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Some of the comments here are kind of ridiculous. They are complaining (or just pointing out) issues that are EXPECTED at this stage of the beta. Starlink has

Some of the comments here are kind of ridiculous. They are complaining (or just pointing out) issues that are EXPECTED at this stage of the beta. Starlink has like 1700 of the planned 42,000 satellites in orbit now. Of course there are going to be temporarily blips in service plus the random longer dropouts during system upgrades. Even with the current issues, the service is revolutionary in the remote areas that it's intended to service. Why Geerling thinks it's appropriate to compare beta starlink to his home cable/fiber service is beyond me. It's totally fair to review the current state of starlink, but to then conclude that "I don't love it" because it's not as good as his cable service is just plain dumb. Why did you even begin the review with the expectation that it could be better than your land service in it's current beta form? You're not even supposed to be on the starlink service if you have great landline bandwidth and starlink should block you from their service as you're stealing bandwidth from people who don't have access to high speed internet. One person even said "I hope they can figure out why it drops occasionally" as if some of the smartest people on the earth don't know exactly why it drops out. It drops because the satellite mesh network is only 4% complete!

nexuist 5y ago
I mean, Starlink is available as a closed beta commercial product. There's nothing wrong with comparing it in its current form to cable service in its current form, especially if you're going to pay $$$ for it. The point is for the reader to figure out if they should try Starlink right now (if eligible) or if they should wait for some of these issues to be resolved. To put it another way: would you complain that reviewers were judging Google Glass unfairly, because Google had grandiose plans for it in the future (that ultimately never happened)? Or would you recognize that Google made the decision to sell Google Glass in its current form, and thus accepted that it would be judged against its competitors?
- skellington 5y ago
  It's totally fair to review the current state of a beta service. It could be informative for people who are unsure if they want to try the beta-service. But to compare it as an equal, in it's beta form, against a service that it's not even built to compete against is just plain dumb. If you already have access to high speed internet, starlink it not intended for you. His final comment about "Liking, but not loving starlink" implies that he's comparing starlink to cable internet as equal competitors. They are not and they are not intended to be and that's even considering the fact that starlink is in beta. This guy should not even be allowed on starlink (in the long run) because he already has access to high speed internet. This whole comment section is full of stupidity like: "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply "what about space garbage, isn't space garbage bad" <-- as if LEO garbage won't just decay back to earth "will starlink be like FSD and maybe never get delivered" <-- as if they are related issues, they are not "I don't like Elon" <- because reasons, but also irrelevant "starlink bad because worky less good when obstructed" <-- too dumb for words "i'm worried about the starlink monopoly" <-- you should be banned from the internet
  - geerlingguy 5y ago
    > This guy should not even be allowed on starlink (in the long run) because he already has access to high speed internet. I don't plan on owning it in the long run—I'm going to be giving the dish to my cousin who's on a farm with slow rural DSL once Starlink is available in her area. Unfortunately right now Starlink's available in suburban St. Louis but not in most of the rural communities around it :P
  - stordoff 5y ago
    > "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply This feels like a bit of an unfair dismissal. I'm using a laptop that rarely goes above 30W (and is off half off the time), so I'm not sure you can make that assumption. A 1000W power supply also doesn't mean it's using that continually - a GPU can consume >300W under load, but drop to around 10W when it's idle. Further, 100W 24/7 would add around 12-13% to my power bill (which is already above average) - it is a noticeable amount of power.
    - tigershark 5y ago
      It was a single light bulb in a decent size room until not so long ago. And some rooms needed 2 or more and it was absolutely normal.
  - dbeley 5y ago
    > "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply A gaming computer with a 1000 watt power supply will reastically have a 50W idle load. It's only if the CPU and GPU are fully utilized (like in a gaming scenario) that it might draw several hundreds of Watts.
paxys 5y ago
If they are charging full price for it then it is reasonable to complain. It doesn't matter whether they call it "beta" or whatever else.
tsimionescu 5y ago
> Starlink has like 1700 of the planned 42,000 satellites in orbit now. I'm not sure if anyone believes that 42k number. They are launching ~60 satellites at a time - that would mean ~700 launches. There is no way that will be economical for the relative handful of people (500k? 1-2M?) who could realistically be interested in this. Not to mention, the lifespan of these satellites in orbit is tiny, just a few years. They would have to be constantly launching new satellites to keep up. The current state is probably more or less the best Starlink will ever offer - as more people will join the network, coming closer to Musk's 500k number, bandwidth will significantly diminish, even if the number of satellites is maybe doubled. And if federal funds dry up, I expect the whole venture will quickly go bankrupt, or remain alive with a handful of satellites and a huge price spike.
- ricardobeat 5y ago
  Hold onto your hat then: in the US alone there are at least 20M people without high-speed internet access [1]. Around 45% of the entire world's population [2] still doesn't have internet access - at all, not just broadband. They've said starship, when operational, will be able to deliver 400 starlink satellites to orbit at a time. The plan doesn't sound far fetched. [1] https://archive.is/do3Qp https://archive.is/do3Qp [2] https://en.unesco.org/news/new-report-global-broadband-access-underscores-urgent-need-reach-half-world-still-unconnected https://en.unesco.org/news/new-report-global-broadband-acces...
  - tsimionescu 5y ago
    The vast majority of these people will not be able to afford a 1500$ satellite dish (that's how much it costs to build the thing, even though they sell it for 500$ for now) + 100$/month internet.
    - ricardobeat 5y ago
      And why should one assume the cost once deployed in the millions will equal the cost while in beta with 60k users? There's another comment here already mentioning their prediction of a $300 cost for the dish in the future, you can only expect the subscription to go down as well. Plus, the places where Starlink is the most useful - rural areas - already have sky high costs. I just looked up what service looks like in Brazil: ~R$400/month (US$76) for 20mbps, with a 80GB data cap. When you have to buy the dish it costs over R$10k (~US$2000). This is the best you can get.

