Starlink

[LazyGamer]

Huh. So like cell plans with a much higher cap.

Kind of inevitable though right?

At least until the technology exists to not throttle users. 5G and WiFi 6 (802.11AX) work toward this as well, but at much smaller scales.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Interesting. Comcast has something similar but you can pay a small fee (~$20) to be exempt. The fee can be for the billing cycle or made permanent if you feel you need it.

 

[Burticus]

At first I thought a TB sounded low, but a little google says that is good for 140+ hours of 4k streaming a month. So plain ol' HD streaming should be at least double that.... you would have to try pretty hard to hit that limit. Also 11pm-7am doesn't count, so you can do all your arr-matey downloads after hours, if that applies to you.

 

[Brian_B]

Huh. So like cell plans with a much higher cap.

Or every other satellite provider out there. Yeah.

It isn't clear exactly what this line means:

Data used between 11pm - 7am will not count towards your Priority Access.

Does that mean they aren't running the meter at that time, or does that mean they won't deprioritize during that time if you do go over? This is new on the account page, so it looks like Burticus is right - it only counts during that "peak time".





I'm not a household that routinely pushes 1T+ a month, but just looking at this graph I do come somewhat close. I can go back to assigning all the updates to occur overnight - I had been shutting the computers down to save on power - guess it depends on how much of an issue it becomies. It's still irksome that this wasn't part of the deal when I signed up. But, ****, what are you going to do? You are on Starlink because there isn't anything else better, so ... leave?

 

[LazyGamer]

Steve from Hardware Unboxed (not Tech Jesus Steve, but Down Under Steve) is pimping Starlink for Aussies; apparently it's available country wide:

 

[Brian_B]

The Starlink monthly service for residential customers is changing as follows:

• $10 increase in areas with limited capacity. New price will be $120/month.
• $20 decrease in areas with excess capacity. New price will be $90/month.

As a current customer in an area with limited capacity, your monthly service price will increase to $120/month beginning April 24, 2023. For new customers in your area, the price increase is effective immediately.

If you do not wish to continue service, you can cancel at any time on your account page. Your Starlink hardware can be returned for a full refund within 30 days of purchase, or a partial refund of $250 within 12 months of purchase.

Second price hike in less than a year if memory serves. Wonder if anyone is actually in an area with "excess" capacity, or if your tier ever automatically drops back down as they launch more satellites -- the pessimist in me thinks probably not.

Still - what else are you going to do?

 

[LazyGamer]

Second price hike in less than a year if memory serves. Wonder if anyone is actually in an area with "excess" capacity, or if your tier ever automatically drops back down as they launch more satellites -- the pessimist in me thinks probably not.

If they do drop prices in areas with excess capacity, and make a habit of doing it, that could engender some trust in the service. Especially as they try to start up global roaming.

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Would also be interesting if they started offering extremely low-priced services for things like residential backup. High density, but only used when terrestrial datalinks are down and so on. Also wondering how small they can get the transceivers - I remember the bulky Iridium handsets used a few decades ago, and I'm betting that while they won't get Starlink functional in current smartphone form factors in the near future, vehicle mounted modems should be feasible I'd think.

 

[Riccochet]

Looks like they're ditching the portability option. If you already have it enabled it won't go away, but if you disable it you can't get it back.

That sucks, because I was going to get it for my boat.

 

[Brian_B]

Looks like they're ditching the portability option. If you already have it enabled it won't go away, but if you disable it you can't get it back.

That sucks, because I was going to get it for my boat.

Yeah it moved to the RV Plan, so long as you are on in-land water or near the coast.

"Portable" was meant for someone who, say, had two residences, or wanted to take it camping to a second fixed spot. I don't think it was ever meant to be used in motion like the RV plan was (at least, if you get the dish that has faster tracking), and it looks like they may have just moved that "Portable" option over to the RV plan.

Which sucks, because that does cost more. But, you can pause it so you only use it when you need it, so not all bad.

 

[Space_Ranger]

Spring is upon us and I'm about to see if I'm able to re-up my Starlink service. I remember seeing a while back that they might deny reactivation if too many people were on the system in the same area. I'll know more later this week when I go to have it turned back on..

 

[Space_Ranger]

Re-activating the Starlink unit is ridiculous. You can't just log into your account and start up service once again. They want you to go through support. Ok. That's fine, a minor inconvenience but whatever. I navigate to support and look at the FAQ for reactivating my unit. There's no clear way to start a support ticket. Starlink's idea of starting a support ticket is that you have to hit the Thumbs Down on a FAQ entry, and then you can start a ticket.

Now you're at the mercy of whenever they respond to the support request. Thankfully for me it was only 36 hours.. /sarcasm

Unit is back up and running. Once I get up there I'll do another speedtest to see where things lay. We were hitting 80-100Mbit down and 10-20Mbit up.

 

[Brian_B]

They want you to go through support.

Yeah Starlink's support is laughable.