Starlink - Anyone get it yet?

JimmyVik · 16-04-2021 12:36pm #1

A mate of mine cant get broadband at all.
He has signed up for Starlink, but hasnt got it yet.

celtic_oz · 20-04-2021 7:00pm

I too signed up (in Feb) .. was told in the confirmation email it would be second half of the year

Messer1 · 29-04-2021 11:19am

Seems that John Collison of Stripe may be the first Irish-based user. Performance was impressive, notwithstanding minimal traffic. As Musk says cool.

Zith · 29-04-2021 3:15pm

Would be interesting to see the ping value just missing on the left of that image.

[edit] got it from the twitter machine. 37ms not bad at all.

Messer1 · 20-05-2021 4:30pm

Zith wrote: »

Would be interesting to see the ping value just missing on the left of that image.

[edit] got it from the twitter machine. 37ms not bad at all.

Have been testing Starlink in Dublin for several days. Ping value has been consistently about 45.

theguzman · 20-05-2021 8:30pm

Messer1 wrote: »

Have been testing Starlink in Dublin for several days. Ping value has been consistently about 45.

Have you experienced any sat signal drops or outages?

One More Toy · 20-05-2021 8:31pm

Following this with interest

My parents live in a rural area, supposedly to be connected to the nbs by end of 2022

theguzman · 20-05-2021 8:35pm

One More Toy wrote: »

Following this with interest

My parents live in a rural area, supposedly to be connected to the nbs by end of 2022

Same with myself, I actually moved homes just last week as a direct result of lack of broadband, getting 15mb now and not ideal but far better than 1.5mb on 3G.

I had Starlink ordered and paid the €100 deposit so will just wait until they offer me the hardware and connection and then cancel for a refund. Both my current and previous house are pencilled in for Q3-Q4 of 2022 for NBI fibre and have both been surveyed already.

Messer1 · 21-05-2021 10:03am

theguzman wrote: »

Have you experienced any sat signal drops or outages?

The Starlink app provides detailed stats on this. Initially, when I plonked antenna in garden, I encountered drops and obstruction warnings. The antenna was obstructed to north, east and south-east. On setup it tilted towards the south. Unfortunately, I didnt record drops then.
Once the antenna was moved to pole tied to chimney, the obstructions more or less ceased. In the last 24 hrs, it experienced obstructions (0.1 sec), no sat (22 sec) and other (41 sec). I stream radio all day to help alert me of drops. AFAIK, there was a short global outage on 18th while (I assume) SpaceX made network changes.

Messer1 · 13-06-2021 10:59am

Nine radomes for SpaceX's Starlink broadband service pictured by DO'M near Garrettstown (where GTT's trans-Atlantic cable lands). This could be for 2nd Irish ground station (NCS already has 4 radomes) and presumably these could service all rural IRL - no need for 1.6 million telephone poles to give service!!!! Should further improve performance for Starlink users as traffic is currently routed via Slough/London (giving average speeds of 102/44 Mbps down/up with latency 46 ms). Will report back on this once station activated.

BArra · 13-06-2021 3:37pm

Messer1 wrote: »

Nine radomes for SpaceX's Starlink broadband service pictured by DO'M near Garrettstown (where GTT's trans-Atlantic cable lands). This could be for 2nd Irish ground station (NCS already has 4 radomes) and presumably these could service all rural IRL - no need for 1.6 million telephone poles to give service!!!! Should further improve performance for Starlink users as traffic is currently routed via Slough/London (giving average speeds of 102/44 Mbps down/up with latency 46 ms). Will report back on this once station activated.

ouch, one of them looks to have taken some damage

Orebro · 14-06-2021 11:10am

Messer1 wrote: »

The Starlink app provides detailed stats on this. Initially, when I plonked antenna in garden, I encountered drops and obstruction warnings. The antenna was obstructed to north, east and south-east. On setup it tilted towards the south. Unfortunately, I didnt record drops then.
Once the antenna was moved to pole tied to chimney, the obstructions more or less ceased. In the last 24 hrs, it experienced obstructions (0.1 sec), no sat (22 sec) and other (41 sec). I stream radio all day to help alert me of drops. AFAIK, there was a short global outage on 18th while (I assume) SpaceX made network changes.

How does streaming radio alert you to outages when it would be buffering?

zg3409 · 14-06-2021 11:21am

Outages are probably more annoying when web browsing as nothing may happen and you might need to refresh. The total outage time is not as important as number of them as services may drop etc.

In terms of this being a solution to rural broadband remember all users of each satellite are sharing the bandwidth. So if it's now 5 users, and goes to 5000, speeds at peak times will drop over time as more and more users connect. It depends on how they price it, how many users they allow, and how many users are underneath the satellite at the time. If they price it very high, service will be better.

If the footprint is say all of Ireland and say total bandwidth is 1Gbps, then that is shared amongst all Irish users. My numbers may be off scale wise, but speeds will probably drop over time as network loads up. 3G may turn out to be better for most users as there you only share local phone mast capacity.

