5 ms·

I've had Starlink in Rural AR for 10 months now. I have it currently set to "failover only" on my Ubiquiti device, as it's snowing sideways and there is a trem

I've had Starlink in Rural AR for 10 months now. I have it currently set to "failover only" on my Ubiquiti device, as it's snowing sideways and there is a tremendous (read: 30%) amount of packet loss at the moment. I don't yet know how to do automatic failover due to packet loss on a UBNT device, but that's what I'm looking up this afternoon. Anyways - I have 3 ISPs, with two of them being LTE. One is the unlimited ATT iPad plan, since I have a router that currently identifies as an iPad (so modern) with the other being TMobile home internet. Up until this snow storm, I had both of the LTE connections in failover only mode, using Starlink exclusively since about November, when there was an update that stopped the "disconnect all active sessions every ~45 minutes when I lose physical sight of the satellite I was connected to" problem. I guess that was when sat to sat communication came online in my longitude. I will also note that my IP has been static on Starlink for about 2 weeks now, which is the longest it's ever been. It's still CGNAT, so multiplayer game hosting is mostly out, unless the game handles it. Most don't. Overall it's a decent thing, but I would recommend at least one backup ISP for those rural or thinking of going rural. LTE Hacks group on Facebook can help you tremendously if you are considering buying a place outside the range of normal wired connections. It's kind of funny that snow took it down 1 day after I started looking at the premium option, which I'm considering if I can get my workplace to pay $300 per month, with me covering the other $200. Kind of dulls the excitement for that...

LegitShady 5y ago
starlink radomes to keep snow and cats off the dish next?
jeffbee 5y ago
It sounds like you have a nifty setup, but I’m surprised you would consider such a high price for your third connection. Why is it worth so much in your case? For the price, you’re approaching the amortized cost of burying miles of cable, which could be an option for people who are only a short distance from wired infrastructure.
- NDizzle 5y ago
  Well, if I can get my cost for the premium Starlink to $200, I would drop the TMO home internet. Right now I'm paying $99 for Starlink, $23/mo ATT, $50/mo TMO. Hardware costs were $450 for the router and LTE modem (EM160g) and roughly the same for (what I know know to be the gen 1) Starlink. I had no idea they rolled out a gen 2 Starlink that's even more restricted than the first one. Ah well. When I was in NORCAL and wired, I was on business internet that was $190/mo, so that's about what I'm accustomed to. I have no idea what it would cost to wire my house. I'm miles from any infrastructure.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    You should look it up - some farmers decided to lay down their own fiber (also for the neighbors) - access to tractors helps !
jmuguy 5y ago
If you're running an Edgerouter I imagine you could have something setup externally to measure packet loss and then if it gets high enough automatically SSH into the router and force it to failover. Of course you'd also have to setup some sort of routing scheme so the external system could then return back to the connection when packet loss went down.
BlueTemplar 5y ago
CGNAT ?!? Huh, I would have expected Starlink to be IPv6 only...
- NDizzle 5y ago
  On the following page it shows an IPv4 address with IPv6 "Not detected". I have ipv6 enabled on my edgerouter. https://whatismyipaddress.com/ https://whatismyipaddress.com/
- iptrans 5y ago
  The Internet does not work without IPv4. It’s either CGNAT or ponying up $60 per IPv4 address.
  - sidewndr46 5y ago
    This an interesting aspect to me because it means even the lowest quality, poorest run, failing infrastructure ISP has nearly liquid assets of about $30 million USD if they have half a million customers. That's a staggering amount of money & it isn't locked up in assets like real estate.
    - BlueTemplar 5y ago
      Not just ISPs, some other companies (IBM ?) and universities managed to get huge address chunks early on for pennies. This scarcity creates perverse incentives, I'm surprised that the governments aren't doing their job in first forcing new hardware to be IPv6-compatible, then later forbidding new hardware to be IPv4-compatible, like they did for digital TV tuners and low consumption light bulbs... maybe because the lobbying is pushing in the opposite direction in this case for the aforementioned reason ?
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    And yet ever more people only have IPv6... and last I checked IPv6 server support is around 99% these days ?
    - 5y ago

LegitShady 5y ago

starlink radomes to keep snow and cats off the dish next?

jeffbee 5y ago

It sounds like you have a nifty setup, but I’m surprised you would consider such a high price for your third connection. Why is it worth so much in your case? For the price, you’re approaching the amortized cost of burying miles of cable, which could be an option for people who are only a short distance from wired infrastructure.

NDizzle 5y ago
Well, if I can get my cost for the premium Starlink to $200, I would drop the TMO home internet. Right now I'm paying $99 for Starlink, $23/mo ATT, $50/mo TMO. Hardware costs were $450 for the router and LTE modem (EM160g) and roughly the same for (what I know know to be the gen 1) Starlink. I had no idea they rolled out a gen 2 Starlink that's even more restricted than the first one. Ah well. When I was in NORCAL and wired, I was on business internet that was $190/mo, so that's about what I'm accustomed to. I have no idea what it would cost to wire my house. I'm miles from any infrastructure.
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  You should look it up - some farmers decided to lay down their own fiber (also for the neighbors) - access to tractors helps !

jmuguy 5y ago

If you're running an Edgerouter I imagine you could have something setup externally to measure packet loss and then if it gets high enough automatically SSH into the router and force it to failover. Of course you'd also have to setup some sort of routing scheme so the external system could then return back to the connection when packet loss went down.

BlueTemplar 5y ago

CGNAT ?!? Huh, I would have expected Starlink to be IPv6 only...

NDizzle 5y ago
On the following page it shows an IPv4 address with IPv6 "Not detected". I have ipv6 enabled on my edgerouter. https://whatismyipaddress.com/ https://whatismyipaddress.com/
iptrans 5y ago
The Internet does not work without IPv4. It’s either CGNAT or ponying up $60 per IPv4 address.
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  This an interesting aspect to me because it means even the lowest quality, poorest run, failing infrastructure ISP has nearly liquid assets of about $30 million USD if they have half a million customers. That's a staggering amount of money & it isn't locked up in assets like real estate.
  - BlueTemplar 5y ago
    Not just ISPs, some other companies (IBM ?) and universities managed to get huge address chunks early on for pennies. This scarcity creates perverse incentives, I'm surprised that the governments aren't doing their job in first forcing new hardware to be IPv6-compatible, then later forbidding new hardware to be IPv4-compatible, like they did for digital TV tuners and low consumption light bulbs... maybe because the lobbying is pushing in the opposite direction in this case for the aforementioned reason ?
- BlueTemplar 5y ago
  And yet ever more people only have IPv6... and last I checked IPv6 server support is around 99% these days ?
  - 5y ago