nexuist 5y ago

I mean, Starlink is available as a closed beta commercial product. There's nothing wrong with comparing it in its current form to cable service in its current form, especially if you're going to pay $$$ for it. The point is for the reader to figure out if they should try Starlink right now (if eligible) or if they should wait for some of these issues to be resolved. To put it another way: would you complain that reviewers were judging Google Glass unfairly, because Google had grandiose plans for it in the future (that ultimately never happened)? Or would you recognize that Google made the decision to sell Google Glass in its current form, and thus accepted that it would be judged against its competitors?

skellington 5y ago
It's totally fair to review the current state of a beta service. It could be informative for people who are unsure if they want to try the beta-service. But to compare it as an equal, in it's beta form, against a service that it's not even built to compete against is just plain dumb. If you already have access to high speed internet, starlink it not intended for you. His final comment about "Liking, but not loving starlink" implies that he's comparing starlink to cable internet as equal competitors. They are not and they are not intended to be and that's even considering the fact that starlink is in beta. This guy should not even be allowed on starlink (in the long run) because he already has access to high speed internet. This whole comment section is full of stupidity like: "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply "what about space garbage, isn't space garbage bad" <-- as if LEO garbage won't just decay back to earth "will starlink be like FSD and maybe never get delivered" <-- as if they are related issues, they are not "I don't like Elon" <- because reasons, but also irrelevant "starlink bad because worky less good when obstructed" <-- too dumb for words "i'm worried about the starlink monopoly" <-- you should be banned from the internet
- geerlingguy 5y ago
  > This guy should not even be allowed on starlink (in the long run) because he already has access to high speed internet. I don't plan on owning it in the long run—I'm going to be giving the dish to my cousin who's on a farm with slow rural DSL once Starlink is available in her area. Unfortunately right now Starlink's available in suburban St. Louis but not in most of the rural communities around it :P
- stordoff 5y ago
  > "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply This feels like a bit of an unfair dismissal. I'm using a laptop that rarely goes above 30W (and is off half off the time), so I'm not sure you can make that assumption. A 1000W power supply also doesn't mean it's using that continually - a GPU can consume >300W under load, but drop to around 10W when it's idle. Further, 100W 24/7 would add around 12-13% to my power bill (which is already above average) - it is a noticeable amount of power.
  - tigershark 5y ago
    It was a single light bulb in a decent size room until not so long ago. And some rooms needed 2 or more and it was absolutely normal.
- dbeley 5y ago
  > "isn't 100watts a lot of power?" <-- typed from gaming computer with a 1000watt power supply A gaming computer with a 1000 watt power supply will reastically have a 50W idle load. It's only if the CPU and GPU are fully utilized (like in a gaming scenario) that it might draw several hundreds of Watts.

paxys 5y ago

If they are charging full price for it then it is reasonable to complain. It doesn't matter whether they call it "beta" or whatever else.

tsimionescu 5y ago

> Starlink has like 1700 of the planned 42,000 satellites in orbit now. I'm not sure if anyone believes that 42k number. They are launching ~60 satellites at a time - that would mean ~700 launches. There is no way that will be economical for the relative handful of people (500k? 1-2M?) who could realistically be interested in this. Not to mention, the lifespan of these satellites in orbit is tiny, just a few years. They would have to be constantly launching new satellites to keep up. The current state is probably more or less the best Starlink will ever offer - as more people will join the network, coming closer to Musk's 500k number, bandwidth will significantly diminish, even if the number of satellites is maybe doubled. And if federal funds dry up, I expect the whole venture will quickly go bankrupt, or remain alive with a handful of satellites and a huge price spike.

ricardobeat 5y ago
Hold onto your hat then: in the US alone there are at least 20M people without high-speed internet access [1]. Around 45% of the entire world's population [2] still doesn't have internet access - at all, not just broadband. They've said starship, when operational, will be able to deliver 400 starlink satellites to orbit at a time. The plan doesn't sound far fetched. [1] https://archive.is/do3Qp https://archive.is/do3Qp [2] https://en.unesco.org/news/new-report-global-broadband-access-underscores-urgent-need-reach-half-world-still-unconnected https://en.unesco.org/news/new-report-global-broadband-acces...
- tsimionescu 5y ago
  The vast majority of these people will not be able to afford a 1500$ satellite dish (that's how much it costs to build the thing, even though they sell it for 500$ for now) + 100$/month internet.
  - ricardobeat 5y ago
    And why should one assume the cost once deployed in the millions will equal the cost while in beta with 60k users? There's another comment here already mentioning their prediction of a $300 cost for the dish in the future, you can only expect the subscription to go down as well. Plus, the places where Starlink is the most useful - rural areas - already have sky high costs. I just looked up what service looks like in Brazil: ~R$400/month (US$76) for 20mbps, with a 80GB data cap. When you have to buy the dish it costs over R$10k (~US$2000). This is the best you can get.