4 ms·

Isn’t starlink internet connection expensive atm? $99 per month plus one time h/w costs?

by the_arun 5y ago

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
Not just expensive. IIRC, the receiving dish and associated gear burns 120W or something like that.
- XorNot 5y ago
  Living with more space though, you can offset that with solar pretty easily.
- bobsmooth 5y ago
  That's still only around $100 a year in electricity assuming 10 cents/kWh.
  - Sebb767 5y ago
    In Germany, regular prices scratch 30 cents/kWh, so you're looking at another 25€ a month just to run the dish. A regular unlimited Gigabit Uplink runs 40€-80€ a month, with hardware included and a power usage in the range of 10W. But, unfortunately, anywhere you have a Garden large enough to host starlink, you probably won't have anything near that speed available, so it's still pretty competitive. :(
AnotherGoodName 5y ago
It's not a replacement for suburban internet. It's a way to pay just 50% more (in Australian pricing) for something that offers way more options.
shepherdjerred 5y ago
That's not terrible. I pay something like $140/mo for 1gbps (in reality I've never seen speeds >300mbps) with no data cap. $100 for ~100mbps with no data cap is reasonable to me.
- psyclobe 5y ago
  You know you can like get them to fix that right?
  - sgillen 5y ago
    How? In the fine print for most of these contracts it says something like “up to 1Gb, actual rates may vary based on network load” or something similar.
  - colpabar 5y ago
    how?
  - psyclobe 5y ago
    Call them up, say you are not getting the speeds, then when the tech shows up, simply don't let him leave until you can verify a speed test at that rate. If you get a good tech they will help you, you may get a dud, in which case you simply have to call them up and work the system again. It's totally doable, I've done it dozens of times at every dwelling I've inhabited. I'm currently on their 1GB plan, and I do get 1.4Gbps down (they recently upped their provisioning rate, and with a newer modem with 1 2GB link on it, with a suitable router [I run the UDM Pro] it works).
llamataboot 5y ago
about the same as comcast in the US...
mattrighetti 5y ago
In Italy an average Gbps fiber connection costs about 25€ (about 28$) per month which is insanely cheap compared to other countries. This also means that, at least for us, 99$ (88€) per month for such a thing is a lot more at the end of the year (+756€). I hope they’ll eventually adjust that price for different markets because at the moment it’s not even competitive in my area.
- walrus01 5y ago
  it's not meant to be competitive in areas that have existing reliable and competitively priced terrestrial wire line infrastructure (fiber, docsis3 or docsis3.1 on coax cable, short reach VDSL2 or g.fast on old copper phone lines, short reach WISPs capable of 150Mbps+). it's for areas that have none of the previously mentioned last mile access technologies available to each house.
NavinF 5y ago
That’s not expensive. I get 1gbps for ~$100/mo in the bay area, but if I lived a few miles further from the city I’d get 10mbps DSL over wet string regardless of how much I’m willing to pay.
- danans 5y ago
  FYI Sonic is now offering 10GB/s for $40/month in parts of the Bay Area.
  - thelittleone 5y ago
    10GB/s or 10gb/s?
    - danans 5y ago
      I stand corrected, it's Gb/s
Jedd 5y ago
In Australia, it's $140 / month, plus the capex of $700 for the dish, which obviously won't work on any other provider. I suspect resale on that device, if the carrier allows it, would be reasonable, but I don't expect I'd be moving away from this service. People are comparing (sub)urban US multi-carrier options, or heavily populated countries (like Italy), that have much cheaper pricing. It's not surprising that terrestrial services there are better spec'd and cheaper. For me (in AU) it's compelling because I otherwise have an option of a 3G yagi / booster (nearest tower is 15km away, service is awful normally, but unusable in storms, frequently highly contended, etc), dial-up (there's very few places that still offer such a service, and just the landline connection fee is $40 / month to start with), or geo-stationary satellite (what I've just moved away from after 2+ years, which has > 600ms RTT to the nearest capital city, and a max downstream of 25Mbps, which is also frequently highly contended during peak times. The 100W / hour usage is frustrating, and claims of electricity being 'just 10c / kWh' are quaint, I guess coming from well serviced parts of EU / US? Here most people are up for 30c (AUD) / kWh, and if on ToU that can go up to 60c during peak (2pm through 8pm). I've got solar, so on average I'm powering this 'for free' 25% of the time.
- walrus01 5y ago
  rough calculation in US dollars, if a starlink terminal is 100W constant load and electricity costs $0.30 per kWh, it would be about a $22.32 extra on the monthly electrical bill. in your case about $16.74 if you subtract 25% for the estimate of benefit from your solar (grid tied?) kWh going back to the grid
  - Jedd 5y ago
    That sounds about right. For the average Australian user, it means you add ~ $200-350 / year to your effective ISP cost. Not end of world for most, but certainly not trivial for all, either. The regrettable history of Australian internet provisioning (specifically our national broadband network) and electricity pricing (specifically the rorts and corruption, and higher-than-rest-of-world pricing) are described much more eloquently by others.
- djtango 5y ago
mod 5y ago
I pay like $94/month for DSL in a rural area. That includes a (mandatory) land line, and I'm "guaranteed" 10/1 Mbps--which I don't get. The only other options, until Starlink launches in my area, are traditional satellites. My neighbor previously had one of those, and he had an 8GB cap per MONTH. Plus the ping time averaged like 600ms. I'm not even mad about the price of $94. Internet is way, way worth it. The quality of the connection sucks, though. I would pay $200 for Starlink once it's reliable. I'm not actually sure what my limit is, but it's pretty high, because rural internet is painful
- walrus01 5y ago
  the economics of consumer grade oversubscribed geostationary are terrible - it costs something like $200 million to build and launch a 5500 kg satellite into geo orbit, it'll almost certainly die in 15 years (Standard lifespan), and its aggregate capacity is TINY actual dedicated 1:1 geostationary network capacity costs at a minimum $1600 per Mbps per month each direction (eg: 2 Mbps down x 0.5 Mbps up circuit would easily be $3500/mo)

