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My mother was raving about the service the other day. Speeds are 10-15x faster, she’s having an easier time with her online community college course and her jo

My mother was raving about the service the other day. Speeds are 10-15x faster, she’s having an easier time with her online community college course and her job KPI is up by double digit percents [1]. She was worried that IT wouldn’t be OK with it when I said it was satellite (They’d been burned too many times), but the IT guy was incredibly excited because he’s also waiting to get Starlink. Looking forward to the service only getting better, really incredible execution. [0] My dad went on the roof in the cold Wisconsin winter to put it up. [1] Lines transcribed per hour, as a medical transcriptionist working from home.

iso1210 6y ago
Any issues with snow etc?
- robbiet480 6y ago
  Dishy will actually intentionally heat up to melt snow. I’ve seen YouTube videos of it melting a good amount of snow per hour and service remaining stable.
  - bombcar 6y ago
    Dishy also seems to continually pull 100 watts even when not in melt mode.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - state_less 6y ago
      That’s some large continuous power consumption for off grid use. Curious if they’ll come up with a way to put it into some sort of low power idle mode during low utilization?
      - bombcar 6y ago
        Yeah https://conversation.sevarg.net/t/starlink-satellite-based-internet/397 https://conversation.sevarg.net/t/starlink-satellite-based-i... talks about it - 100 watts idle is too high if you’re on battery. It’s noticeably high so I assume at some point it’ll be reduced unless it’s caused by continuous “transmission” so the satellite doesn’t lose the connection.
        gpm 6y ago
        Depends what sort of battery you're on. The cheapest car Tesla sells (or at least that is displayed to me when I visit their site), for example, has a 54 kwh battery. It could run a 100 watt load for ~22 days between charges (not counting driving). Or to put it another way, if you charge every day, and you never turn the dish off, this would only drain 1/22nd of your range.
        state_less 6y ago
        Tesla batteries are sweet, but ~22 days isn’t long enough if you’re off grid full time. I am trying to keep power generation 100% solar rather than burn diesel/gas to charge batteries when I can. So 2.4kwh per day might require roughly 500 watts of additional solar panels in a sunny locale. More solar could be added, but there are some space and weight limitations on a vehicle. I’m at 1400 watts of solar now. Anyhow, just hoping they can figure out how to get the average power draw down over time.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        > Tesla batteries are sweet, but ~22 days isn’t long enough if you’re off grid full time. If you start running low you can stop letting it idle. > More solar could be added, but there are some space and weight limitations on a vehicle. It can be a problem if you're off-grid and moving around, yeah. For general off-grid use it's annoying but not a big deal to set up an extra panel or two.
    - grecy 6y ago
      Elon has said more than once reducing the power needs is a goal. (so it can be more easily used on small boats, RVs, etc.)
- Topgamer7 6y ago
  I was thinking it might generate enough heat to keep it warm. But the comments in this thread appear to think it has a heater inside of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M
  - kristofferR 6y ago
    There's absolutely no heater inside it, as this great disassembly/destruction shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo
    - ZoF 6y ago
      Depends on your definition of a heater, certainly there's no separate heating module but here's[0] a SpaceX team member saying it has 'self heating capabilities' in their reddit ama. [0]-https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the_starlink_team_ask_us_anything/gd3pt80/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the...
      - gonesilent 6y ago
        700+ chip count makes some heat.
  - someperson 6y ago
    I wouldn't be surprised that the Starlink dish can melt snow. It's literally an antenna that shoots high energy microwaves into space over many hours. 100W of microwaves according to another comment here. By contrast your microwave oven might emitting 800W for a few minutes. Unlike the few watts of a Wifi router or phone, it emits high power electromagnetic radiation. It's definitely something you attach to your roof and pointed at the sky, not something you want to be sitting in front of for hours.
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      > It's definitely something you attach to your roof and pointed at the sky, not something you want to be sitting in front of for hours. I could say the same thing about a light bulb, couldn't I? It heats your skin slowly, and it can't get far enough into your eyes to hurt your retina or anything.
- jmreid 6y ago
  Zero issues from my experience. The dish has a snow melt "mode", and I didn't have to manually clean it at all after a large snowfall.
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  None that she has mentioned, though I don't think they’ve had any really really bad storms this year.
ttul 6y ago
I am excited to receive my base station shortly.
rjzzleep 6y ago
Faster than? Also, does anyone know who's behind this effort? Other leaders would celebrate the people behind the development but at spacex and tesla it's only ever news about Musk? Any interesting people behind what is happening at SpaceX ?
- m463 6y ago
  It appears to be faster than rural Wisconsin internet service. someone I know (coincidentally in wisconsin) is getting 100m down 20m up There's always (the other) Linus: https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA
  - JasonFruit 6y ago
    I'm in Wisconsin, just got it, and am seeing 65-115 down, 15-40 up. I was hoping it would be better than Hughesnet, but I didn't expect it would be quite this good. I did have about a five minute downtime yesterday. Not too shabby!
    - SkyPuncher 6y ago
      What's your latency like? I'm in exurban Wisconsin. Speeds are fine, but Charter has terrible routing that pushes everything out to Minnesota before routing back down to Chicago. 40ms to 60ms latency on EVERYTHING.
      - JasonFruit 6y ago
        It's varied from as low as 30ms up to almost 80. Latency is just not going to be great with satellites, seeing that we're pushing it out to fricking space.
        brianwawok 6y ago
        Except it’s low space. And signals travel faster in air than in glass. And the path is likely more direct. Just space alone isn’t enough to say the latency will be worse.
nordsieck 6y ago
> Unfortunately it's also littering the sky with a shitload of eventual junk, and immediate astronomical blight. Starlink are the least likely satellites to create "eventual junk" since they orbit so low. The biggest criticism is probably that there are so many they present a visual hazard for astronomy
- gizmo385 6y ago
  Did you respond to the wrong comment?

