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My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away. Back when preorders started, it wasn't obv

My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin, who lives on a farm with 300 Kbps DSL, 70 miles away. Back when preorders started, it wasn't obvious how slow Starlink would be to expand, and it also wasn't obvious transfers wouldn't be a supported feature for many months. Even so, my cousin also signed up in hopes to get Starlink, and 11 months later her date was moved from 'late 2021' to 'late 2022'. And yes, I've tried many address hacks to see if I could get my dish moved there, none have worked. They shouldn't have dropped the 'beta' moniker last year if the service is truly so far from its final state (IMO).

csours 5y ago
What happens if you just take it there and plug it in?
- causi 5y ago
  Yeah, that was my first thought. After reports of success from people mounting it to the roof of their RVs I thought you could move it anywhere you wanted.
  - Diederich 5y ago
    Each Dishy is assigned to a specific ground station, so you can freely move it around as long as it's 'close enough' to that ground station. (I don't know the distance by memory..) There's a way to ask Starlink to switch your ground station, which is what people with the RVs are doing.
  - AshleyGrant 5y ago
    You can physically move it wherever you want, but you have to hope that there is an opening available in the "cell" at the new location, otherwise, you've got a paperweight.
- reportingsjr 5y ago
  The dish won't work since it knows where it is via GPS and where it is supposed to be. There is a little bit of tolerance in where the dish can be moved, but certainly not 70 miles of leeway.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    Ha, reminds me of the tiny 3G picostations you could get from your mobile operator for a while when 3G was in its infancy - if you said you had really poor signal at your home, they would send you a small 3G station you could use in your home and which used your own internet for data and calls....but the hardware had a GPS built in to make sure it was never moved from the address it was assigned to(otherwise you could take it say, abroad, and make calls with your own numbers without paying for roaming - not that in that specific scenario paying for roaming would have made any sense anyway).
    - tinus_hn 5y ago
      If you were to take it abroad your provider would also not have a license to use the frequencies it needs.
    - Danieru 5y ago
      The geo tieing makes more sense as a product of spectrum regulation. If you move the Pico station they might not even own the resulting local spectrum.
    - the-dude 5y ago
      I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?
      - gambiting 5y ago
        Yep - https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsung-ubicell.html https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsun... IP would be absolutely trivial to spoof so that's not a proof of anything really.
- robalfonso 5y ago
  He’s got a video where he tried this and was unable to get it working.
jacquesm 5y ago
What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...
- sidewndr46 5y ago
  I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others. SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of SpaceX with respect to starlink.
  - JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
    I don’t understand though. His cousin is 70 miles away, are the satellite coverages that small?
    - jagger27 5y ago
      It’s about the base station capacity, in theory. Though it seems super unlikely that an address that’s only 70 miles away would be on a different base station. This will change dramatically once sat-to-sat laser comms are fully online as it will put more base stations “in range”.
      - jacquesm 5y ago
        I'm not so sure about that. At 200 Km altitude that the footprint of the satellite wouldn't be all that large depending on the phase array arrangement. It might not be able to swing that far sideways and still get enough signal strength. These antennas don't move physically, the use phase based signal steering (black magic to me).
    - giantrobot 5y ago
      The satellites just relay signals from a customer ground station to a Starlink-owned ground station. That ground station has a wired Internet connection. So coverage at your house is dependent on you and a Starlink ground station being in the ground track of some Starlink satellites. Because of their low altitude it's entirely possible for your house being in the ground track of satellites but the nearest Starlink ground station being outside. At some point in the future Starlink satellites will have laser communications between each other. Then only one in that group needs to be able to see a Starlink ground station and the others can route customer signals to it.
traviswt 5y ago
Disclaimer: I am a very happy Starlink customer that has no other option for internet besides terrible LTE. Starlink never originally advertised the ability to transfer service or even sell your hardware. It was very clear from the beginning you had to use it for the address you provided, and their communication was very clear to that effect. You are definitely correct that logically you should be able to sell your kit, transfer service, or just move with it (Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV). But you took that logical end result and set your own expectations based on assumptions that were not aligned with reality. You are not in the target market, of course you’re going to be frustrated.
- HideousKojima 5y ago
  >(Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV) Mobile antennas will also require separate FCC approval.
  - lostlogin 5y ago
    That just seems crazy. Why?
    - HWR_14 5y ago
      The FCCs primary concern is devices not interfering with each other. Part of that is cutting up areas geographically and by spectrum, so you know that the 100MHz FM station in one area won't over lap with another's and both can transmit. My guess would be that mobile transmitters are required to fill out paperwork about how they won't interfere anywhere in the US. I could be wrong though. "Requires separate approvals" does not always mean that approval is hard to get. It might require a version of the dish that doesn't do something v1 or v1 and v2 current do however.
      - labawi 5y ago
        Movement shifts spectrum so theoretically it may require bigger guard bands and slightly different paperwork. OTOH, I doubt SpaceX allocated spectrum is tied to a any particular location (as opposed to say - within country bounds), considering it's satellite communication. Starlink itself cares about positioning to avoid overcrowding and also any satellite tasking/scheduling/whatever.
brk 5y ago
But your gripe seems to be centered around something they never claimed as a selling point initially. Just because they do not have the coverage of other satellite systems does not mean it is still a beta.
anarazel 5y ago
That's within the feasible distance for a point to point wireless bridge. If geography permits - which is not that likely. Not cheap, but might be better than alternatives.
- ShakataGaNai 5y ago
  If my handy online calculators are working correctly, 70km distant would require a 300+ ft tall tower on each side for that P2P bridge. Just to deal with the curvature of the earth and not counting for anything else that might be in the way.
  - anarazel 5y ago
    It would likely have to be more than one hop, yes...
staunch 5y ago
Early adopters have early adopter problems. Are you genuinely surprised Starlink doesn't support something they didn't claim to support and that most users don't even need? Complaining about "beta" labels, which everyone knows are meaningless? FYI: I unsubscribed because of this video (previous to it showing up on HN). It's obviously disingenuous clickbait. Look at the title alone. And it even goes into a pointless discussion about Elon Musk that has nothing to do with Starlink itself. Lots of good technical YouTubers avoid this crap. I was surprised you felt the need to engage in it. I'm not mad, just disappointed :-)
- softwarebeware 5y ago
  I don't interpret it as complaining or disingenuous. It feels like he's sharing his experience and says a lot of positive things about it. But it just turns out it can't do what he intentionally bought it for. I was genuinely informed by the experience.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
34679 5y ago
Curiousity and frustration would have me moving it anyway. Have you tried?
- cbm-vic-20 5y ago
  Jeff had an episode where he took it out to his cousin's farm, and it didn't work there.
thinkcontext 5y ago
> My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin This seems like a gripe very particular to you and not generally relevant.
btian 5y ago
You should have done more research before signing up imo. I have synchronous gigabit wireless internet from Sail Internet. It has pretty much all the same issues you mentioned about Starlink except the last one, but I'm not making a video to complain about it. Engineering involves trade-offs, and it's just a reality.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
tomatoman 5y ago
what happens if you have to move to another area they serve? Do you still have to wait for them to reactivate it, or you have to throw it out and buy a new one? Can't you just say you now live with your cousin?
michaelt 5y ago
What happens if you just take your dish over to your cousin's house and try using it?
jbverschoor 5y ago
What happens if you move places?

