Starlink Starts to Deliver on Its Promise

[rcjordan]

<+>
BTW, I rec'd the "First come, first serve" Starlink email yesterday.

[ergophobe]

How's your cell signal there?

We don't have one. I climbed up 125 feet in a tree with a booster and antenna and still got zero. I could try one of the other trees, but on the ground at the house it's zero. You can't boost zero because the laws of multiplication, sadly, still apply: zero times anything is zero.

So, while the rest of the world gets faster internet, we continue to lose options.

It does look like the monthly quota on the satellite plans are better than they were, but the general consensus is that satellite is bad in good times and horrid in times of congestion. That was our previous experience - worked okay from 9am to 3pm, but once people on the east coast started getting home from work and using their connections, it became unusable.

[rcjordan]

>east

Yeah, but that wasn't with 10,000 satellites in the network.

[ergophobe]

No, I'm talking about classic geo-synchronous satellite, which is what we're probably going to have to go with here.

From what I've read, in this phase, Starlink requires a clear view of the sky down to 20 degrees and in the next phase that will steepen to 40 degrees. We *might* pull it off at 40, but not at 20.

But even so, people moving from Viasat to Starlink will help the Viasat customers in the short term... then make things very expensive, which I guess is what has happened to our T1

In any case, I'm waiting for official word to find out if we have another alternative, but it doesn't look good. So we'll need some solution in the near term until there's another option.

We'll see... I'm still hoping that I have misunderstood AT&T's letter :-)

[rcjordan]

Starlink kit arrived today! 15 minute later I'm up and running, seriously amazed at how easy that was. Uploaded this through starlink here in rural southwest Michigan.

https://old.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/lmxsnp/starlink_kit_arrived_today_15_minute_later_im_up/

[ergophobe]

Starlink said mid to late summer for us. By that time we'll probably be stuck in a three year geostationary satellite plan. But we'll definitely pay for both if Starlink works.

[ergophobe]

Best info I could find on using Starlink with obstructions.


Best info I could find about obstructions in the real world. Some good news (view to south not that important) and some bad (view to the north is very important). Makes it seem like mounting high up in a tree would work with minor to major frustration. Some real-world tests.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jpcu3x/obstruction_testing_from_3_locations_with_photos/

This one is really good and pretty encouraging. I'd love to see what happens with foliage on the trees, but it seems that despite the high number of failed pings in the worst location, he was able to stream video because the overall speed was enough to load the buffers up during the periods it was working and draw on them during the outages.


https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/juatew/do_you_have_significant_tree_obstructions_on_your/

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/k5yajo/tips_for_those_dealing_with_obstructions/
Oh, the other thing is that the dish takes 100W, so running power is a must too.
This is more encouraging than not.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/jlpu1y/starlink_beta_field_report_drove_into_a_local/


Tree mount
https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/ltckrd/starlink_info_dishy_movement_due_to_wind_tree_or/

Fire marshall does not like people running 110V AC up trees though. But with proper conduit and such, I believe it is legal (neighbor got cited for a power cord without conduit that was running a walkway light). You need to supply 180W.

[rcjordan]

Dishy McFlatface to become "fully mobile," allowing Starlink use away from home

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/04/dishy-mcflatface-to-become-fully-mobile-allowing-starlink-use-away-from-home/

[ergophobe]

What's a cell signal? I've heard of this, but am hazy on the idea.

This is when you have a small device you hold in your hand and it allows you to communicate over long distances without wires? Sort of like a radio hooked to a DNS system. Is that right?

[ergophobe]

Actually, I just dropped $1100 on an amp and antennas to see if we could get a signal from 100 feet up a tree. I've now been up and down that tree about six times and have spent 6-8 hours up there pointing antennas and trying to get a signal.

We will have stretches where we get LTE for a couple days, then not for a week. We have seen speeds of up to 3Mbps down, but commonly it is 500kbps or less down and sometimes, even with a signal, we get something like 0.02Mbps up.

And we've gotten zero for the last two days.

[rcjordan]

Most of the homes in my subdivision do not get a cell signal when inside. About 10 years ago, I put a (then) mid-size, $200-ish amp/repeater about 40 feet up on the rooftop tv antenna mast and pointed it in the direction of the closest tower about 6 miles away. Worked pretty well. This was before the FCC started certifying.

https://www.signalbooster.com/pages/which-signal-boosters-are-legal-and-which-are-illegal

>tree

Good thing you rock-climb for a hobby.

[ergophobe]

We seem to get reception about 20% of the time with the new setup. But it's in spurts. A couple days good, then nada

>>hobby

Yeah well... the first time I jugged that line, it took me as long to go 100 feet as it took me to go 1200 feet about 15 years ago. And 80% of that was in the first 10 feet trying to remember how to use the gear.

[rcjordan]

> 100 feet up a tree

Reception ever improve?

[ergophobe]

Actually, a bit. A lot of trial and error and I realized that we only get one channel (887.5MHz) on one band (Band 5). So when it loses reception there and starts scanning through 100+ channels on 5 bands, it sometimes gets hung up trying to boost the wrong signal for hours.

It's still pretty erratic, but constrained to a single channel, it works more often than not. Next step is to try to optimize for quality rather than strength.

If you're trying to help your friend decide whether to get an amp or set up an amp, I think the key learnings so far are:

1. Figure out which channels actually work in your area (as discussed above) and, if possible, constrain your amp to that.

2. Optimize for quality, not strength.

When I located the antenna, I went up with a meter (an Android phone with a metering app - link below) and found the spot with the strongest signal. That's the RSRP. Higher is better. So you want a number higher than -120dBm. -120dBm means you may or may not be able to connect depending on your phone and other factors (Androids with Qualcomm chips do better than iPhones with Intel chips - iPhones are using older tech). -80dBm means you're close to the tower. -40dBm probably means you better wear sunscreen.

In my case, I reliably get about -107 to -110dBm RSRP. Meanwhile, my SINR (Sometimes RSSNR) is -2dB to -4dB. This is a signal to noise ratio and the negative number means more noise than signal. The SINR is the most important determinant of speed, packet loss and things like that.

So what my sales guy said is that if rather than RSRP @ -107dBm and SINR @ -2dB, I would be much better off if I had an RSRP of -117 and an SINR of +3dB. So he is suggesting I try locations that are marginal in terms of RSRP and stronger in terms of SINR.

If you're trying to figure out whether or not it's worth it for your friend, download this app (Android only)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wilysis.cellinfolite&hl=en_US

Then you want to find a location where the Serving Cell RSRP is at least -110dBm (and again, might even work as weak as -120). That's the big number on the app. The SINR (labelled RSSNR, down and left from the RSRP nuber on the app) is at least +3dB.

If he meets those criteria, he'll probably be happy with an antenna

[rcjordan]

"At best, Starlink currently offers reasonably fast access with inconsistent connectivity, huge latency swings, and a significant uptick in time spent considering whether you can just get out the chainsaw and solve the tree problem yourself."

Starlink review: dreams, not reality - The Verge
https://www.theverge.com/22435030/starlink-satellite-internet-spacex-review