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Starlink terminal revision 4: overview and tests
- superkuh 3y agoFast mirror: https://web.archive.org/web/20240223192456/https://olegkutkov.me/2024/02/12/starlink-terminal-revision-4-overview-and-tests/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240223192456/https://olegkutko...
- morphle 3y agoThat is because this Ukrainan's website is hosted on an expensive $14.95 webhost plan https://fozzy.com/us/shared-hosting.shtml https://fozzy.com/us/shared-hosting.shtml
- mjevans 3y agoI'm way more excited about the super stable jitter than the downlink speed. Parameter REV3 REV4 Download speed, Mbps 199 307 Upload speed, Mbps 10 15 Average ping, ms 93 88 Jitter, ms 111.9 9.2 Max power, W 55 100
- liotier 3y ago> I'm way more excited about the super stable jitter Indeed - significant quality of life improvement for drone operators !
- morphle 3y agoI'm afraid it's mostly the opposite, a death rate improvement. I can't find the publication with the official soldier death toll numbers - not that you can trust any wartime publication - but the second highest death toll was for Ukrainian drone operators. The highest still is for Starlink terminal operators, mostly soldiers too. I spoke with a few while they where under fire and we both where scared as hell that they would target the Starlink dish (it has two very unique radio signatures) while we where video conferencing with it. Now its worse, the Russians also use them [1]. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/ukraine-intelligence-confirms-russian-forces-using-starlink https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/2/11/ukraine-intelligenc...
- inemesitaffia 3y agoThey've been warned to stop using Wi-Fi especially the stock router. Russia has publicly mentioned having 2.4 and 5 Ghz truck mounted scanners (Tobol)
- dkjaudyeqooe 3y agoI'm probably clueless, but wouldn't it be of benefit to run long cables to place transmitting antennas at a safe distance from the operator? I'm thinking something like 100m but maybe that doesn't make much difference under shelling.
- morphle 3y agoFirstly, Starlink cables are 1 Gbps ethernet with PoE [1]. This means 53V DC power over thin twisted pair cables, after a few meters the voltage drops below 48V DC and the cables start showing up in infrared because they are heated by the electrical resistance. Standard Starlink cables can't reach further than +/- 30 meters reliably. Those 30 meters run to the wifi router where your power supply must be. You certainly can't be mobile anymore with this setup. We use optical fiber instead but this requires a very large, heavy and warm battery to stay very close to the Starlink dish while the operator can now be kilometers away. You can now disable the Starlink Wifi router but only if you patch the encrypted firmware and spoof the account credentials. SpaceX calls that illegal and will disable and brick your hardware as soon as they find out. Doing this extensive conversion is only for very capable hackers and has been done by only three people on our planet, as far as I am aware [2][3]. If you need similar patching and optical wireing, we will be happy to eductate you, for a small fee. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet [2] https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-terminal-firmware/ https://hackaday.com/2023/08/31/diving-into-starlinks-user-t... [3] https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/ https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/
- inemesitaffia 3y agoUse a Yaosheng injector
- BiteCode_dev 3y agoSub 100 ms of ping is super good for space internet, but with 111 of Jitter it meant not much. With 9.2, 88 will always feel like sub 100, and that's indeed a huge quality of life.
- FuriouslyAdrift 3y agoBenefits of low earth orbit...
- olyjohn 3y agoI'm on a gen 1 dish. And sometimes my ping is under 20ms, usually it's around 40-60. This guys ping is terrible, and he has shitloads of obstructions.
- NelsonMinar 3y agoI'm a little skeptical about that jitter comparison, I'd like to see more info. I don't see anything in this excellent report that sheds light on the difference (and honestly don't see that difference in the graphs.) Mostly I'm curious how the hardware is the limiting factor here, I always assumed it was a combination of queueing in the Starlink infrastructure plus retransmits. Maybe a better antenna lowers the number of retransmits needed? I don't have a proper jitter measure, but FWIW my Gen 1 Starlink in Grass Valley, CA has a round trip time (measured with IRTT) that varies from 30-60ms over minutes. That improved significantly in January 2024 after some change Starlink made. Previously it was more like 40-100ms.
- newsclues 3y agoMax power nearly doubled for these improvements but did average power consumption also increase?
