75 ms·
Starlink for RVs
- rootusrootus 4y agoI have been waiting patiently for almost two years to get it the old-fashioned way. Just canceled my longstanding deposit, and ordered Starlink for RVs. It helps that I really wanted it for my RV anyway, and just assumed all along that at some point in the not-to-distant future they were going to allow that. Fairly expensive, but it will allow me to work remotely from a very beautiful, remote location, and I intend to take full advantage of that.
- madeofpalk 4y ago> from a very beautiful, remote location As long as you're nowhere near a tree.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- emteycz 4y agoWow, what an insurmountable problem!!! All plans off!
- HWR_14 4y ago> it will allow me to work remotely from a very beautiful, remote location Do you plan on using generators? Setting up solar farms (assuming you're the first one to pull into that spot and can claim the sunny area)? Most tech-job setups seem fairly electricity intensive.
- rtpg 4y agoThere are many places in the world that are beautiful, more or less in the countryside, yet have access to electricity and running water. And hey, if your tech job is just typing along on your Macbook, you're actually not pretty high in energy usage! They're machines that can run on tiny batteries, after all. Same as a fridge, basically. Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though.
- bombcar 4y agoEspecially if your vehicle has battery capacity itself if some sort - you can charge the batteries on grid in the morning and head out to the lake all day.
- zie 4y ago> Dunno how much you can get out of RV solar panels on a good day though. As much as any other solar really, it just depends on how many panels you can put up there.
- dzhiurgis 4y agoMinor nitpick, but if you use flush semi-flexible panels vs rigid ones their efficiency is 10-17% vs 16-23%. Flush ones are way easier to install, basically glued on, while rigid ones need some sort of support system.
- elcritch 4y agoOne big downside of semi-flexible panels are how susceptible they are to damage from hail. One big storm can kill 40-50% of their efficiency. Here’s some test results: https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_ps2_westpak_brown.pdf https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2014/01/f7/pvmrw13_p...
- rootusrootus 4y agoThe flush ones don't last nearly as long, either. AFAIK most manufacturers, and most aftermarket installs as well are using rigid panels mounted with z-brackets. More effort to install, but gluing flexible panels to a membrane roof wasn't what I wanted to do either.
- PaulDavisThe1st 4y agoI have 515W on top of the roof of my sprinter. I also have a custom-built 12VDC-direct mini-ITX system that I use in the van (160W TDP). Because I do native development, not web related stuff, that means compiling a lot. The computer uses more power than the refridgerator. The 515W is enough for about 7-8 months of the year at the range of latitudes spanned by the USA. It's not enough during winter even in sunny NM or AZ.
- dntrkv 4y ago1kW portable battery, connected to a 100w solar panel, should guarantee you indefinite power in most places. Just a 1kW battery should easily be enough to power an M1 Macbook for a week's worth of work.
- colechristensen 4y agoThe starlink device uses about 100 W itself. That is not at all enough to power it.
- kimmk 4y agoThis used to be the case, however the new dish along with recent firmware updates brings the power usage down to around 50 W on average.
- colechristensen 4y ago50W is still more than 1 kWh per day.
- dntrkv 4y agoAre you working 24 hours of the day? An M1 Macbook will draw an average of about 30W under load. Starlink dish is about 50W. 80W * 8 hours = 640Wh With a 100W solar panel generating 200Wh total throughout the day, you would use up 440Wh of your 1000Wh battery. These are conservative estimates. My M1 pulls less than 20W at most times and you can get well over 200Wh from a 100W panel in a day. Tweak the numbers just a bit and you get indefinite power for a 40 hour work week.
- Scoundreller 4y agoIssue is, if you're really in the sticks (and therefore no 2g/3g/4g/5g service), you're completely disconnected unless the thing is on, idling away at 50w. Sure you're not using data while you're sleeping, but you might want to be able to get a call from someone if they really need to get in touch with you. Or other passive tasks where you want to at least take a call/message/email if required. Even in a residential environment, I've toyed with a timer that cuts my ISP modem and router overnight (and kills smart devices from trying to phone home...) because falling back to 3g/4g saves me ~15 watts, but it's honestly dollars/year of savings.
- rustyboy 4y agoI've worked remote for 2 years in an travel trailer with a 250w solar panel and 200kwh battery and have never needed shore power. I use my phone for hotspotting and use a mac book, they both charge in about 2 hours so I run for 2-3 hours, charge it, run 2-3 hours, and then charge it before logging off. That said, yea - no second monitor, I close a lot of apps when i'm not using them (looking at you docker and chrome), and have a setup where I ssh onto a machine or use ci-cd agents to do a lot of my work. edit: that said, this is a lot easier in sunnier places (you don't need to use electricity for heat) which I tend to prefer. I got close to needing a campground after a week or two in WY/MT near winter.