They can launch more satellites but there is still limitations in terms of shared bandwidth.

joe123 · 14-06-2021 11:21am

Messer1 wrote: »

Have been testing Starlink in Dublin for several days. Ping value has been consistently about 45.

What sort of speeds up and down are you seeing?

Ping isnt great but suppose thats to be expected.

Are you noticing any buffering when going into a large list of thumbnails such as a large youtube list or tweet deck type page? I heard this is a problem currently.

Also could you take a picture of your chimney/dish set up?

Edit: Zoom calls etc ok? Do you game at all? Sorry for the million and one questions just interested to hear how its faring in Ireland.

ED E · 14-06-2021 12:56pm

Messer1 wrote: »

Nine radomes for SpaceX's Starlink broadband service pictured by DO'M near Garrettstown (where GTT's trans-Atlantic cable lands). This could be for 2nd Irish ground station (NCS already has 4 radomes) and presumably these could service all rural IRL - no need for 1.6 million telephone poles to give service!!!! Should further improve performance for Starlink users as traffic is currently routed via Slough/London (giving average speeds of 102/44 Mbps down/up with latency 46 ms). Will report back on this once station activated.

Is radome the correct terminology for a ground station antenna?

ED E · 14-06-2021 1:00pm

zg3409 wrote: »

They can launch more satellites but there is still limitations in terms of shared bandwidth.

The spotbeams are very narrow. That still means a wide enough "cell" at ground level but it's better than you might think.

Speeds would be an issue if this was for everyone, it isn't. It's for hard to reach uses. Dense areas will have cellular cover and high end fixed line for around 50% what Starlink customers are paying. It'll always be the expensive option for hard to reach places.

limnam · 14-06-2021 3:33pm

It's not that long ago I was paying about 65e for 3mb/s

I would have bitten someones hand off for the current star link speeds for 100e a month.

zg3409 · 15-06-2021 7:30am

ED E wrote: »

Is radome the correct terminology for a ground station antenna?

Radome is short for radar dome. Things that look like this are often radar domes. In this case it's not a radar, but still performs a similar job of keeping the wind and rain off a moving object inside. Inside these is a fast moving uplink dish, one dome per satellite overhead. As they can't place uplink dishes in the open ocean they put them on the nearest land. Co siting them with a good internet landline is important. There is a site near Middleton that supports geostationary internet satellites and some similar low earth orbit satellites.

The internet speeds at the moment will slow when there is more than one Irish user.

Messer1 · 15-06-2021 9:28am

Orebro wrote: »

How does streaming radio alert you to outages when it would be buffering?

For lengthy drops - about two of more than 5-10 minutes in last month.

Messer1 · 15-06-2021 9:33am

joe123 wrote: »

What sort of speeds up and down are you seeing?

Ping isnt great but suppose thats to be expected.

Are you noticing any buffering when going into a large list of thumbnails such as a large youtube list or tweet deck type page? I heard this is a problem currently.

Also could you take a picture of your chimney/dish set up?

Edit: Zoom calls etc ok? Do you game at all? Sorry for the million and one questions just interested to hear how its faring in Ireland.

Speeds averaging 102/44 Mbps D/U.
Ping should come down once second ground station is up and running (I assume).
Haven't noticed buffering as you describe.
Zoom fine. Not into gaming.
Here is a picture.

ED E · 15-06-2021 4:22pm

zg3409 wrote: »

Radome is short for radar dome. Things that look like this are often radar domes. In this case it's not a radar, but still performs a similar job of keeping the wind and rain off a moving object inside. Inside these is a fast moving uplink dish, one dome per satellite overhead. As they can't place uplink dishes in the open ocean they put them on the nearest land. Co siting them with a good internet landline is important. There is a site near Middleton that supports geostationary internet satellites and some similar low earth orbit satellites.

The internet speeds at the moment will slow when there is more than one Irish user.

There are GS in Dublin too (not necessarily for Starlink). They've partnered with GCC for their terrestrial network so it's quite likely that Google DUB will be an EMEA hub for traffic.

Personally it wouldn't have occurred to me to call anything without a radar within a radome. Just like a microwave dish has a dome but it's still a "dish".

Messer1 · 06-07-2021 11:12am

Here is an update on my experience with Starlink's beta service based on continuous use for seven weeks, over four hundred Speedtest readings and 700+ hours of monitoring using the Starlink app. Note that the Starlink router offers dual band Wifi. No certainty that these performances will be sustained in future.