Isn’t starlink internet connection expensive atm? $99 per month plus one time h/w costs?

PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago

Not just expensive. IIRC, the receiving dish and associated gear burns 120W or something like that.

XorNot 5y ago
Living with more space though, you can offset that with solar pretty easily.
bobsmooth 5y ago
That's still only around $100 a year in electricity assuming 10 cents/kWh.
- Sebb767 5y ago
  In Germany, regular prices scratch 30 cents/kWh, so you're looking at another 25€ a month just to run the dish. A regular unlimited Gigabit Uplink runs 40€-80€ a month, with hardware included and a power usage in the range of 10W. But, unfortunately, anywhere you have a Garden large enough to host starlink, you probably won't have anything near that speed available, so it's still pretty competitive. :(

AnotherGoodName 5y ago

It's not a replacement for suburban internet. It's a way to pay just 50% more (in Australian pricing) for something that offers way more options.

shepherdjerred 5y ago

That's not terrible. I pay something like $140/mo for 1gbps (in reality I've never seen speeds >300mbps) with no data cap. $100 for ~100mbps with no data cap is reasonable to me.

psyclobe 5y ago
You know you can like get them to fix that right?
- sgillen 5y ago
  How? In the fine print for most of these contracts it says something like “up to 1Gb, actual rates may vary based on network load” or something similar.
- colpabar 5y ago
  how?
- psyclobe 5y ago
  Call them up, say you are not getting the speeds, then when the tech shows up, simply don't let him leave until you can verify a speed test at that rate. If you get a good tech they will help you, you may get a dud, in which case you simply have to call them up and work the system again. It's totally doable, I've done it dozens of times at every dwelling I've inhabited. I'm currently on their 1GB plan, and I do get 1.4Gbps down (they recently upped their provisioning rate, and with a newer modem with 1 2GB link on it, with a suitable router [I run the UDM Pro] it works).

llamataboot 5y ago

about the same as comcast in the US...