- driverdan 4y agoDo you have a typo in that "200kwh battery"? There's no way you have that much capacity.
- jermaustin1 4y agoYou CAN have that much capacity, but you would basically have to build the RV out of battery cells. I'm assuming they meant 20kwh, which is still HUGE for an RV, but they did say they never needed shore power in the last 2 years of living, so I guess, its possible.
- mikestew 4y agoWith the kind of draws described, I believe OP got the terms confused and meant "200ah". We've got a 200ah house battery in our RV, and you can run low-load stuff like a laptop and a monitor for a long time on that battery. Hell, fire up the 1100W microwave and heat some lunch. Just do it early so that the solar panels can refill before dark.
- PaulLeiby 4y agoAnd of course 200 Ah (@12VDC) is 2.4 kWh. BTW, I have a couple of these LiFePo 100Ah batteries, and they are great. But I do get a kick out of how the capital cost is about $800 USD to store 1 kWh, or $0.15 worth of electricity (omitting solar cell cost solar charge controller cost, which are comparatively minor)! Still, the grid independence (for sustainable Tiny Electrical Living) is a wonderful thing.
- iramiller 4y agoI have 400aH worth of lithium batteries and 600 watts of solar (not laid out in an ideal configuration down the sides of the roof on my airstream). I have found I use 60-90watts AC to power my starlink. I can easily go all day even with 2-3 laptops and external monitors (150 watts or so). The solar keeps up and even does a little charging during the day. Every other day when it’s cloudy or rainy I will need to top up with the small generator but that is easy to do with lithium batteries since they charge at the full 120amps unlike lead acid that taper the current significantly.
- texasbigdata 4y agoDid you study electrical engineering? Can you recommend a laymans resource for getting smart on how you did those calcs? For example I’d struggle to figure out the battery size for a given wattage / amp of draw.
- Breza 4y agoI got my ham radio license in March and I learned a lot about practical electricity while studying. Might be worth checking out some of the YouTube videos to see if it's up your alley.
- 35mm 4y agoNot the commenter, but it’s fairly straightforward. I’ve actually made a simple calculator[1] for this, but you don’t really need it. What you want to do is get a good picture of your actual usage per day in kWh. You can use a Kill-a-Watt plug or similar (a device that kWh that pass through it). Once you have your daily kWh use, you can multiply by however many days you want to run without charging the battery. A lot of off grid solar people go for 2-4 days. That gives you the useable battery size in kWh you need. LiFePo4 batteries (arguably the best for this setup) typically have 80-90% useable capacity. Lead acid (the more traditional kind) have around 50%. Adjust for that and you know what size of battery to buy. A lot of batteries are defined as Amp hours and voltage. Multiply them together to get watt hours. Max_kWh = (Ah * V) / 1000 Useable_kWh = Max_kWh * useable_percent [1] https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator https://uplevelgreen.com/off-grid-solar-calculator
- rootusrootus 4y agoI have 6kWh of LFP batteries in my RV and 990W of solar on the roof. I do bring a generator just in case but only rarely ever use it. Even at 90W I don’t think I’d have power problems, at least not during the summer months.
- turtlebits 4y agoI worked out of my off-grid cabin the last 18 mo or so - you can easily consume under 150w of power (monitor, laptop, lights, 5g phone, router). Starlink does add a lot of draw (~100w)
- 8note 4y agoYou don't need a ton of solar to get your laptop and phone running and charging for a 4-5 hours a day. Combining a few backpack solar panels does the trick for me
- tjr225 4y agoAre you working remotely from the same state you report your income in?
- rootusrootus 4y agoAlmost entirely yes, my preferred remote sites are all within the same state. I'd have to pay my home state taxes anyway. And the nearest state I'd be likely to work from occasionally has no income tax. But even if it weren't that way for me, I don't think I'd worry that much about someone accusing me of skipping out on taxes I should pay because I parked my RV in another state. It's not a permanent address.
- FireBeyond 4y agoHell, on r/starlink there are multiple users reporting that their fixed installations have had no service for a month+, customer support is completely unresponsive, but are still being billed. So, even getting it doesn't necessarily fix things.
- pathartl 4y agoIt seems to be common with Musk-linked services. Tesla Solar has been acting the same way.
- cbames89 4y agoAny idea why the eastern US is wait listed? I'd love to ditch spectrum and I work in construction so having mobile internet would be huge.
- macinjosh 4y agoGreater population density in the eastern part of the country probably means more people there have requested access.
- VectorLock 4y agoNorth east area is strangely mottled. Is that just people in certain towns/cells have ordered more? Why does this even matter for an RV?