Latency: Average of 46 ms, ranging between 35 and 62.
Downtime: Average of 0.2% including three downtime intervals in range 2-30 minutes mainly due to 'no satellites". Since end May, downtime has averaged about 10 secs/day (0.01%). Zero recent downtime due to obstructions once the antenna settled itself on roof.
Upload speed: Average of 45 Mbps, ranging between 30 and 60. Average of 52 Mbps when using Wifi set to 5.0 GHz.
Download speed: Average of 107 Mbps when using Wifi 2.4 GHz with no readings under 50 Mbps and about 30% readings above 150 mbps. Average of 203 Mbps when using Wifi 5.0 Ghz with speeds ranging between 105 and 350 Mbps.

Next major Starlink developments should include commencement by SpaceX of an initial near-global Starlink service and declaration by ComReg that Starlink user terminals are exempt in Ireland and join exemptions in several other European countries.

Recently participated as a tester/user in Adrian Weckler's podcast about Starlink here https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/the-big-tech-show-is-starlink-perfect-for-ireland-or-just-elon-hype-40606174.html

social butterfly 2020 · 06-07-2021 11:18am

Thanks for that

Messer1 wrote: »

Here is an update on my experience with Starlink's beta service based on continuous use for seven weeks, over four hundred Speedtest readings and 700+ hours of monitoring using the Starlink app. Note that the Starlink router offers dual band Wifi. No certainty that these performances will be sustained in future.

Latency: Average of 46 ms, ranging between 35 and 62.
Downtime: Average of 0.2% including three downtime intervals in range 2-30 minutes mainly due to 'no satellites". Since end May, downtime has averaged about 10 secs/day (0.01%). Zero recent downtime due to obstructions once the antenna settled itself on roof.
Upload speed: Average of 45 Mbps, ranging between 30 and 60. Average of 52 Mbps when using Wifi set to 5.0 GHz.
Download speed: Average of 107 Mbps when using Wifi 2.4 GHz with no readings under 50 Mbps and about 30% readings above 150 mbps. Average of 203 Mbps when using Wifi 5.0 Ghz with speeds ranging between 105 and 350 Mbps.

Next major Starlink developments should include commencement by SpaceX of an initial near-global Starlink service and declaration by ComReg that Starlink user terminals are exempt in Ireland and join exemptions in several other European countries.

Recently participated as a tester/user in Adrian Weckler's podcast about Starlink here https://www.independent.ie/business/technology/the-big-tech-show-is-starlink-perfect-for-ireland-or-just-elon-hype-40606174.html

Messer1 · 15-07-2021 11:02am

As of 15th July, Starlink service is available in Ireland on limited basis. If you are considering it, the following might be useful:

1. Review the FAQ at the Starlink site.

2. You must have a clear sky view at the position where you plan to site the antenna (e.g. on a roof or pole). Generally speaking, the higher the better to clear obstacles like trees etc. To assess this, download the Starlink app for Android or iPhone to help check for obstructions at proposed location/level.

3. Depending on your location, your order may be accepted immediately, or you may be asked to pay a refundable €99 to join a first-come, first-served queue, or you may be told that you will have to wait till next year for service, or something else .....

4. It is important that you supply an exact address for the location at which you want service using an EirCode or Google Plus Code.

Messer1 · 15-07-2021 12:53pm

If you get a Starlink kit in its 13 kg box, you'll only find a simple setup diagram. Here a setup guide based on my experience:

1. Review the FAQ at the Starlink site and download the app.

2. Once kit is unpacked, place antenna on supplied stand at a convenient outdoor temporary location using its 100 ft cable while seeking best clear sky view.

3. Insert colour-coded cables into power unit and router.

4. Plug into mains and wait a few minutes while antenna levels and then searches for best direction/angle.

5. Use phone to open Starlink’s WiFi network.

6. Open app and (recommended) set Password and opt for Separate 2.4 GHz and 5.0 GHz networks. Explore app. Use 2.4 GHz for greater WiFi range and 5.0 for greater speeds.

7. If experimenting with different locations for antenna, use the stow action (in Settings), unplug mains power, move antenna, wait 15+ minutes and plug in again. A few yards movement may make a difference.

social butterfly 2020 · 15-07-2021 1:12pm

mine being delivered on July 19th

JoeyJonson · 15-07-2021 3:37pm

Do you mind if I ask when you ordered? I placed my order this morning and I'm that person refreshing my email every 5 mins waiting for an update!

Thanks messer1 for the updates and I've just watched the AW podcast which was informative. I'm in the midlands and currently use Eir fixed line broadband at a cost of €59.99 per month (got an email last week to say it was increasing by €7 next month). I get approx. 3.5mb download and about 0.5mb upload consistently. I also have Vodafone 4G at a cost of €40 per month getting approx. 8mb download and about 4-5mb upload. My house is in National Broadband Plan but not even in survey up until end of 2023 so I'm years away yet. I'm hoping to drop Vodafone once Starlink arrives but I'll likely keep the eir fixed line as I have a static IP through them.

It goes to show that there is a market for Starlink in Ireland and NBI is not the be all and end all for everything. I know I'm not an edge case with my situation. There's thousands of people in similar situations.