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I 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 w
by kelp 4y ago
I 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.