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Can you compare with T-Mobile’s 5G home Internet plan? Similar numbers advertised, $60 a month, no caps.

by 7e 6y ago

ericmay 6y ago
I can't compare but I think one of the selling points is going to be the satellite coverage for Starlink versus T-Mobile's cell towers. I do like T-Mobile's offering as an alternative to these crappy cable companies.
- m463 6y ago
  Thinking about it, they may complement each other. t-mobile will probably have cell towers/coverage where people live vs starlink which grants coverage where people do not live.
freedomben 6y ago
I can't because the nearest city to me with 5G is several hours away. The 4G at my house is super spotty. I've used it for Webex calls when my home internet went down and it will mostly handle that, but I would never want to rely on it for my primary connection.
- darksaints 6y ago
  Have you tried T-Mobile? I don't know what they have configured, but they certainly own a lot of midband 2.5mhz spectrum in east idaho. They have 140mhz in Idaho Falls and Twin Falls, and 180mhz in Pocatello, and at least 60mhz everywhere else in east idaho. It looks like they have a decent amount of sites too. I'd have to dig a bit more but if you don't have access to 5g on T-Mobile today, it's not gonna be more than a couple months away.
  - freedomben 6y ago
    Fascinating! I go to Idaho Falls fairly often. My phone is Verizon but my wife's in T-Mobile (MVNO). I don't think her phone is 5G capable though.
walrus01 6y ago
"no caps" - but watch what happens if you move 200 or 300GB downstream on a LTE based last mile residential connection in a month. you'll either get shut off, throttled to a few Mbps, or billed extra. Look at the fine print in the terms of service. If you have a household with multiple people that watch netflix, download movies, or even want to download a single xbox one or PS4/PS5 game (they can be 120-180GB now), watch out.
- gkop 6y ago
  Um how do you expect Starlink to treat you once it’s GA?
  - walrus01 6y ago
    A whole lot better than the quotas and caps enforced on consumer grade geostationary satellite stuff right now (hughesnet, viasat) that is available in the same price tier of $85-130/month. And also better than 90% of WISPs.
    - gkop 6y ago
      Relative to the helpful details on LTE you posted, though? (Obviously Starlink is incomparably better than the status quo satellite options...) Why do you expect better than LTE? And would you say more about WISP behavior? I know WISPs are all over the place, but in my small experience, a technically competent WISP will not look at your usage unless there’s contention impacting other customers. Like, Starlink has said they won’t service urban areas, to prevent degradation due to contention. So I expect them to use the usual TOS and technical controls... to prevent contention. I don’t see what makes them special here. If they had some special sauce to provide more cumulative bandwidth to subscribers than LTE and WISPs, I’d expect them to open up to urban areas stuck with Comcast, and profit massively.
      - walrus01 6y ago
        Typical WISP last mile: Something like a ubiquiti rocket 5ac gen2 on an RF elements 60 degree horn antenna, in a 40 MHz TDD channel somewhere in the 5.x GHz band, aggregate capacity of the entire AP might be around 240 Mbps. Shared between 20 to 30 customers. I'm regularly seeing 250-330 Mbps down on Starlink right now with beta equipment, and very, very few WISPs except those who are doing 60 GHz based PtMP micro-POP setups can match that. It's a real challenge for a WISP to have a few dozen houses all trying to download the latest 180GB Call of Duty update connected to one AP. I'm not nearly as optimistic about WISPs in the long run, compared to my views 8-10 years ago. Really difficult to reach locations will go to starlink or similar (as a replacement for consumer grade geostationary), other places where the customers per square km density is sufficient will eventually get overbuilt with GPON last mile that provides vastly more throughput and capacity. The most clueful and forward thinking WISPs I know are all making every effort possible, within whatever capital resources are available to them, to develop in house capacity for doing rural aerial FTTH. Buying bucket trucks, getting training, learning how to splice fiber, design GPON architecture, working with state PUCs for pole access, etc.
snielson 6y ago
I have the Tmobile service. I use at least 500 Gb/mo without problems. Others on the reddit forum use over a Tb without problems. The terms of service say Tmobile will deprioritize us when there is congestion, but I haven't experienced it. Also, it appears that Tmobile is limiting the number of subscribers in a given area to prevent degraded service. Overall, I like it (full disclosure: I have a dual Wan setup with xfinity being the other provider)

Can you compare with T-Mobile’s 5G home Internet plan? Similar numbers advertised, $60 a month, no caps.

by 7e 6y ago

Can you compare with T-Mobile’s 5G home Internet plan? Similar numbers advertised, $60 a month, no caps.

