That would be useful for Hughesnet and is one of the reasons I run ad blockers. uBlock Origin lets you select page elements and "zap" them.

For Starlink it's more of a binary. If you're not obstructed, it's fast. If you are, it's dead.

About 60% of the time, I get a speedtest over 100mbps, about 20% it's lower, but still very good by our standards (presumably a brief to long outage), and maybe 20% of the time it outright fails because the outage is longer than the speedtest app will allows.

For the "bad" 40% in the middle there, you can watch as it screams along, then just falls precipitously until either the speed test completes and gives you a number like 15-75mbps or just times out entirely and fails.

The other difference with Hughesnet is that speed tests seem completely fictional with HN. It's like (and I suspect it is so) they give you a burst of speed for the length of a typical speed test, then throttle it down. So it often tests at 20mbps, but when you actually go do download anything large, it slows and after less than a minute, you're getting a couple mbps.


But here are my last three tests of SL and two tests of HN thrown in for comparison.

Actually, the bad hughesnet test seems to be a problem with the satellite router. This is the test when connected to the base router. Total fiction though. You get this speed for at most one minute then it throttles way way down.

It looks like we could improve this a lot by using Raspberry Pi + Speedify to create a bonding router. That would in theory stop Zoom connections from getting dropped.

The easy way would be a wired WAN connection connected to Hughesnet, a WAN-side wifi connected to Starlink (which has no WAN port on the router) and then a LAN-side wifi adapter to act as a hotspot.

I don't know whether you can have a WAN-side and LAN-side wifi without major interference. The other option is $40 adapter for Starlink that bypasses the router, but then you lose access to all Starlink diagnostics.

5 Uses for Raspberry Pi Routers to Get Better Internet
https://speedify.com/blog/how-to/5-uses-raspberry-pi-router-better-internet/
Usage #1 is "Raspberry Pi as a Wireless Bonding Router – Sharing Internet via Wi-Fi"

A bit more detail
https://speedify.com/blog/better-streaming/internet-bonding-router-for-streaming/

You can also bond four connections using a RPi + Speedify
https://speedify.com/blog/combining-internet-connections/combine-4-connections-raspberry-pi-simultaneously/

Starlink's current problem is capacity
https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2022/starlinks-current-problem-capacity

QuoteEven with slower speeds, for many customers, it's such an improvement over what they had before, they don't care. This Reddit user is perfectly happy getting 30 Mbps.

Exactly. I'm tired of all these people who whine that they "need" Starlink because they are stuck on sucky 25mbps DSL. If we had 25mbps DSL that was super reliable, we wouldn't have Starlink, with all its interruptions.

A lot of these complaints remind me of Louis CK's famous airplane rant.

I currently have halfway decent internet (and would have decent internet if not for about 10 trees in the way) that let's me download a 1hr TV show in 11 seconds, delivered by *spaceship* in all weather (haven't noticed problems due to smoke and storm) and utterly unaffected by power outages and nearby fires. But now people are complaining because the speed are less than 100mbps???

Starlink Ground Stations Successfully Hacked | Hackaday
https://hackaday.com/2022/08/14/starlink-ground-stations-successfully-hacked/

There is a linguistic confusion that crops up a lot - ground station vs terminal. The "ground station" should refer to the main hub that connects the satellite to the terrestrial internet while, "terminal" is the thing that the end user has at her house that connects the end user to the satellite.

This is a hack of the *terminal* that requires physical access (replacing a chip on the motherboard). The headline makes it sound like someone is remotely hacking into the *ground station* through which the data of thousands (millions?) of users flows, which would be a major hack.

The risk here is that someone can modify their terminal and use that to possibly attack the *satellite* which could, if a proper exploit is found, be a major problem. I don't know what they could do if they succeeded - intercept packets? Crash it into the ISS?

https://www.wired.com/story/starlink-internet-dish-hack/

RVers are also reporting that the non-rv dish works while traveling.

I'm pretty sure it's the exact same dish. I had one of both. There was nothing to indicate a difference.

The big difference is the account and the extra $25/mo and the ability to pause your fee. So if you use your RV mostly in the summer months, you're way better off with an RV account and the ability to pause. If you want to be able to hop in your rig 12 months per year, you pay less with the standard account.

That said, people have also reported that when they move a dish outside the designated service area, Starlink can and sometimes does turn it off, assuming they can tell.

T-Mobile says subscribers will be able to connect to Starlink's second-gen satellites for coverage
https://www.engadget.com/t-mobile-starlink-partnership-012539605.html?src=rss

>>T-Mobile

Someone in the Garmin corporate office just had a major anxiety attack.

In case you don't know why...
https://discover.garmin.com/en-US/inreach/personal/

>Garmin

Can't wait for those subscription fees to drop significantly!

I *think* Garmin runs on the very expensive Iridium network. I'm not sure they have a lot of room to move with fees.

Look for a Garmin/Starlink deal in the future. There are still things a Garmin does that a cell phone doesn't, like last 2 weeks on a charge. Still, most people are carrying the phone anyway, so it makes more sense to carry a phone and a solar panel or phone and a battery than a phone and a Garmin.

More bad news for Garmin

Quote
The tech giant focused on safety features for the iPhone 14 lineup and newest smartwatches, adding sensors that can detect car crashes and alert authorities. The new smartphones will get satellite connectivity for sending emergency messages to use in areas not touched by cellular towers

.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/iphone-14-lineup-apple-event-launch-11662500247

Apple is to portable-device-based companies as Google and Meta are to web-services-based companies. They add one new "free" feature, minor to them, and your business model is obsolete

non-WSJ

Apple picks Globalstar for emergency satellite service on iPhone 14
https://www.reuters.com/technology/apple-picks-globalstar-satellite-service-iphone-14-series-2022-09-07/

+
Steve Jobs' Daughter Says New iPhone 14 Is Same As Older Version
https://www.tmz.com/2022/09/07/steve-jobs-daughter-new-iphone-14-same-13/

^{well, except maybe satellite service.}