Starlink

[ponytug]

The 0.1s outage page has always been full of entries. Those occur as the dish transitions between sats. My dish is 0% obstructed and the 0.1s outage page always contains a long list. I have no service issues. We stream a lot during the evenings and two of us work all day long over VPNs with lots of non-bufferable Teams/WebEx/Zoom meetings. No disruptions. Don't focus on the 0.1s outage page for your issues...

Thanks. I'm actually not focusing on it; Starlink and I are trying to figure out the 10-15 second lags in responses that occur periodically. Mainly, I am focusing on a cycle of ping times that go from 40-150ms, averaging 90ms these days. That really cuts into page loads, though not much effect on video or live streams. TBD...

All the best,

Peter

 

[scootr]

167 down and 9 up this AM is double what it was last night when everybody and their brother was on it last night.

 

[Xfaxman]

Here is a speed check site that shows the peak or the maximum times of the test: Bandwithplace Home

 

[terraformer]

Is the start up cost for starlink still 400-500.
We are still utilizing hughesnet 2mps up and down for first hundred gigs per month then about 10% of that after.

Rural, No phone without outside antenna on mast.

 

[plowhog]

We are still utilizing hughesnet 2mps up and down

I had HughesNet for years. Only option for me other than nothing.

It was a slow and difficult experience, as many here will attest to. But it was better than nothing at all, as I did have email access and could do a little web surfing. I found myself numerous times trying to repoint their dish using even tiny increments to seek increases in performance.

The final misery was the battle their well trained staff put on to fight me when I tried to cancel. I could not cancel although I was trying, constantly being put on hold and being shuffled from "manager" to "manager." In exasperation, after being on hold a long time and getting transferred to another "manager," I finally lied and said I was cancelling because I was selling the property. This "manager" said: "don't you want to keep it on so prospective buyers know your property has internet access?"

I had to finally threaten to file a complaint with a government agency. At that point they relented and accepted my cancellation.

 

[terraformer]

Your experience Plowhog sure leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

I remember having an issue with Dish network for tv about 20 years ago. Was a billing problem that they would not resolve. We took their modem outside and shot it up about a hundred times and put it in a box and returned it. Account closed.

We have had Hughes net for probably 12-13 years. Some time after we had grid electricity installed. They improved it marginally with a slightly bigger dish and a new modem about 6 years ago but is really obsolete considering. We don't have a contract just pay month to month.

Just can't get over the installation hump. We have seen them go by in trains a couple of times.

 

[NoTrespassing]

Is the start up cost for starlink still 400-500.
We are still utilizing hughesnet 2mps up and down for first hundred gigs per month then about 10% of that after.

Rural, No phone without outside antenna on mast.

$599 now I believe

 

[plowhog]

Just can't get over the installation hump.

Run the numbers side-by-side over 3, 4, 5 years and see how they differ.

I believe if you order Starlink today, in a short time you will be back here singing: "Happy Days Are Here Again!"

 

[RedNeckGeek]

I'm coming up on my second Starlink anniversary this year. Before that I had HughesNet, twice, with other satellite services in between. All of them were awful. Data caps and horrible speeds meant I couldn't stream even short videos. They were all expensive. And very unreliable. I lost track of the hours spent on tech support lines being told that everything on their end was AOK, only to have the problem go away a few minutes after I hung up. The day I cancelled HughesNet the second time was a very good day, but I must have said "please cancel my subscription" a couple dozen times before I hung up.

I'm in the process of moving to a home in a city, and settled on Xfinity (Comcast) for both internet and cellular phone. I'm not seeing the internet speed increase with the gigabit downlink that I thought I'd see because the media servers seem to be bandwidth limited. YouTube and Amazon Prime stream fine, but Netflix and AppleTV+ sometimes buffer to the point of being unwatchable. The cellular service isin't as ubiquitous as was Verizon, but it's about a tenth of the cost. That said, Xfinity internet makes Starlink feel like a rickety clunker. But Starlink is still the best satellite based service by a very long shot.

Speaking of shots, at about 7PM last night I heard/felt a rumble and ran outside to see another SpaceX rocket streaking through the pitch black sky. The new place is a little less than 10 miles from the SpaceX launch pads, and the view from the driveway is quite good. You'd have to be crazy to believe the whole Starlink thing is a hoax.

 

[scootr]

I had HughesNet for years. Only option for me other than nothing.

It was a slow and difficult experience, as many here will attest to. But it was better than nothing at all, as I did have email access and could do a little web surfing. I found myself numerous times trying to repoint their dish using even tiny increments to seek increases in performance.