- macintux 4y agoRV service can expect more throttling in waitlisted areas. > Users can expect high speed, low latency internet in areas marked "Available", and notably slower speeds during hours of peak usage in areas marked as "Waitlist" or during events with many collocated users.
- JaggedJax 4y agoIt looks like the waitlist is around populated areas. If you zoom in you can often see that urban areas are waitlisted while anywhere remote or without much housing is available.
- sdan 4y agoI got off the waitlist and live in the bay area -- possibly im not doing something right or Starlink is extremely spotty; it gets "offline" most of the time and very rarely gets online so I can actually use it. After 4 months of unuse I canceled my the $99/mo subscription which is more than the internet I actually pay for It's good for rural areas it seems.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stickfigure 4y agoWeird that there is no visible price, you have to click "Order Now" to see it. This looks like it's just $25/mo more than normal service? Is that it, or is there a difference in the hardware?
- greycol 4y agoThe main advantage I can see (over resedential + portability) is you can pause the service so basically if you wanted it for 1 month a year it's only going to cost you that $200 (Plus the significantly larger amaortized $1000 if you use it that way)
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- wyager 4y agoIt's normal service, normal hardware. It just won't boot you from the network if you travel too far away from your home cell.
- Me1000 4y agoOut of curiosity, what is the justification for being booted if you're too far from your home? Is it just to try to keep bandwidth demand in areas predictable?
- wyager 4y agoI believe that is the case. They have been limiting regional sales to what they believe they can support within that cell.
- geoffeg 4y agoWill that be less of an issue when a larger portion of their satellite fleet have laser interconnects? I think I read somewhere that the required ground stations are a limitation of the initial launches without laser connections...
- xrd 4y agoCan anyone explain to someone dumb like me why 5G isn't a better alternative to this? Is the coverage in rural areas that much better?
- smiddereens 4y ago5G coverage is quite poor even in metropolitan areas.
- trevcanhuman 4y ago5G is a technology that is very short-range. If you have a concrete wall between the emitter and the receiver you will get a terrible connection. Maybe 30 mbps vs 500 mbps. Maybe 10 blocks away and you've already lost connection - unless there is another tower within a few blocks. So I don't think it would be feasible for big ISPs. maybe for some specific outdoor camps, yes. But it would require the cost of mainting infrastructure nearby all the RVs, including maintaining a clear view without physical obstructions.
- Johnny555 4y ago5G doesn't have any bearing on the range, the frequency does -- 5G lowband will have about the same range is 4G. But to see the blazing multi gigabit/sec speeds, you'd need the high mmWave frequencies, which does limit the range,
- trevcanhuman 4y agoOh, did not know that. so 5G also includes a communication protocol ? E.g. could I make 5G work through 2.4 gHz (WiFi frequency, right ? ) and would it work well ? e.g. gigabit speeds thru 2.4 gHz ? I genuinely don't know, don't mean to make a stupid question. kinda stupid question: (not meaning to sound as an asshole question) Isn't the mmWave part of 5G itself ? Or what would you define as 5G ?
- BurningFrog 4y agoAs I understand it, 5G does everything 4G does, and adds new capabilities like mm-Wave. Of course, all reports on it will emphasise the new stuff, so it's easy to get that impression.
- agildehaus 4y agoIs this a Dishy variant or can existing customers use their current hardware? I can't determine that from the website.
- wyager 4y agoSame hardware.
- treelovinhippie 4y ago
- Johnny555 4y agoI was excited to see this, until realizing that the dish is not meant for permanent RV roof mounting -- I don't want to climb up on the roof every time I stop so I can put out the dish, nor do I want to leave a $500 dish sitting outside my RV. Any word on whether or not they'll come out with a roof mountable dish or at least a radome to cover the dish?| They may have gone GA with the RV dish today, I've been waitlisted for over a year for a home dish, and got the RV dish email today.
- wyager 4y agoPeople have been DIY'ing this for a while. This service has been out for weeks - not sure why it's only getting publicity today.
- Johnny555 4y agoYes, and the people I know that have done it are either putting their dish on the ground or putting it on a roof or ladder mount when they want to use it. Do you have a link to the DIY permanent installation? All the Youtube videos and other guides I've seen mount it on the roof while parked, and take it down while driving.
- wyager 4y agoThere's a Facebook group called starlink ESIM or something where people are doing more advanced lie-flat installations.
- walrus01 4y agoOn the second generation rectangular cpe, there is a certain spot where if you drill a circular hole on the rear using a hole saw, you can reach in with non-conductive tweezers and unplug the cables going to the azimuth and elevation motors. Obviously, voiding the waterproofness and the warranty of the unit.
- TecoAndJix 4y agoI think a bunch of people (myself included) got an email today if you are on the residential waitlist
- nniroclax 4y agoWe took our dishy out on an RV trip last weekend and it was great. Put it in the back of the truck and had great reception the entire time. I'm not sure I'll be able to go back to terrible RV park WiFi ever again.