iso1210 6y ago

Any issues with snow etc?

robbiet480 6y ago
Dishy will actually intentionally heat up to melt snow. I’ve seen YouTube videos of it melting a good amount of snow per hour and service remaining stable.
- bombcar 6y ago
  Dishy also seems to continually pull 100 watts even when not in melt mode.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - state_less 6y ago
    That’s some large continuous power consumption for off grid use. Curious if they’ll come up with a way to put it into some sort of low power idle mode during low utilization?
    - bombcar 6y ago
      Yeah https://conversation.sevarg.net/t/starlink-satellite-based-internet/397 https://conversation.sevarg.net/t/starlink-satellite-based-i... talks about it - 100 watts idle is too high if you’re on battery. It’s noticeably high so I assume at some point it’ll be reduced unless it’s caused by continuous “transmission” so the satellite doesn’t lose the connection.
      - gpm 6y ago
        Depends what sort of battery you're on. The cheapest car Tesla sells (or at least that is displayed to me when I visit their site), for example, has a 54 kwh battery. It could run a 100 watt load for ~22 days between charges (not counting driving). Or to put it another way, if you charge every day, and you never turn the dish off, this would only drain 1/22nd of your range.
        state_less 6y ago
        Tesla batteries are sweet, but ~22 days isn’t long enough if you’re off grid full time. I am trying to keep power generation 100% solar rather than burn diesel/gas to charge batteries when I can. So 2.4kwh per day might require roughly 500 watts of additional solar panels in a sunny locale. More solar could be added, but there are some space and weight limitations on a vehicle. I’m at 1400 watts of solar now. Anyhow, just hoping they can figure out how to get the average power draw down over time.
        Dylan16807 6y ago
        > Tesla batteries are sweet, but ~22 days isn’t long enough if you’re off grid full time. If you start running low you can stop letting it idle. > More solar could be added, but there are some space and weight limitations on a vehicle. It can be a problem if you're off-grid and moving around, yeah. For general off-grid use it's annoying but not a big deal to set up an extra panel or two.
  - grecy 6y ago
    Elon has said more than once reducing the power needs is a goal. (so it can be more easily used on small boats, RVs, etc.)
Topgamer7 6y ago
I was thinking it might generate enough heat to keep it warm. But the comments in this thread appear to think it has a heater inside of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_JSq6xB591M
- kristofferR 6y ago
  There's absolutely no heater inside it, as this great disassembly/destruction shows: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iOmdQnIlnRo
  - ZoF 6y ago
    Depends on your definition of a heater, certainly there's no separate heating module but here's[0] a SpaceX team member saying it has 'self heating capabilities' in their reddit ama. [0]-https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the_starlink_team_ask_us_anything/gd3pt80/ https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jybmgn/we_are_the...
    - gonesilent 6y ago
      700+ chip count makes some heat.
- someperson 6y ago
  I wouldn't be surprised that the Starlink dish can melt snow. It's literally an antenna that shoots high energy microwaves into space over many hours. 100W of microwaves according to another comment here. By contrast your microwave oven might emitting 800W for a few minutes. Unlike the few watts of a Wifi router or phone, it emits high power electromagnetic radiation. It's definitely something you attach to your roof and pointed at the sky, not something you want to be sitting in front of for hours.
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    > It's definitely something you attach to your roof and pointed at the sky, not something you want to be sitting in front of for hours. I could say the same thing about a light bulb, couldn't I? It heats your skin slowly, and it can't get far enough into your eyes to hurt your retina or anything.
jmreid 6y ago
Zero issues from my experience. The dish has a snow melt "mode", and I didn't have to manually clean it at all after a large snowfall.
alextheparrot 6y ago
None that she has mentioned, though I don't think they’ve had any really really bad storms this year.

ttul 6y ago

I am excited to receive my base station shortly.

rjzzleep 6y ago

Faster than? Also, does anyone know who's behind this effort? Other leaders would celebrate the people behind the development but at spacex and tesla it's only ever news about Musk? Any interesting people behind what is happening at SpaceX ?

m463 6y ago
It appears to be faster than rural Wisconsin internet service. someone I know (coincidentally in wisconsin) is getting 100m down 20m up There's always (the other) Linus: https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA https://youtu.be/Fh1a2K9ZgNA
- JasonFruit 6y ago
  I'm in Wisconsin, just got it, and am seeing 65-115 down, 15-40 up. I was hoping it would be better than Hughesnet, but I didn't expect it would be quite this good. I did have about a five minute downtime yesterday. Not too shabby!
  - SkyPuncher 6y ago
    What's your latency like? I'm in exurban Wisconsin. Speeds are fine, but Charter has terrible routing that pushes everything out to Minnesota before routing back down to Chicago. 40ms to 60ms latency on EVERYTHING.
    - JasonFruit 6y ago
      It's varied from as low as 30ms up to almost 80. Latency is just not going to be great with satellites, seeing that we're pushing it out to fricking space.
      - brianwawok 6y ago
        Except it’s low space. And signals travel faster in air than in glass. And the path is likely more direct. Just space alone isn’t enough to say the latency will be worse.

nordsieck 6y ago

> Unfortunately it's also littering the sky with a shitload of eventual junk, and immediate astronomical blight. Starlink are the least likely satellites to create "eventual junk" since they orbit so low. The biggest criticism is probably that there are so many they present a visual hazard for astronomy

gizmo385 6y ago
Did you respond to the wrong comment?