- alach11 3y agoDidn't the FTC just cut funding to Starlink in December for failing to meet the download speed targets? Seems like that decision was really premature, seeing as how they had years remaining to meet the targets and they're showing rapid improvement year-over-year.
- panick21_ 3y agoBecause it was based on politics and not reality.
- morphle 3y agoPolitics not discussed in public was behind it.
- hobotime 3y agoMusk also runs Twitter and needs to be punished.
- inemesitaffia 3y agoFCC
- morphle 3y ago[flagged]
- diggan 3y agoI love the ideas behind what they do, but it'll take a long time before I trust any of those companies again. Back in 2018 I made a reservation for a Powerwall, and after waiting a couple of months and not hearing anything back, I've written a request to have the reservation fee (500EUR) returned to me, once every 6 months or so, without hearing back from a single person ever, even after writing multiple different email addresses. That they can't agree on the pricing for a dish model doesn't surprise me a bit, they seem so disorganized even in their public marketing.
- morphle 3y agoAfter 28 months I still can not get my second Starlink dish and account activated. You can't find an address, phone number or email to contact the company. They do offer a chat function to a helpdesk (which is not the Starlink/SpaceX company) but of course these people can't do anything for you, certainly not activate your account! Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the worst. My other account was working for two months but then Starlink changed the payment form GUI and suddenly they no longer accepted my European bank accounts or Apple Pay or iDeal payment systems anymore, only credit card numbers. European people rarely have credit cards and certainly can't suddenly aquire one while roaming. And of course it would only work if you had a working roaming internet... wait a minute.... When I eventually had opened a new bank account with a credit card at great cost and expense, Starlink of course did not accept it. No recourse, no contact, no payments, nada. Anyone want to buy two revision 3 Starlink dishes, as-is, where-is, never been used? [1]. [1] From an Australian personals ad: "Rain gauge for sale, as-is-where-is, never been used". A joke told by Bush Tucker Man Les Hiddens while traveling in the Australian outback desert.
- IshKebab 3y ago> European people rarely have credit cards What? Almost everyone has a debit card and credit cards are very normal. I found some stats: https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit_cards/ https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/people_with_credit... 50-60% is not rare. And presumably they didn't specifically require credit cards rather than debit cards, which are even more common.
- brianshaler 3y agoAs a new Starlink customer, they didn't do a great job of communicating the REV3 -> REV4 transition. While they primarily displayed the kickstand version (plus alternative mount options) it was vague enough that I was surprised to open the box and not see the tripod everyone else's dish seemed to have come with. To get to the order page, you first put in a delivery address and from there they simply hid mentions to the REV3/articulated option which is still shown for non-U.S. delivery addresses. In a way, it's great not to have the extra moving parts and complications that come with articulation. Performance-wise, REV4 seems to work fine even when the app complains about misalignment. On anchor, a boat can easily swing +/- 20° within a minute while bobbing around a few degrees, which means any increase in range and power helps considerably. My only disappointment is the power consumption that is likely inevitable with the wider-range static terminal. The possibility of cutting power draw by 30-50% makes me wonder if I should downgrade to a secondhand REV3.
- inemesitaffia 3y agoThe power consumption might improve (it's happened before) but buying something older or even two to have one in reserve might be better
- temp0826 3y agoI don't imagine we'll be getting the upgrade anytime soon (in Mexico, and logistically in general I don't know how an upgrade/swap would be handled). The jitter/etc fixes look great, but we are off-grid here on limited solar power (we have to unplug the fridge every night or we won't have any battery left in the morning). So a little disappointed to see increased power consumption (glad that we would never need the snowmelt feature here).
- arthie 3y agoA mobile dishy will be released sometime later this year. I imagine this version will prioritise power efficiency and size. This version should have lower power consumption at the cost of network performance.
- temp0826 3y agoInteresting, hadn't considered that the mobile equipment would be different. I do think the mobile service monthly charge is higher than the standard/stationary service?
- biomcgary 3y agoI believe it ~50% higher and you have lower priority than stationary terminals. (I haven't reviewed this for a few months, though.)