csours 5y ago

What happens if you just take it there and plug it in?

causi 5y ago
Yeah, that was my first thought. After reports of success from people mounting it to the roof of their RVs I thought you could move it anywhere you wanted.
- Diederich 5y ago
  Each Dishy is assigned to a specific ground station, so you can freely move it around as long as it's 'close enough' to that ground station. (I don't know the distance by memory..) There's a way to ask Starlink to switch your ground station, which is what people with the RVs are doing.
- AshleyGrant 5y ago
  You can physically move it wherever you want, but you have to hope that there is an opening available in the "cell" at the new location, otherwise, you've got a paperweight.
reportingsjr 5y ago
The dish won't work since it knows where it is via GPS and where it is supposed to be. There is a little bit of tolerance in where the dish can be moved, but certainly not 70 miles of leeway.
- gambiting 5y ago
  Ha, reminds me of the tiny 3G picostations you could get from your mobile operator for a while when 3G was in its infancy - if you said you had really poor signal at your home, they would send you a small 3G station you could use in your home and which used your own internet for data and calls....but the hardware had a GPS built in to make sure it was never moved from the address it was assigned to(otherwise you could take it say, abroad, and make calls with your own numbers without paying for roaming - not that in that specific scenario paying for roaming would have made any sense anyway).
  - tinus_hn 5y ago
    If you were to take it abroad your provider would also not have a license to use the frequencies it needs.
  - Danieru 5y ago
    The geo tieing makes more sense as a product of spectrum regulation. If you move the Pico station they might not even own the resulting local spectrum.
  - the-dude 5y ago
    I only ever heard the term Femtocell for this. Also, wouldn't an IP check suffice? Are you sure it had GPS?
    - gambiting 5y ago
      Yep - https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsung-ubicell.html https://www.engadget.com/2007-03-28-hands-on-with-the-samsun... IP would be absolutely trivial to spoof so that's not a proof of anything really.
robalfonso 5y ago
He’s got a video where he tried this and was unable to get it working.

jacquesm 5y ago

What's the point of satellite internet if you can't move the dish around? That would seem to be one of the USPs...

