had Starlink for about a month now. yesterday he was in a conference all day, sharing his screen, etc. and it was flawless then entire day.
Absolutely game changing, and we both agreed all the existing sat providers (Hughesnet, Xplorenet, etc.) are all utterly doomed.
That said, the Starlink connection has gotten better even since I started using it. If it's still like this when it's out of Beta though, I'll be hugely disappointed.
Not saying that his is a high-quality article, but most of the comments implied that this was an unfair/biased review and I don't see it.
My point is more that I read the comments on HN before the article and there were almost accusing him of being voluntarily badmouthing starlink and the product, whereas the article still has some nuance.
I mean, your guess is plausible but also kind of clickbaity speculation. We all do it.
At least they actually tested the product a bit.
Dish is sitting on the lawn as it has been from beginning. Nothing to complain about. Obviously we live in the country-side. LTE in our area is available, but more sporadic than this. And limited. Both up and down.
I do have an unobstructured view and have the tallest building in my neighborhood, so that shouldn't be a problem.
It's clearly written as a kind of hit-piece. While other reviewers mention that the software specifically does not allow a device to be used outside of the area it is registered at (for FCC reasons), this piece mentions "The dish is small and light enough that you can easily move it to different locations, but you’re not guaranteed service anywhere but the address where you signed up." As if it's a coverage issue, and not the software blocking it from being used - which Starlink is very clear about.
This was bad.
Starlink made bold claims. And in its present state, does not live up to them. Starlink doesn't get to excuse the bold claims it is making right now on the basis that it might one day live up to them. If they want to be judged on their performance today they need to stop basing their marketing around the version of Starlink 5 years from now.
> During beta, users can expect to see data speeds vary from 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all.
(The trick is getting other people to do the marketing for you.)
The California house depends on local microwave, which works pretty well in dry weather, but is not broadband by any modern standard. Years ago, ATT laid fiber to within, literally, yards of the house–just across the street–and collected a half $billion federal subsidy (paid by taxing old-fashioned, wired phone subscribers) for that, but never lit it. I was stuck on ATT 3Mb DSL for years, and dropped it the moment there was a viable alternative at twice the price. (I could have switched to Comcast, lately. But that would be Comcast.)
Starlink might be usable, in time. When it is, Verge most likely will publish another review. I expect it will also pull no punches, and I await it as eagerly as I await Starlink to leave Beta status. But my seething hatred for ATT will not fade in this lifetime. (Doubtless I would feel the same about Comcast, given any contact.)
So, no, Starlink would not improve my service.
I don't know what you're talking about here. Starlink doesn't act that way at all. The uptime is very high in many cases. A lot of people have zero downtime on most days.
Starlink's own user manual says that even a single tree can block service, when the satellite needed is on the other side of it. The review usefully relays this essential information. Any review that does not reveal this has failed.
Only people who are not surrounded by 100 ft trees may be getting tolerable service. That would not include me.
Many is not all.
> A lot of people have zero downtime on most days
Zero downtime on > 50% of days is a pretty low bar, and a lot of people have unobstructed line of sight to virtually all of the sky.
A lot of other people, however, don’t.
Seriously, half the article deals with connectivity issues caused by the satellite constellation being only partially complete.
The article seems okay, the only thing I really take issue with is the title. None of the "dreams" have "fallen to earth" yet -- SpaceX has launched ~15% of their constellation and are extremely clear about what limitations users should expect during the beta.
Plenty of people in the North use proximity to a grocery store for the indicator that's exactly where you don't want to live!
This is less of an editorial piece and looks to be written as an opinion piece.
> If this wasn’t a short-term review, I would certainly have it mounted on a pole on top of the structure.
That's the real problem, you really have no way to know what's going to make the signal better until you try it. All you get is an app that uses your camera to show you possible obstructions. The app also says "No Obstructions" constantly, but the debug data that you can get from the app shows obstructions all the time.
And you can't use the app to check for obstructions for where you "might" place the dish. I put mine up on a pole 10 feet above my roof. How am I supposed to stand 10 feet above my roof and use the camera app to check for obstructions in mid air?
It's a huge guessing game, and a real shit show to get a proper mount working. If your property is flat, and you have no trees, it's probably easy. But trees 40-80 feet away from your house will block the signal. So be prepared for a lot of work to get it set up.
He's not reviewing it as it's meant to be used. Of course he had poor connectivity.
This point isn't widely understood, but it's absolutely true. Anyone interested in learning more can start at Shannon-Hartley:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shannon%E2%80%93Hartley_theore...