- imwillofficial 4y agoAs a full time RVer, this is badass.
- hop 4y agoSpaceX is going to be printing money with Starlink.
- adtac 4y agoAnd consumer internet isn't even Starlink's endgame
- geoffeg 4y agoI'm aware that they expect one of their customers to be stock market companies where lower latency is highly important. Are you referring to that or something else?
- codetrotter 4y agoI’m very ignorant about HFT, but https://www.starlink.com/ https://www.starlink.com/ says “latency as low as 20ms in most locations”. Isn’t that many many orders of magnitude too much for HFT?
- paranoidrobot 4y agoHigh-Frequency Trading / Arbitrage between distant markets was what I'd read. i.e starlink can get much lower latency between say London and NY than terrestrial links.
- HWR_14 4y agoAs I understand it, HFT justified digging new tunnels between NYC and Chicago to take advantage of the shorter distance the signal would have to go. And that was transmitting at or near the speed of light. Somehow, I doubt bouncing on a roundtrip to a satellite is worth it.
- wolrah 4y ago> And that was transmitting at or near the speed of light. Somehow, I doubt bouncing on a roundtrip to a satellite is worth it. That's the thing, the speed of light in fiber is actually significantly slower than the speed of light through air, which itself is slightly slower than the speed of light through a vacuum. Over long enough distances this adds up to the point that high frequency traders already have built radio relay networks between New York and Chicago. You can't easily build radio towers across oceans, but a satellite relay network that could follow a nearly line-of-sight path is almost the same thing. Also fiber isn't run as the crow flies, sometimes it has to take a winding path which adds even more distance to the run than you might think, on top of the reduced speed of light. If Starlink manages to get their satellite to satellite laser link tech working, which is a MASSIVE if, they're in a very good place.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- synaesthesisx 4y ago> “ Starlink for RVs is not designed for use while in motion.” Theoretically though, it should continue to work while in motion right? Perhaps with a bit more latency than if the unit was stationary?
- mlyle 4y ago> Theoretically though, it should continue to work while in motion right? Perhaps with a bit more latency than if the unit was stationary? It probably won't work great. The Starlink unit has a phased array forming narrow beams of reception and transmission to the satellite, and assumes it's on a stable platform. It's possible to build a system that is robust to bounces and yaws, but that doesn't mean that they have.
- GenerocUsername 4y agoThis. I doubt the moving target part matters much since it's a few ms of travel time, but unless you are driving perfectly straight on a smooth highway,nthe turning and bouncing would probably aim the beam wrong faster than it could compensate
- kjksf 4y agoStarlink has tested their stuff on fighter jets. They are already selling commercial service for airlines. So yeah, it'll work at the speed of a van. https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-x https://www.tesmanian.com/blogs/tesmanian-blog/starlink-x https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlines-for-free-starlink-wi-fi-on-flights.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/25/spacex-signs-hawaiian-airlin...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mlyle 4y agohttps://i0.wp.com/www.tuckstruck.net/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Ping-Plot-in-Motion.png?w=1711&ssl=1 https://i0.wp.com/www.tuckstruck.net/wp-content/uploads/2022... Actual recordings in motion of normal end-user terminal in motion. It works OK-ish. But a lot of packet loss (completely lost packets) and latency spikes (from retransmits). Of course, with ground hardware built for in-motion, you could do significantly better. Source: https://www.tuckstruck.net/truck-and-kit/geekery/starlink-mobile-roaming/ https://www.tuckstruck.net/truck-and-kit/geekery/starlink-mo... I'm guessing utilization is rather high with retransmits, etc-- which is probably a driving factor of Starlink prohibiting in-motion use in EULA. Note it's not really the speed that matters. It's suddenly having a much different bearing to the satellite because you have begun a turn or hit a dip in the road that matters.
- handmodel 4y agoI do hope this turns out to be workable and scalable fast. Thinking of RVs reminds me of the cruise ship I was just on. I actually liked the cruise much more than I had guessed but even the premium service was terrible. I would think the cruise ship would be happy to shell out for better internet - could actually see remote working from a cruise if so.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nitsuaeekcm 4y agoFrom their ToS: Best Effort Service for RV Users. Network resources are always deprioritized for Starlink RVs users compared to other Starlink Services, resulting in degraded service and slower speeds in congested areas and during peak hours. Stated speeds and uninterrupted use of the Service are not guaranteed. Service degradation will occur most often in "Waitlist" areas designated on the Starlink Availability Map during peak usage hours. See the Starlink Specifications for expected performance of the Starlink for RV Services.
- jabart 4y agoVerizon has the similar rules. Found out the hard way what unlimited and premium unlimited access gets you in terms of speeds.