The final misery was the battle their well trained staff put on to fight me when I tried to cancel. I could not cancel although I was trying, constantly being put on hold and being shuffled from "manager" to "manager." In exasperation, after being on hold a long time and getting transferred to another "manager," I finally lied and said I was cancelling because I was selling the property. This "manager" said: "don't you want to keep it on so prospective buyers know your property has internet access?"

I had to finally threaten to file a complaint with a government agency. At that point they relented and accepted my cancellation.

Same experience - After they claimed I needed a new $400 dish I quit. It took an act of congress to cancel my subscription. 15 yrs later I still receive their promos in the mail.

 

[terraformer]

We do stream videos on hughes net about 95% of the time it streams fine.

Not promoting it at all but is what we have and don't need a 600 dollar up front fee to change.

We have never had better speed anywhere we lived prior to moving here in 2008. Always rural, don't mean suburbs or outskirts. but 3 miles of mud road rural and another 20 to say a walmart type of store.

So although outdated in the speed department we can keep abreast of current events and personal communications. And has provided high speed internet where there was zero in the past. We can not even get an old fashioned land line phone. The local system was abandoned.

We also have a a radio station and both of us are licensed amateur radio operators. The cost of that is about 10% at most of our internet provider. Nice thing about radio is it doesn't need any relays to work. Direct point to point traffic, when God is willing.

 

[NoTrespassing]

We do stream videos on hughes net about 95% of the time it streams fine.

Not promoting it at all but is what we have and don't need a 600 dollar up front fee to change.

We have never had better speed anywhere we lived prior to moving here in 2008. Always rural, don't mean suburbs or outskirts. but 3 miles of mud road rural and another 20 to say a walmart type of store.

So although outdated in the speed department we can keep abreast of current events and personal communications. And has provided high speed internet where there was zero in the past. We can not even get an old fashioned land line phone. The local system was abandoned.

We also have a a radio station and both of us are licensed amateur radio operators. The cost of that is about 10% at most of our internet provider. Nice thing about radio is it doesn't need any relays to work. Direct point to point traffic, when God is willing.

As long as you're happy with the service, that's what matters I guess. What's your download speed and latency normally and how much is it per month?

 

[plowhog]

Not promoting it at all but is what we have and don't need a 600 dollar up front fee to change.

OK, understood. My misunderstanding.

 

[sodamo]

$599 now I believe

And possible to find used for about half that.

 

[terraformer]

Hughes Net Gen 5
Latency is about 700ms, am I happy with it, not really but it does work, Cost with fees is about 90 a month.

Going further OT,
Is anyone else using Pi-hole file blocker

It is really sick at all the files websites and even the operating system allow through.

 

[ponytug]

+1 on Pi-hole. It is really great, and easy to implement.

All the best,

Peter

 

[JethroB]

Same experience - After they claimed I needed a new $400 dish I quit. It took an act of congress to cancel my subscription. 15 yrs later I still receive their promos in the mail.

Same experience I had with Sirius/XM. Thankfully I refused to give them a credit card # from day one and only paid by check annually. Each annual renewal it was a fight to keep them from nearly doubling my subscription fee of $99/yr to around $200. (Tip: threaten to cancel and they will let you ‘keep’ the lower introductory rate)

 

[LittleBill21]

Hughes Net Gen 5
Latency is about 700ms, am I happy with it, not really but it does work, Cost with fees is about 90 a month.

Going further OT,
Is anyone else using Pi-hole file blocker
View attachment 842272

It is really sick at all the files websites and even the operating system allow through.

its a DNS blocker, boy your list is pretty large, sometimes it breaks webpages, but I have been using it for about 5-6 years, although sites have gotten smarter it doesn't work as well as it used to on mobile.

 

[ernemats]

Two days ago we had a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow , not much accumulation but we lost Starlink reception for a while. Heater was on but apparently it did not do its job, I got a broom and swept off about 1 inch of slush then it started working ok. Sent problem to Starlink they replied there was a software problem for a while. Did anyone else have such a problem?

 

[ponytug]

Two days ago we had a mix of freezing rain, sleet and snow , not much accumulation but we lost Starlink reception for a while. Heater was on but apparently it did not do its job, I got a broom and swept off about 1 inch of slush then it started working ok. Sent problem to Starlink they replied there was a software problem for a while. Did anyone else have such a problem?

For us, I have found that the auto heater is often a little slow on melting things, so I have made a mental note to be proactive at getting it on before the snow/sleet starts.

We are also dealing with some intermittent latency /slowdown that I haven't been able to find/fix. We did lose the Starlink to internet link (I.e. Dishy OK, Satellite Ok, ground station not OK) for about thirty seconds yesterday, which seems to have been a one off.

All the best,

Peter