Starlink

[WoodChuckDad]

When I had viasat it was 169/month. I would have paid double and asked if I could do so to increase my cap. Nope. 120/month for the service I have here is a bargain. If all that was available was business I would get business. But I know some people cant budget that in

 

[finallydribben]

I've used standard Starlink for full time WFH (two people) since right about the time SL left beta (right about 2 years now). It has been more than adequate from a speed, function and stability point of view. Unless you have significant bandwidth needs (i.e. frequent large data transfers, etc.) I can't see how the business plan gives you anything notable above standard.

I am on Teams/Zoom/WebEx meetings for hours a day. VOIP, video streaming during meetings, etc. Full IT type datacenter interactions over VPN. My company VPN stays connected for weeks at a time. No video or audio drop-outs.

Thanks for that feedback, that is awesome to hear. I would love to have that kind of connectivity with my work. Standard Starlink isnt available here or I would already be on it trying it out. I may just go ahead and pull the trigger on Starlink Business if Standard has worked that well for you.

 

[ponytug]

I've used standard Starlink for full time WFH (two people) since right about the time SL left beta (right about 2 years now). It has been more than adequate from a speed, function and stability point of view. Unless you have significant bandwidth needs (i.e. frequent large data transfers, etc.) I can't see how the business plan gives you anything notable above standard.

I am on Teams/Zoom/WebEx meetings for hours a day. VOIP, video streaming during meetings, etc. Full IT type datacenter interactions over VPN. My company VPN stays connected for weeks at a time. No video or audio drop-outs.

@finallydribben I agree with @BigBlue1's comments above. Two people in a work from home environment with simultaneous video calls is no problem for our residential. My wife's corporate VPN does not stay up for weeks at a time, but when I have looked, I haven't found any issues on our local network, including Starlink. YMMV. (If it were me, I would also sign back up for the residential service waitlist.)

Since the Starlink business offering seems to be a combination of a larger antenna, (with the implied potential of simultaneous transmissions to more than one satellite) and what looks like some backend prioritization, I think that it would be more than fine for your needs. For video calling, I would prioritize a zero percent obstruction location for your dishy. There is one user of the business service on Reddit that claims lower latency, but given how much of the latency is speed of RF (light) in a vacuum, there is not going to be much of a reduction.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/115bk57

You might want to try mobile first to see how it works for you.

All the best,

Peter

 

[ernemats]

I've had Starlink roam for about 5 days now , it seems to be working fine. The other night we had real heavy rain , wind and lightning and lost service for a little over 1 minute.. Speeds on the advanced speed test have been from 4.5 to 286 download and upload as high as 24. Most of the time is is in the 50 to 100 range . A lot better than Verizon dsl

 

[TheMan419]

Yeah its pricey. I pay $175 a month for ViaSat Business now and its capped at 75G before the speed slows down. Even so, the fastest it gets is 30Mbps. Though Starlink is $250 a month, its worth it if I can get faster speeds and not be capped at 75G total data. I work remote so its an necessary expense to be able to work from home. Now I use my cellphone hotspot for Teams meetings because I cannot always count on ViaSat. So I would gladly pay the extra for a really usable ISP. Not sure Starlink is that though - so anybody that has experience with the Starlink Business internet I would like to hear about their experience.

I am on Starlink standard plan. I have the standard square dishy. This has higher priority than roam, but not as high as business. I get speeds over 100Mbps during the day. During "primetime" from say 6 pm to I go to bed it slows down. Sometimes as low as 50Mbps. Sometimes higher.

With those speeds I can easily work from home. Do a zoom meeting, log in via my VPN to work all while a high def TV is streaming a TV show. I do not notice any slow downs.

The main issue with SL and WFH is you will have an occasional outage that lasts several seconds, maybe even 15 seconds. That can be bad on a zoom call. That said I attend court hearings via zoom on SL and have not had issues.

If you can get standard I see no reason to spend for a business plan. I have never had ViaSat so I cannot compare. Previously we were on a 4g cell plan from AT&T with unlimited data. It it is night and day between that and SL. We are back in the 21st century now.

They ran fiber down my road at Christmas time. Still not lit. Not holding my breath.

EDIT: Sorry I did not see that SL Standard was not available where you are. You get a 30 day free trial. You might consider getting Roam and seeing if that works for you.

 

[Fixastuff]

I just spent a month working on the Eastern shore. Rented an air bnb house and it had Hughes net. Lol what a joke that service is, was so happy to get back home to starlink! The two aren't even comparable.

 

[finallydribben]

Thanks guys for the feedback on this. Seems like it is the direction I should go. I will look into available options and make a decision. Seems like Standard would be fine for my needs but not sure when that will be available here.

 

[metalheart]

My Starlink Square dish has mostly been working ok, but after replacing an Asus Zen Mesh router with an Eero 6E I am not getting the range to access the internet in an outdoor location about 200 feet from the house. The Asus gave enough signal strength to access the net but the Eero does not. Both the mesh routers are/were connected directly to the Starlink router without using bypass mode and I seem to experience to problems.

Some previous posts here indicate it is possible to use a wifi access point to get signal to a distant location. I'm looking for something relatively seamless that will work with the existing Eero router and will also allow me to use some wifi outdoor security cameras as well as access the internet via my Starlink/mesh system. Any suggestions.

 

[BigBlue1]

The main issue with SL and WFH is you will have an occasional outage that lasts several seconds, maybe even 15 seconds. That can be bad on a zoom call. That said I attend court hearings via zoom on SL and have not had issues.

That's not a 'typical' situation to Starlink. It may be an issue with your local setup. I've used SL for two years now and am on Teams/WebEx/Zoom meetings 3-5 hours a day. My wife also does Teams meetings without issue, thogh not as many hours per day. Never have drop-outs like you mention.

Others have reported issues when the dish has minor obstructions in its view and the system's cable is sensitive to kinks and pinching that can cause signal disruption. Something you may want to look int.

 

[plowhog]

I have installed SL in two forested locations that looked flat impossible for signal. One of them ultra flat impossible with heavy forest and only a tiny slice of sky view. But SL worked in each location!

I finally found a location last week where SL was not usable. It would go Online for a few seconds, then flip back to Offline or Searching. Then repeat.

I was butted up near a massive granite wall across from Half Dome in Yosemite. I can vouch the SL signal cannot pass through a massive granite wall.