- zamadatix 4y agoI'm not sure it could even work any other way. Either mobile users are subject to deprioritization or there is no such thing as guaranteed service for anyone, including mobile users still.
- bombcar 4y agoIt’d kinda be a fun feature to implement paid priority - someone on mobile can pay $5 to be prioritized and someone fixed who offered to be deprioritized gets $4 or something.
- unstatedAnswers 4y agoAnd then I start hogging usage to increase the odds that I get paid money to stop using it.
- thematrixturtle 4y agoThen implement auctions, spot markets, tradeable tokens, consultancies to help you optimize your purchasing strategy...
- bri3d 4y agoI really wonder why they don't introduce new hardware. I know the system is fairly complex (tons of TI frontends building a big steerable phased array antenna), but the current hardware is awful for RV and really any use. There's a motor-oriented rectangular "dish" with a mandatory 1+ foot mounting arm, which stows in only one vertical orientation. Then, there are proprietary micro-HDMI esque connectors on both ends of a vendor provided fixed-length CAT5e from the dish to the router. For RVs, all of these are awful - the dish can't lie flat and must be brought inside for transit, and wiring is an unnecessary hassle. As a Starlink user, my take is pretty much that the core technology is revolutionary in specific areas, but the product itself is mediocre in both cost and implementation. I wish they'd "unchain" the system with less bizarre hardware.
- LegitShady 4y ago>product itself is mediocre in both cost and implementation they're not interested in competing on cost, because they have no real competition. implementation will improve I'm sure.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- mbreese 4y ago> Starlink for RVs is not designed for use while in motion. This is really their current service, but not strictly limited to only one location cell. So, you can use it whenever you reach your destination, but it isn’t designed to be used while you’re in motion.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- girvo 4y agoThough you absolutely can use it in motion, surprisingly, as long as you're moving in roughly a straight line (in rural areas).
- cultofmetatron 4y agoHAHA russia is "coming soon." thats incredibly optomistic
- goodguyamerikan 4y ago
- ShivShankaran 4y agoRussia is "unavailable". where do you see "coming soon"? or did they change it now?
- cultofmetatron 4y agoah my colorblindness makes it a little tough. I thought it was black
- macintux 4y agoIt’s a very unfriendly color scheme even without colorblindness.
- ShivShankaran 4y agoIt doesnt matter. by weaponizing the dollar repeatedly, biden has made the world turn the world against any US technology. 135 out of 165 countries in the world rejected US call for sanctioning Russia. George Bush: Sorry I killed 500,000 people for absurd reason in Iraq. "hahahaha". Russia: we dont want missiles on our door step and we will invade. "russia hur durr, putin eats babies, has cancer , rabid shriekings"
- Boltgolt 4y agoRight, the invasion of Ukraine is totally fins cause the invasion of Iraq also happened
- ghuntley 4y agoHey folks. I’ve had Starlink (standard service) mounted on my van for the last three months travelling around Australia with roaming off. Has been a game changer for working remotely and helping build Gitpod. It works just fine even when driving [1] or at techno bush doofs [2]. [1] https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwqGrP/?k=1 https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwqGrP/?k=1 [2] https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwbq2b/?k=1 https://vt.tiktok.com/ZSdXwbq2b/?k=1 Happy to answer any questions.
- treelovinhippie 4y ago
- pkaye 4y agoHow long after the van stops moving does the connection get established?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ghuntley 4y agoStarlink at 110km/h works fine if you are going in a straight line. It's when one does a whole bunch of turns navigating around suburban streets when service isn't great so have it configured as a primary link with my 4g array (https://ghuntley.com/internet https://ghuntley.com/internet) as the fallback for those type of scenarios. After the van stops moving it takes about 1 minute at max to relock and be functional as max speeds. Essentially what happens when lock is lost is the dish goes flat and looks right up (even when driving), finds a satellite and provides marginal connectivity, about a minute after that point it slants and provides exceptional connectivity.
- pavon 4y agoFrom what I understand, in the US the FCC licensing for fixed location transmitters, relocatable transmitters, and transmitting while in motion are different (sorry can't remember the official terms). These stations may not be approved to transmit while in motion, and so Starlink may put technical restrictions in place to prevent use while moving. The license applications they put in for ruggedised terminals, intended for marine use and the like, requested ability to transmit in motion, but I think these are standard terminals (certainly not gimbled or gyro stabilzed) and aren't covered by that license. We'll have to wait and see until people start receiving stations and testing them out.
- thecolorblue 4y agoI'm a little surprised they didn't mention use on a boat. I thought that would be a bigger market, as in, they could charge whatever they want to mega yacht owners. Maybe there is not as much coverage over the oceans?
