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Man, this was exciting back in the day, but now big risk you'll get blown out by Starlink. Starlink can just put high-speed internet into everyone's backyards.

bityard 3y ago
At twice the price of cable and fiber, at least in my backyard...
- Alupis 3y ago
  And vastly slower speeds... Starlink is a replacement for dial-up, satellite, and in some cases legacy DSL- pretty much nothing else.
  - freedomben 3y ago
    I think this is going to depend somewhat on how congested your area is, but Starlink is my home ISP and I sometimes get faster (download) speeds at home than I do at the office where we have fiber at 200 Mbps down. It has a little more variance but is consistently quite fast. If the backend is on GCP, it amazes me how fast it will go.
    - stephen_g 3y ago
      Why does your office only have fibre at 200Mbps down? Last office I was involved in setting up, we didn’t need symmetrical gigabit but the cost was fairly inconsequential compared to lower speeds, so we just went with the gigabit… Really strange that service providers even bother running fibre at lower speeds for commercial accounts…
  - dboreham 3y ago
    That's simply not true in my direct experience. I built a WISP back in the day, and although I don't have customers now, I still use the backhaul network to feed my office (typing this over that network). I have Starlink as a backup. Starlink is about as fast as my fixed wireless terrestrial link. It's often faster for download, and about 2/3 as fast for upload. Way, way faster than dialup and DSL.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      What kind of equipment are you using? Have you realigned it recently? You can push gigabit[1] ptp over the air these days for pretty cheap. Starlink seems to top out around 200Mbps in the best case. [1] https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/uisp-wireless-airfiber-ptp-5-ghz/products/af-5u https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/uisp-wireless-airfibe...
      - voidmain0001 3y ago
        1Gbs? Why not go for 6Gbs? https://ca.store.ui.com/ca/en/pro/category/all-60ghz-wireless/products/af60-xg https://ca.store.ui.com/ca/en/pro/category/all-60ghz-wireles...
        Alupis 3y ago
        Well, 60Ghz might be licensed spectrum. I'm not sure beyond 5 and 2.4Ghz - been a while since I followed the WISP space. That is a lot of Gbps over the air, either way! Ubiquiti has had impressive WISP kit for as long as I can remember.
  - zachmu 3y ago
    I'm on the basic plan and usually see about 75mbps. It can drop to 20 or so during peak netflix hours. But that's still plenty fast enough for multiple HD video streams. What we had before was much slower and much, much less reliable. If you can get a fast wired connection, do it. Starlink is for people who can't, and it's far and away the best option for them.
    - Alupis 3y ago
      What kind of wired connection did you have previously? The target audience for Starlink in the continental US seems to be people who's other options are traditional satellite, dial-up, or sometimes DSL (typically implying you're in a more rural area, but not always). For people in those situations, Starlink can be a good alternative. However, if you have access to modern cable or FTTH... well, it's not a substitute.
- butshouldyou 3y ago
  Regional pricing means it's 500-560 USD up-front to buy the receiver. Then, 50-100 USD per month for the residential plan, which includes unlimited data. That's not too bad. However, there's no speed listed. Third party reviews state 100/10 Mbps (up/down), which is not too bad considering the same site states a UK average of 75/15. The vast majority of the UK has pretty slow speeds. That said, unlimited internet subscriptions over fiber can be had for as little as 20 USD per month, which is far cheaper.
  - _mlbt 3y ago
    Spectrum is charging me $85 a month (and constantly increasing) for internet (JUST internet) that clocks out at about 200 Mbps, so that really doesn't sound all that bad.
- lh7777 3y ago
  In my area, fiber and cable aren’t available. If you’re lucky, you can get 5 mbps DSL for $70+ per month. The only credible options are WISP, Starlink, and cellular. WISP is the same price as Starlink and is slower / less reliable. Cellular is cheaper but gets slow at peak hours. In short, the local WISP has been losing a lot of customers to Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet.
quinncom 3y ago
Until Starlink can lower prices to < $10/month, community-level ISPs will still be relevant to many locations (LatAm, etc). Starlink uplinks might even be used by the ISPs. I lived in a village in Colombia, population about 2000, which had four competing wireless ISPs. The quality was extremely low, but so were the prices.
KerrAvon 3y ago
Starlink can't currently compete with cable and fiber speeds, and it's a Musk business, so it'll probably collapse when his house of cards comes down.
TheRealPomax 3y ago
Hmm, not really. Starlink only offers 150mbit, at $150/mo, whereas the costs for starting your ISP as presented here is about $25k up front and $3k/mo to keep it running. That's ridiculous for one person, but entirely economically viable if you're literally starting your own local ISP to service a few hundred homes, driving down the one-time signup and monthly fees to something drastically lower than what Starlink charges, for speeds that are drastically higher than what Starlink offers. But as any business venture: if you don't know whether you can get the customers, you better have the cash lying around to pay for everything yourself =D
komali2 3y ago
Don't Starlink satellites only last 5 years? I'm not sure it's a sustainable solution compared to towers and lain cable.
- dotnet00 3y ago
  Considering that they're still iterating on and launching satellites, it doesn't really matter that they'll only last 5 years. It isn't like they're launching the constellation and then sitting on it waiting for the satellites to fall out of the sky. For now they're having to launch a Falcon 9 twice a week to build up the constellation, but with Starship intended to be able to launch the equivalent of several F9 launches in one go, maintaining the constellation will become much easier.

bityard 3y ago

At twice the price of cable and fiber, at least in my backyard...