sidewndr46 5y ago
I'm not an expert on the Starlink network, but their coverage isn't uniform. Even across the 48 states. The constellation provides more effective bandwidth in some areas than others. SpaceX has a government subsidy to provide high speed internet right across the street from my parents house. But they have no satellite coverage in that area according to their own map. I don't really understand the business plan of SpaceX with respect to starlink.
- JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  I don’t understand though. His cousin is 70 miles away, are the satellite coverages that small?
  - jagger27 5y ago
    It’s about the base station capacity, in theory. Though it seems super unlikely that an address that’s only 70 miles away would be on a different base station. This will change dramatically once sat-to-sat laser comms are fully online as it will put more base stations “in range”.
    - jacquesm 5y ago
      I'm not so sure about that. At 200 Km altitude that the footprint of the satellite wouldn't be all that large depending on the phase array arrangement. It might not be able to swing that far sideways and still get enough signal strength. These antennas don't move physically, the use phase based signal steering (black magic to me).
  - giantrobot 5y ago
    The satellites just relay signals from a customer ground station to a Starlink-owned ground station. That ground station has a wired Internet connection. So coverage at your house is dependent on you and a Starlink ground station being in the ground track of some Starlink satellites. Because of their low altitude it's entirely possible for your house being in the ground track of satellites but the nearest Starlink ground station being outside. At some point in the future Starlink satellites will have laser communications between each other. Then only one in that group needs to be able to see a Starlink ground station and the others can route customer signals to it.

traviswt 5y ago

Disclaimer: I am a very happy Starlink customer that has no other option for internet besides terrible LTE. Starlink never originally advertised the ability to transfer service or even sell your hardware. It was very clear from the beginning you had to use it for the address you provided, and their communication was very clear to that effect. You are definitely correct that logically you should be able to sell your kit, transfer service, or just move with it (Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV). But you took that logical end result and set your own expectations based on assumptions that were not aligned with reality. You are not in the target market, of course you’re going to be frustrated.

HideousKojima 5y ago
>(Elon has said you’ll eventually be able to use it on an RV) Mobile antennas will also require separate FCC approval.
- lostlogin 5y ago
  That just seems crazy. Why?
  - HWR_14 5y ago
    The FCCs primary concern is devices not interfering with each other. Part of that is cutting up areas geographically and by spectrum, so you know that the 100MHz FM station in one area won't over lap with another's and both can transmit. My guess would be that mobile transmitters are required to fill out paperwork about how they won't interfere anywhere in the US. I could be wrong though. "Requires separate approvals" does not always mean that approval is hard to get. It might require a version of the dish that doesn't do something v1 or v1 and v2 current do however.
    - labawi 5y ago
      Movement shifts spectrum so theoretically it may require bigger guard bands and slightly different paperwork. OTOH, I doubt SpaceX allocated spectrum is tied to a any particular location (as opposed to say - within country bounds), considering it's satellite communication. Starlink itself cares about positioning to avoid overcrowding and also any satellite tasking/scheduling/whatever.

brk 5y ago

But your gripe seems to be centered around something they never claimed as a selling point initially. Just because they do not have the coverage of other satellite systems does not mean it is still a beta.

anarazel 5y ago

That's within the feasible distance for a point to point wireless bridge. If geography permits - which is not that likely. Not cheap, but might be better than alternatives.

ShakataGaNai 5y ago
If my handy online calculators are working correctly, 70km distant would require a 300+ ft tall tower on each side for that P2P bridge. Just to deal with the curvature of the earth and not counting for anything else that might be in the way.
- anarazel 5y ago
  It would likely have to be more than one hop, yes...

staunch 5y ago

Early adopters have early adopter problems. Are you genuinely surprised Starlink doesn't support something they didn't claim to support and that most users don't even need? Complaining about "beta" labels, which everyone knows are meaningless? FYI: I unsubscribed because of this video (previous to it showing up on HN). It's obviously disingenuous clickbait. Look at the title alone. And it even goes into a pointless discussion about Elon Musk that has nothing to do with Starlink itself. Lots of good technical YouTubers avoid this crap. I was surprised you felt the need to engage in it. I'm not mad, just disappointed :-)

softwarebeware 5y ago
I don't interpret it as complaining or disingenuous. It feels like he's sharing his experience and says a lot of positive things about it. But it just turns out it can't do what he intentionally bought it for. I was genuinely informed by the experience.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

34679 5y ago

Curiousity and frustration would have me moving it anyway. Have you tried?

cbm-vic-20 5y ago
Jeff had an episode where he took it out to his cousin's farm, and it didn't work there.

thinkcontext 5y ago

> My biggest gripe is the fact I can't transfer it to my cousin This seems like a gripe very particular to you and not generally relevant.

btian 5y ago

You should have done more research before signing up imo. I have synchronous gigabit wireless internet from Sail Internet. It has pretty much all the same issues you mentioned about Starlink except the last one, but I'm not making a video to complain about it. Engineering involves trade-offs, and it's just a reality.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

tomatoman 5y ago

what happens if you have to move to another area they serve? Do you still have to wait for them to reactivate it, or you have to throw it out and buy a new one? Can't you just say you now live with your cousin?

michaelt 5y ago

What happens if you just take your dish over to your cousin's house and try using it?

jbverschoor 5y ago

What happens if you move places?