- labster 4y agoGuesses: the hardware isn’t well tested near salt water, and there aren’t many base stations mid-ocean. Plenty of satellite coverage though in the ocean, just not too usable without laser beams.
- Scoundreller 4y agoI wish they set up stabilized solar powered buoys that could serve as dumb-pipes between satellites. Maybe the speed would be limited, but I don't think ocean-farers are too picky. Latency should still be better than anything GEO-sat-based. Obstructions should be limited. But this requires overlapping sats in-view.
- panick21_ 4y agoWhy would they do that. They are already deploying laser powered sats and all nee once are.
- Scoundreller 4y agoAssuming inter-sat links work as promised.
- panick21_ 4y agoThey would not be going forward deploying 100s of them. They had a test launch of those a year+ ago with a full batch and now every launch only launches with inter-sat links.
- 4y ago
- 0xbadcafebee 4y agoguess i'm joining #vanlife then
- linsomniac 4y agoDetails: $600 hardware, $100 tax+shipping, $135/mo, you can pause and unpause service.
- darknavi 4y agoSo expensive and yet so attractive.
- UberFly 4y ago2400 satellites cost a lot these days :)
- amelius 4y agoIt's more a matter of how many users they can serve from one satellite.
- mlindner 4y agoIndirectly yes, but it's more accurate to talk about how may users they can serve in a given area. With the current constellation they've actually maxed out the capability of it in most of the eastern half of the United States. https://www.starlink.com/map https://www.starlink.com/map
- partiallypro 4y agoI unfortunately cancelled my Starlink preorder because they raised the monthly price (because of inflation???) and the equipment cost (because of inflation, this one is more understandable) suddenly and despite my first day preorder I had still not received my unit over a year later.
- rlt 4y agoWhy is it unreasonable to raise the monthly price because of inflation? Inflation affects all costs: satellites, ground stations/network, salaries, etc.
- devenson 4y agoaverages 48 to 74 watts for the rectangular antenna
- jcadam 4y agoStill waiting for SL at my cabin in Alaska, Elon.
- walrus01 4y agoWatch for more highly inclined orbit launches from vandenberg, polar orbit and highly inclined orbit is not possible (safely) from florida. The Wikipedia page for a list of starlink launches has a column for orbital inclination. They just recently finished construction of an earth station in ketchikan, which is quite public and obvious. Almost certainly there will be something for more Northern latitudes, when there is a sufficient number of satellites to actually make it usable without significant gaps.
- jcadam 4y agoThanks. Hadn't seen the launch schedule. Starlink keeps saying "2022" for service in my area (I made a deposit over a year ago). I'm on the Kenai Peninsula, so not too far North. I'm currently on a wide area wireless provider with a directional antenna on a mast mounted to my roof (rates are very expensive - but it works), but at least it's better than having to go with one of the GEO providers. Though, annoyingly, performance degrades noticeably during tourist season in the summer. Tourists: stop coming to Alaska. The mosquitoes will eat you.
- mlindner 4y agoUnfortunately as you're at around 60 degrees north. "2022" is almost certainly incorrect as they haven't even begun to launch the high latitude constellations yet. They launched 51 test satellites to the high latitude, but they're not launching any more of them yet and seem focused on filling out the 53.2 degrees north/south constellation first. This wiki section has info about each section. The "inclination" section basically sets the maximum northern latitude that the service will work to (plus a little bit as the signal goes further north than the satellites are). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Constellation_design_and_status https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Constellation_design_...
- oxplot 4y agoFor those not aware, Starlink has no problem with working in motion as it's used on airplanes travelling at 1000km/h. This is more of availability announcement for end users.
- mlindner 4y agoThis isn't really true. Starlink is not designed for working in motion and the ToS explicitly says it's not supported, including for this service.
- oxplot 4y agoStarlink user terminal is "physically" not designed for working in motion. That is, it has not passed any safety tests that ensures it won't dismount, and fly off and damage property or injure people. The Starlink system is absolutely designed to work at high speeds (both as evident from comments in this post from people maintaining connection at 100km/h to it being deployed on airplanes).
- mlindner 4y agoThere's also the physical tests of the motors being able to withstand the wind force loading. And no it's not designed to work at high speeds. People keep confusing "designed to work at" with "possible to use outside of recommended conditions". The system being deployed on airplanes is somewhat different than the one being sold to consumers.