Alupis 3y ago
And vastly slower speeds... Starlink is a replacement for dial-up, satellite, and in some cases legacy DSL- pretty much nothing else.
- freedomben 3y ago
  I think this is going to depend somewhat on how congested your area is, but Starlink is my home ISP and I sometimes get faster (download) speeds at home than I do at the office where we have fiber at 200 Mbps down. It has a little more variance but is consistently quite fast. If the backend is on GCP, it amazes me how fast it will go.
  - stephen_g 3y ago
    Why does your office only have fibre at 200Mbps down? Last office I was involved in setting up, we didn’t need symmetrical gigabit but the cost was fairly inconsequential compared to lower speeds, so we just went with the gigabit… Really strange that service providers even bother running fibre at lower speeds for commercial accounts…
- dboreham 3y ago
  That's simply not true in my direct experience. I built a WISP back in the day, and although I don't have customers now, I still use the backhaul network to feed my office (typing this over that network). I have Starlink as a backup. Starlink is about as fast as my fixed wireless terrestrial link. It's often faster for download, and about 2/3 as fast for upload. Way, way faster than dialup and DSL.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    What kind of equipment are you using? Have you realigned it recently? You can push gigabit[1] ptp over the air these days for pretty cheap. Starlink seems to top out around 200Mbps in the best case. [1] https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/uisp-wireless-airfiber-ptp-5-ghz/products/af-5u https://store.ui.com/us/en/collections/uisp-wireless-airfibe...
    - voidmain0001 3y ago
      1Gbs? Why not go for 6Gbs? https://ca.store.ui.com/ca/en/pro/category/all-60ghz-wireless/products/af60-xg https://ca.store.ui.com/ca/en/pro/category/all-60ghz-wireles...
      - Alupis 3y ago
        Well, 60Ghz might be licensed spectrum. I'm not sure beyond 5 and 2.4Ghz - been a while since I followed the WISP space. That is a lot of Gbps over the air, either way! Ubiquiti has had impressive WISP kit for as long as I can remember.
- zachmu 3y ago
  I'm on the basic plan and usually see about 75mbps. It can drop to 20 or so during peak netflix hours. But that's still plenty fast enough for multiple HD video streams. What we had before was much slower and much, much less reliable. If you can get a fast wired connection, do it. Starlink is for people who can't, and it's far and away the best option for them.
  - Alupis 3y ago
    What kind of wired connection did you have previously? The target audience for Starlink in the continental US seems to be people who's other options are traditional satellite, dial-up, or sometimes DSL (typically implying you're in a more rural area, but not always). For people in those situations, Starlink can be a good alternative. However, if you have access to modern cable or FTTH... well, it's not a substitute.
butshouldyou 3y ago
Regional pricing means it's 500-560 USD up-front to buy the receiver. Then, 50-100 USD per month for the residential plan, which includes unlimited data. That's not too bad. However, there's no speed listed. Third party reviews state 100/10 Mbps (up/down), which is not too bad considering the same site states a UK average of 75/15. The vast majority of the UK has pretty slow speeds. That said, unlimited internet subscriptions over fiber can be had for as little as 20 USD per month, which is far cheaper.
- _mlbt 3y ago
  Spectrum is charging me $85 a month (and constantly increasing) for internet (JUST internet) that clocks out at about 200 Mbps, so that really doesn't sound all that bad.
lh7777 3y ago
In my area, fiber and cable aren’t available. If you’re lucky, you can get 5 mbps DSL for $70+ per month. The only credible options are WISP, Starlink, and cellular. WISP is the same price as Starlink and is slower / less reliable. Cellular is cheaper but gets slow at peak hours. In short, the local WISP has been losing a lot of customers to Starlink and T-Mobile Home Internet.

quinncom 3y ago

Until Starlink can lower prices to < $10/month, community-level ISPs will still be relevant to many locations (LatAm, etc). Starlink uplinks might even be used by the ISPs. I lived in a village in Colombia, population about 2000, which had four competing wireless ISPs. The quality was extremely low, but so were the prices.

KerrAvon 3y ago

Starlink can't currently compete with cable and fiber speeds, and it's a Musk business, so it'll probably collapse when his house of cards comes down.

TheRealPomax 3y ago

Hmm, not really. Starlink only offers 150mbit, at $150/mo, whereas the costs for starting your ISP as presented here is about $25k up front and $3k/mo to keep it running. That's ridiculous for one person, but entirely economically viable if you're literally starting your own local ISP to service a few hundred homes, driving down the one-time signup and monthly fees to something drastically lower than what Starlink charges, for speeds that are drastically higher than what Starlink offers. But as any business venture: if you don't know whether you can get the customers, you better have the cash lying around to pay for everything yourself =D

komali2 3y ago

Don't Starlink satellites only last 5 years? I'm not sure it's a sustainable solution compared to towers and lain cable.

dotnet00 3y ago
Considering that they're still iterating on and launching satellites, it doesn't really matter that they'll only last 5 years. It isn't like they're launching the constellation and then sitting on it waiting for the satellites to fall out of the sky. For now they're having to launch a Falcon 9 twice a week to build up the constellation, but with Starship intended to be able to launch the equivalent of several F9 launches in one go, maintaining the constellation will become much easier.