A heads up case report for Starlink users in the boonies. TL;DR at the moment Starlink activation appears to require a special email address on an account or SMS access while on the new system's WiFi to activate.
Well, we had a drive-by attack of the electrical daemons.
Our Gen 2 Starlink went offline at 4:31am Tuesday. The system reported waiting for an update, but no amount of power cycling, manual resets, or factory resets got it running. We had debated buying a backup system, and parking it away, just in case, and boy, not doing that came around to bite me big time.
After, determining that, yes Jim, she was really dead, I headed off to Home Depot for a new Gen 3 system ($349). Impressive! Much larger antenna, and closer to standard cables. Nice! I ordered a new pole mount from Amazon as the backs of the antennas and mounts are different.
Unboxing and assembly went well with the universal diagrams. I set the system up on a picnic table, powered it up, and tried to activate it. Ideally, trying to swap our old subscription to the new one. Much hairpulling, no success. Much later, I came to find out that only Starlink support can do that, and they will do it when they get around to it. Not exactly helpful for us, as my spouse needed internet access ASAP. (And how does one find this out? You drive out to an area with cell reception and apply Google-Fu to search the internet while sitting by the side of the road. No snow at least.)
In the interim, the bottom line was that I couldn't activate it. 100% of the "verification code" emails went AWOL (not in my spam folders either). After an hour, Starlink locks a new owner out of the general internet, so you can't get email. What about a text? Well, if you really are in the boonies,like us, you have no cell service. So, no SMS messages, and a non-responsive tech support. After trying many, many different ways to activate the system, I realize that their activation system seems to require
simulataneous access to both the new Starlink's WiFi and cell service/an alternate way to access the internet. (I did try the car shuttle to/from cell service, but no luck.)
Well, out here that leaves us between a rock and a hard place, a classic Catch-22. Knowing that the residential systems are geofenced (more or less), I didn't want to get locked out of the new system in a different way by hauling the whole system to a neighbor with cell service and risk being in the wrong cell. To add a little salt to the wounds for some reason a bunch of my neighbors are on vacations.
We gritted our teeth, bit the proverbial bullet, and I went back to Home Depot to buy a Starlink Mini, but they had no DC power supplies in stock. So how do you get a roaming Starlink Mini system activated with cell, with no AC power? I briefly thought of hauling a generator somewhere with cell service. Then
Ding! An idea!
I went home, and grabbed our UPS for our network systems, unplugged everything from it, as they were offline anyway, tossed the UPS into the back of the car. Well, ok, gently settled the UPS into the back, as it is a heavy little beast, and it had an important role coming up. I drove a couple miles down the road to cell coverage, and pulled over, turned on the UPS, plugged the Starlink Mini in, and waited. The Mini booted quickly, came online, so I went through the now very familiar activation sequence. I had the email fail as expected, but got the vital SMS message in time, and the Mini was up and running. With that accomplished, I shut the Mini down, drove home, set the Mini up at home in range of the Gen 3, crossed my fingers, and waited. Yay! SMS now works at home! With SMS available, I used one device to be on the Gen 3 Starlink WiFi, and another on the Mini to get the SMS message, and in a couple of (expensive) minutes, got the Gen 3 unit activate and working.
What a bunch of hair pulling! (OK, this was/is totally a developed world issue) It was especially hard on my spouse who works full time remotely, and is in the middle of crunch time at work, with a variety of deliverables and time sensitive meetings. She spent two days camped out in a coffee shop, thankful for the WiFi, less so for the noise and sensory overload.
In hindsight, I don't know where the bulk of the Starlink verification emails went. The email address is with a major ISP, and none of them arrived, not in my inbox, and not in my spam/junk folder. At first, I wondered if Starlink had messed up and was sending the messages at a bulk, low priority setting, but the complete non-arrival suggests something else was up. (Corrupted email database on their side? No idea, but the address that they have works for billing...) In the end, I was so gun shy that I created a completely new account for the Mini, and those emails did start to come in after about twelve hours. Perhaps the ISP has a dislike for Starlink? Not sure. Decades ago, our company website would periodically get on blacklists by spammers using our web address as a fake return address, but I haven't seen that in decades. Twelve hours later the missing activation email for the Mini turned up in my spam folder for that account (different ISP). 100% of the Gen 3 activation emails have yet to arrive, 40 odd hours later. Whatever Starlink is doing, it isn't working well.
So for those of you in the "boonies" with no cell service, I would suggest having a plan B for activating a replacement Starlink receiver when your existing one fails.
Oh, the new systems are nearly three times as fast in the same location as our Gen 2 system. In the rain this morning: 350
and 35
vs 120/20 for our Gen 2 unit in dry conditions. YMMV...
After the Gen 3 was running, I did hear from tech support. After I explained what I thought the cause(s) of our issues were, the representative comped us a month of service, and the replacement unit qualified for a reduced monthly rate that more or less paid for the Gen 3 unit. So, net, net, we are out the price of a Mini, and a month of service, as the price of activation, but at least we will now have a backup system for the future.
All the best,
Peter