I can't compare but I think one of the selling points is going to be the satellite coverage for Starlink versus T-Mobile's cell towers. I do like T-Mobile's offering as an alternative to these crappy cable companies.

m463 6y ago
Thinking about it, they may complement each other. t-mobile will probably have cell towers/coverage where people live vs starlink which grants coverage where people do not live.

freedomben 6y ago

I can't because the nearest city to me with 5G is several hours away. The 4G at my house is super spotty. I've used it for Webex calls when my home internet went down and it will mostly handle that, but I would never want to rely on it for my primary connection.

darksaints 6y ago
Have you tried T-Mobile? I don't know what they have configured, but they certainly own a lot of midband 2.5mhz spectrum in east idaho. They have 140mhz in Idaho Falls and Twin Falls, and 180mhz in Pocatello, and at least 60mhz everywhere else in east idaho. It looks like they have a decent amount of sites too. I'd have to dig a bit more but if you don't have access to 5g on T-Mobile today, it's not gonna be more than a couple months away.
- freedomben 6y ago
  Fascinating! I go to Idaho Falls fairly often. My phone is Verizon but my wife's in T-Mobile (MVNO). I don't think her phone is 5G capable though.

walrus01 6y ago

"no caps" - but watch what happens if you move 200 or 300GB downstream on a LTE based last mile residential connection in a month. you'll either get shut off, throttled to a few Mbps, or billed extra. Look at the fine print in the terms of service. If you have a household with multiple people that watch netflix, download movies, or even want to download a single xbox one or PS4/PS5 game (they can be 120-180GB now), watch out.

gkop 6y ago
Um how do you expect Starlink to treat you once it’s GA?
- walrus01 6y ago
  A whole lot better than the quotas and caps enforced on consumer grade geostationary satellite stuff right now (hughesnet, viasat) that is available in the same price tier of $85-130/month. And also better than 90% of WISPs.
  - gkop 6y ago
    Relative to the helpful details on LTE you posted, though? (Obviously Starlink is incomparably better than the status quo satellite options...) Why do you expect better than LTE? And would you say more about WISP behavior? I know WISPs are all over the place, but in my small experience, a technically competent WISP will not look at your usage unless there’s contention impacting other customers. Like, Starlink has said they won’t service urban areas, to prevent degradation due to contention. So I expect them to use the usual TOS and technical controls... to prevent contention. I don’t see what makes them special here. If they had some special sauce to provide more cumulative bandwidth to subscribers than LTE and WISPs, I’d expect them to open up to urban areas stuck with Comcast, and profit massively.
    - walrus01 6y ago
      Typical WISP last mile: Something like a ubiquiti rocket 5ac gen2 on an RF elements 60 degree horn antenna, in a 40 MHz TDD channel somewhere in the 5.x GHz band, aggregate capacity of the entire AP might be around 240 Mbps. Shared between 20 to 30 customers. I'm regularly seeing 250-330 Mbps down on Starlink right now with beta equipment, and very, very few WISPs except those who are doing 60 GHz based PtMP micro-POP setups can match that. It's a real challenge for a WISP to have a few dozen houses all trying to download the latest 180GB Call of Duty update connected to one AP. I'm not nearly as optimistic about WISPs in the long run, compared to my views 8-10 years ago. Really difficult to reach locations will go to starlink or similar (as a replacement for consumer grade geostationary), other places where the customers per square km density is sufficient will eventually get overbuilt with GPON last mile that provides vastly more throughput and capacity. The most clueful and forward thinking WISPs I know are all making every effort possible, within whatever capital resources are available to them, to develop in house capacity for doing rural aerial FTTH. Buying bucket trucks, getting training, learning how to splice fiber, design GPON architecture, working with state PUCs for pole access, etc.

snielson 6y ago

I have the Tmobile service. I use at least 500 Gb/mo without problems. Others on the reddit forum use over a Tb without problems. The terms of service say Tmobile will deprioritize us when there is congestion, but I haven't experienced it. Also, it appears that Tmobile is limiting the number of subscribers in a given area to prevent degraded service. Overall, I like it (full disclosure: I have a dual Wan setup with xfinity being the other provider)