- oxplot 4y agoFrom the horse's mouth: https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1529089543969943553
- mlindner 4y agoWork doesn't mean work correctly. And he also said that the warranty is void in such case. https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1528879210500132866 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1528879210500132866
- frankfrankfrank 4y agoOn a side note; I really wish there were more of an effort to provide a low bandwidth version of the internet, e.g., methods that allow common web technologies to automatically step down to deliver low bandwidth versions of their content, services, and tools on request. As someone that grew up on the internet of yesteryear it is really frustrating when, e.g., some google site is once again buffer overflowing all over my browser or some website of low content quality is a bloated 100-200 MB disaster. Does AirBnB really need to be 200MB just to load the homepage (note saying airbnb is the disaster)? I'm just saying. There is always this lamenting about climate change, while very many types who lament that issue, are often heavily in one way or another involved in an extremely wasteful and inefficient sector ... the internet. What is the energy cost of a 100MB website over a 10MB website? How about GB of wasteful and unnecessary data being served up every single month. I suspect a lot at scale. To pick on AirBnB again; sure, offer the 200MB site, but how about also making a big deal about offering a low power consumption version for repeat visitors. We are trying to save the planet and such, aren't we? Or is that just for those without private jets? Just my two cent.
- yopawngungmstyl 4y agoThat's a great idea! Some news websites do offer low-bandwidth options, like NPR: https://text.npr.org/ https://text.npr.org/ You also used to be able to interact with Twitter solely through SMS. I think there are two big reasons why this sort of design philosophy is uncommon: * Addiction to heavy JS frameworks and libraries. * More bandwidth = more ads.
- danhor 4y agoWhile I also dislike bloated websites, I suspect the climate impact is rather neglible. The internet as a whole needs a few percent of global power, and the vast majority of that is going to be (video) streaming. Most heavy JS is going to be static and running on very efficient end devices. The worst case estimates seem to be 7kWh/GiG (2012) (the best case much less than a 0.1 kWh/Gig, but only including network), which is ~60 km in electrical cars or 15 km in petrol cars. (The latter two only including the incremental energy usage). The additionally induced trips by AirBnB (especially flying) are going to be so much worse than their website could ever be. Energy usage data is from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jiec.12630 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/jiec.12630 (with very old & high estimates disregarded). In 2022 the internet will probably be more efficient, the study estimates a halving every 2 years. So naively (very naively) extrapolating the 7kWh/Gig figure from 2012 to now is less than half a kWh/Gig.
- fy20 4y agoNow COVID is over I was planning to slowly travel to a few different countries around Europe this summer, and work while I'm there. Internet in certain countries (cough Italy cough) is spotty at best, even when you are in big cities, so having a LTE backup is usually a wise choice. Although the EU now has 'no roaming charges' there are no providers that let you freely roam to other countries and use your plan exactly as you would at home without restrictions. At home I can get a plan with unlimited calls, texts and data for 15€/mo, but I can only use 10GB of data in other EU countries. After that I need to pay 3€/GB - which will get expensive quickly with the number of Zoom calls I need to be on. Buying a prepay local SIM is often still a smart choice, but in some countries that's difficult (to actually get the SIM) and prepay plans don't always have unlimited data options. If you need to travel a lot between countries where that's the case, or just want less hassle, the price of Starlink starts to seem a lot more affordable.
- wasmitnetzen 4y agoIf you need it for work, it might be worth it looking into a business contract. Those are usually way more generous with roaming (and everything else, really) than consumer ones.
- jhgb 4y ago> Now COVID is over Excuse me, what?
- mlindner 4y agoBecause COVID has largely regressed into a mostly non-fatal illness. It's not there yet, but it is somewhat approaching the death rates from the flu.
- jhgb 4y ago...it's been a "mostly non-fatal illness" all along. That has not changed.
- fy20 4y agoThat's how it feels in my country at least. We had 21 cases today, compared to a few thousand this time last year. Masks and restrictions were one of the strictest in Europe, and it's all gone now.
- ck2 4y ago40ms latency according to realword reports seems really impressive to me Will starlink ever have a competitor or will they be free to slowly crank up prices as being become "hooked"? Even a duopoly may not keep prices in check.
- wmf 4y agoAmazon Kuiper is going to compete.
- tomatoman 4y agoWhy not in Venezuela where they really need it?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kelp 4y agoI bought a Starlink for my house in Tahoe to hopefully use as backup internet for when Spectrum goes down. They go down every time the power goes out, so even with backup power, I'd have no internet. Starlink would have solved that. Unfortunately it's quite expensive for a backup internet plan. Being able to cancel and activate it at will with this new RV plan would help a lot with that. And while Starlink speeds are nice for what it is, I'd prefer to use my 1Gbps cable modem most of the time. Sadly for me, I tried putting the Starlink dish in several spots on my roof and deck, but I just have too many trees around my house. 100 foot tall jeffry pines all around the house. Starlink was always reporting about 12% obstructed, so it expected a drop out every 45 seconds or so. It was usable, but packet loss here and there. I don't think that was going to work well for any kind of video calls, etc. So I ended up returning the Starlink dish. It really needs too much view of the sky for heavily wooded areas. They aren't kidding when they say that. My fall back plan is to use a 5G/LTE hotspot with an outdoor antenna to make up for my usable but fairly week cell service in the area, and use that for my backup internet.