mattrighetti 5y ago

In Italy an average Gbps fiber connection costs about 25€ (about 28$) per month which is insanely cheap compared to other countries. This also means that, at least for us, 99$ (88€) per month for such a thing is a lot more at the end of the year (+756€). I hope they’ll eventually adjust that price for different markets because at the moment it’s not even competitive in my area.

walrus01 5y ago
it's not meant to be competitive in areas that have existing reliable and competitively priced terrestrial wire line infrastructure (fiber, docsis3 or docsis3.1 on coax cable, short reach VDSL2 or g.fast on old copper phone lines, short reach WISPs capable of 150Mbps+). it's for areas that have none of the previously mentioned last mile access technologies available to each house.

NavinF 5y ago

That’s not expensive. I get 1gbps for ~$100/mo in the bay area, but if I lived a few miles further from the city I’d get 10mbps DSL over wet string regardless of how much I’m willing to pay.

danans 5y ago
FYI Sonic is now offering 10GB/s for $40/month in parts of the Bay Area.
- thelittleone 5y ago
  10GB/s or 10gb/s?
  - danans 5y ago
    I stand corrected, it's Gb/s

Jedd 5y ago

In Australia, it's $140 / month, plus the capex of $700 for the dish, which obviously won't work on any other provider. I suspect resale on that device, if the carrier allows it, would be reasonable, but I don't expect I'd be moving away from this service. People are comparing (sub)urban US multi-carrier options, or heavily populated countries (like Italy), that have much cheaper pricing. It's not surprising that terrestrial services there are better spec'd and cheaper. For me (in AU) it's compelling because I otherwise have an option of a 3G yagi / booster (nearest tower is 15km away, service is awful normally, but unusable in storms, frequently highly contended, etc), dial-up (there's very few places that still offer such a service, and just the landline connection fee is $40 / month to start with), or geo-stationary satellite (what I've just moved away from after 2+ years, which has > 600ms RTT to the nearest capital city, and a max downstream of 25Mbps, which is also frequently highly contended during peak times. The 100W / hour usage is frustrating, and claims of electricity being 'just 10c / kWh' are quaint, I guess coming from well serviced parts of EU / US? Here most people are up for 30c (AUD) / kWh, and if on ToU that can go up to 60c during peak (2pm through 8pm). I've got solar, so on average I'm powering this 'for free' 25% of the time.

walrus01 5y ago
rough calculation in US dollars, if a starlink terminal is 100W constant load and electricity costs $0.30 per kWh, it would be about a $22.32 extra on the monthly electrical bill. in your case about $16.74 if you subtract 25% for the estimate of benefit from your solar (grid tied?) kWh going back to the grid
- Jedd 5y ago
  That sounds about right. For the average Australian user, it means you add ~ $200-350 / year to your effective ISP cost. Not end of world for most, but certainly not trivial for all, either. The regrettable history of Australian internet provisioning (specifically our national broadband network) and electricity pricing (specifically the rorts and corruption, and higher-than-rest-of-world pricing) are described much more eloquently by others.
djtango 5y ago

mod 5y ago

I pay like $94/month for DSL in a rural area. That includes a (mandatory) land line, and I'm "guaranteed" 10/1 Mbps--which I don't get. The only other options, until Starlink launches in my area, are traditional satellites. My neighbor previously had one of those, and he had an 8GB cap per MONTH. Plus the ping time averaged like 600ms. I'm not even mad about the price of $94. Internet is way, way worth it. The quality of the connection sucks, though. I would pay $200 for Starlink once it's reliable. I'm not actually sure what my limit is, but it's pretty high, because rural internet is painful

walrus01 5y ago
the economics of consumer grade oversubscribed geostationary are terrible - it costs something like $200 million to build and launch a 5500 kg satellite into geo orbit, it'll almost certainly die in 15 years (Standard lifespan), and its aggregate capacity is TINY actual dedicated 1:1 geostationary network capacity costs at a minimum $1600 per Mbps per month each direction (eg: 2 Mbps down x 0.5 Mbps up circuit would easily be $3500/mo)