- xoa 3y agoFirst deployed Starlink start of 2021 as part of the beta, and it's remained a rock. Glad to see it continuing to evolve, and very much looking forward to how the network improves further once Starship starts letting them get up full size v2+ sats. But as someone who started with and is still running a bunch of the gen1 dishy's for various clients, I do regret that SpaceX chose to move away from (let alone improve) having the terminal by default be useful as a plain dedicated WAN with no pushing of their router at all. You could certainly use their router if you wanted, but could also just plug the power brick directly into a regular network and that was that (which is what we've done, generally via simple fiber translator). At least on the more expensive business version it'd be great to have native SFP or separate data plugs, power directly off a standard 12V terminal, etc, the way normal high performance outdoor networking gear works. It's certainly possible to work around it, but it's an irritation and diminishes the experience to not have things integrate as smoothly as they should (and indeed as they did). That said they've been evolving it rapidly, dropped the price, and it's really Just Worked. For all fixed locations I really wish there was fiber too, but until that happy day arrives sometime in the distant future I'm really grateful for what Starlink has enabled for rural internet.
- morphle 3y agoI build custom setups with laser, fiber optic, SFP+ and QSFP28 switches and openflow routers, outdoor enclosures, airborne and watertight enclosures, low speed and high speed directional and gimballed mobile mountings, battery and solar 24/7 power supplies, drone carriers, etc. >For all [rural] fixed locations I really wish there was fiber too Happy to help you out here. Think bundeling many patched firmware Starlinks up to 10 Gbps to jump-start the rural backbone, then extend it for 100km for $10K. 36 years experience. Our Fiberhood speciality is rural, easier, cheaper, DIY deployable and already in more locations than you think [1]. Guerilla fiber plus instant Starlink. [1]https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309254511_Fiberhood_Smart_Grid https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309254511_Fiberhood...
- inemesitaffia 3y agoSelling $3k equipment for $500 is the path to a death spiral. Especially when shipping equipment to a warzone where the equipment life is around 3 months and several of the users don't appreciate the losses. Starlink is doing value engineering so there's a company tomorrow. They hope to be the first constellation to recover lifetime costs and profit. Avoiding bankruptcy
- MegaDeKay 3y agoI am surprised that both this and the previous version state an operating temperature only down to -30C. If it really does stop working at that temperature, that would definitely be a problem for me. It regularly gets colder than that where I live, including just a couple days ago. I would want to know that it worked down to -40C before going this route.
- morphle 3y agoYour batteries will also be in trouble.
- MegaDeKay 3y agoFolks around here don't cheap out buying car batteries, that's for sure. Trickle chargers and battery blankets help as well when things get really cold, as do block heaters that make it easier for the battery to turn the engine over and get it started.
- jiveturkey 3y agoif you have terrestrial internet, why would you want starlink at all? if you don't have terrestrial internet, i'm doubtful there's another solution that goes so cold. are you currently using such a solution? please share if so.
- MegaDeKay 3y agoI have broadband wireless internet run by our provincial telco. The antenna on my roof accesses a tower about 10km away. It works in -40C weather just fine and has for years. Hardware is by Huawei (yeah I know, but my options are limited). I live in a rural area and other forms of internet (ADSL, cable) are out of the question. I'm looking for alternatives because I am limited to 5Mbps down and 1Mbps up and pay extra per month after 100G of data. There are plans that can at most double those data rates but it starts getting expensive.
- jiveturkey 3y ago> The main difference is the PoE circuit. Now, it’s on a separate board. This PCB receives 48 PoE ... Can anyone suss out from the text, if REV4 would work with what kind of PoE? I have what must be a REV3 dish, powered by a custom power source due to incompatibility of the "PoE" used by REV3. I'm doing that to avoid using the starlink router/AP piece. This is a standard, well-blogged about solution. I thought PoE was good for up to (or exactly?) 56V, so I guess the incompatibility in REV3 is more about the wattage delivered, not the voltage. I would be eager to get a REV4 just for the jitter improvement, which is a big issue for me. If it also can use standard PoE, that's another huge win. Or at least, if it can use the same kind of power supply I'm using for REV3, that's fine as well.
- jiveturkey 3y agoOh, I see from the writeup now that the power consumption is quite high due to the heater. The main PCB is just pulling out PoE standard power probably because that just makes sense from BOM POV. But the input power to the dish itself needs to support the heater as well.