- throwaway742 4y agoI have Spectrum as well and my service stays on when the power goes out for at least as long as my UPS lasts. I don't have a generator (apartment) so I don't know for sure how long it lasts.
- kelp 4y agoNot here in my experience. My gear is is all on UPS. It will all be up, but the second the power goes out, so does Spectrum.
- throwaway742 4y agoDamn that sucks. I wonder if it has something to do with me being in an urban area or something. Maybe they have business customers with SLAs so they need backup power.
- driverdan 4y agoLTE makes more sense in most areas. It's cheaper and with good hardware you can get the same speeds, depending on the provider.
- edmcnulty101 4y agoDoes anyone know what the power draw is? What kind of battery rig would need to power this?
- drodio 4y agoI’ll be running Starlink off an Inergy solar generator at the Placerville adventure expo on June 3rd if anyone wants to see it in action. http://go.drod.io/InergyVanlife http://go.drod.io/InergyVanlife
- k8sToGo 4y agoHmm. Can't be ordered in Switzerland but in Germany? Since there is no support, I don't think I would want to bother with this.
- tluyben2 4y agoI don't know too much about it, but a few of my friends who have a normal one and on reddit I saw starlink doesn't work beyond country boundaries... that is a real no-no in the EU as for instance popping from Spain to pt or pt to Spain to France or Belgium to France or NL would be things I do a lot. Does the RV version fix that? I have mobile subs that work well throughout the EU: I would buy starlink if it works smoothly throughout the EU. The boundaries are artificial and at the cost for this thing, I cannot see how it is a good deal unless I am somewhere (in the same country?) where there is no mobile signal.
- mlindner 4y agoThis is a regulatory issue in the EU I believe.
- hackernewds 4y agowhy do those boundaries exist? Project Fi works just fine
- tluyben2 4y agoGoogle Fi looks like a mobile plan? I never checked it because cannot order that in the EU.
- steveoscaro 4y agoThe fine print for the Starlink RV system says you can use the terminal outside of your registered country for 2 months, after that you'd have to change the registered address to whatever country you're using it in.
- tluyben2 4y agoThe thing is that people with RVs in Europe usually hop around countries a lot. In Australia or the US there is enough space in the country. Almost everyone who has an RV stay 2-3 months per country and then go to another. A group of people who rock up to where I live are old friends together from Sweden who come over in 7 RVs for 2 months via Germany, Denmark, France , Spain, Portugal and Morocco.
- t8y 4y agoHopefully soon they will make Starlink as a hat.
- stefanv 4y agoWhat are the differences between residential, business and RV? It's only a matter of allocated bandwidth and pricing, or there is more to it?
- danw1979 4y agoWhat’s the state of the inter-sat lasers in the starlink fleet nowadays ? Wondering when we might see global coverage including the open ocean… I guess you’d need a gimballed antenna for boat use maybe ?
- mlindner 4y agoOnly around one quarter of them are in their operational positions, with just over one half of them having been launched (the other one quarter is either raising their orbits or drifting into position). So it's not quite enough to run a service on yet, for that portion. Stats here: https://planet4589.org/space/stats/star/starstats.html https://planet4589.org/space/stats/star/starstats.html
- jazzythom 4y agoI want to take the dish to bits and repurpose it with SDR. Probably could never afford it though
- altgans 4y agoAnyone knows what the few dark spots in the availability map in Germany are? https://www.starlink.com/map?source=rv https://www.starlink.com/map?source=rv My first guess would be military and/or science, but I don't think this holds true.
- lgbr 4y agoThe dark spot near the border with Belgium is possibly due to heavy use of Starlink after the flooding last year, and therefore Starlink is probably over provisioned there. The dark spot in Bavaria I can't be certain, but I suspect it's also a result of over provisioning, since that area is particularly rural and may not have thorough DSL coverage.
- usrn 4y agoI guess now I really could just move onto my sailboat and work from there.
- voakbasda 4y agoI'm guessing that this only works when parked. I wonder when Starlink will be able to track satellites from a platform that has fully dynamic position, orientation, and obstructions. I had Starlink for a short time but had to send it back for a refund. I desperately wanted it to replace my 20Mbit DSL, but I could not place the dish anywhere that was not blocked by trees. Even with a small portion of the sky blocked, I was getting constant drops that made me unwilling to make the further investment of switching over all of my infrastructure to use it. Ultimately, my issues stemmed from the required field of view being oriented in a northerly direction, whereas my southerly view from the same location is completely clear of obstructions. I occasionally pull out the app to check whether they have removed that limitation, but it still looks to the north as of this writing.