tater Posted October 27, 2020 Share Posted October 27, 2020 I didn't get an email, but my latitude if pretty low, so not terribly useful yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nightside Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 So, how does this compare to people’s current plans? Anyone signed up? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 I'm on the mailing list. I'll probably try it at some point when available. A buddy of mine really wants it in his remote house with meh broadband. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superfluous J Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 3 hours ago, Nightside said: So, how does this compare to people’s current plans? It's $15 more than my 1gbps plan from WOW that came with a free modem. I haven't seen Starlink's speed numbers so can't really compare on anything else. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okhin Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 I always forgot how cheap internet is here (I pay 40euros a month for fiber access with 135 Mb/s on download). However, one thing that does seems cheap with this starlink thing in the setup cost. The cost you pay to have the network being brought to your home. To have fiber optics brought to your home here, it's around 200e. Since it's a somewhat competitive market, some operators don't actually makes you pay for it, but they;re the exception, not the rule. And that's when you're in a dense urban area where optic fiber is just lying around nearby your home. If you live in a slightly remote area (or in some poor suburbs as I do), you're out of luck (or you were until recently) and can't have access to fast internet (the network infrastructure is saturated here, ADSL speed supposed to be at 20Mbps frequently dropped under 2Mbps). And if you're further away from the city, you might have to pay for one or two kilometers long trenches to connect your houses to fiber optics. So the satellite dishes rig at 350$ seems more reasonable. And it's a bit cheaper than other internet by satellites operators (NordNet, Eutelsat, and the likes) setup costs. Also, those "free" modem and boxes you got with your internet access ? They're not free, usually they're rented, included in your monthly payment, and you don't own them. So, all things considered, Starlink beta does not seems that expensive. It's not cheap, granted, but it's not highly expensive. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shpaget Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 It's quite a bit more expensive than what I get at home. It's also much faster which is absurd, since I live 3 km from the nation capital city center. Sure, I could dish out more $ for faster speeds, but it just can't reach those speeds, since I'm still on 50+ year old copper, and fiber is just not offered in my neighborhood. In any case, I don't see Starlink as a service aimed at customers such as myself. I can get usable ground connection. The biggest customers I think will be remote small islands and communities where ISPs have no interest in bringing expensive infrastructure. I also expect to see ships adopting this as soon as it's available, primarily cruise ships who can then sell it to customers for a decent margin, but cargo ships and oil rigs as well. For them this could be a significant reduction in cost, compared to currently available services. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying dutchman Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 99 dollars per month and you also have to pay for the router? Are these normal prices in the usa? My internet is 30 euro's per month and i didn't have to pay for the router. I get that this system is more complicated so i partialy onderstand the higher costs but if they want to compete with normal internet providers these prices are going to have to come down. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Superfluous J Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 2 hours ago, Okhin said: Also, those "free" modem and boxes you got with your internet access ? They're not free, usually they're rented, included in your monthly payment, and you don't own them. No it's free. I don't own it but frankly I don't want to, and if I didn't use it my monthly cost would be the same. When I had cable, though, yeah theirs was a rental and they really made it hard to use your own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Codraroll Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 51 minutes ago, Flying dutchman said: 99 dollars per month and you also have to pay for the router? Are these normal prices in the usa? My internet is 30 euro's per month and i didn't have to pay for the router. I get that this system is more complicated so i partialy onderstand the higher costs but if they want to compete with normal internet providers these prices are going to have to come down. The crux is in the name: "Better than nothing". If you live in a well-connected city you surely have better and cheaper options available. But out in the jungle, remote islands, or deep in the mountains (or heck, just the countryside in some places), this would be a vastly cheaper alternative to dragging miles and miles of cable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannu2 Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 49 minutes ago, Flying dutchman said: 99 dollars per month and you also have to pay for the router? Are these normal prices in the usa? My internet is 30 euro's per month and i didn't have to pay for the router. I get that this system is more complicated so i partialy onderstand the higher costs but if they want to compete with normal internet providers these prices are going to have to come down. In urban area 99$/month is ridiculous price but in Finland we have large areas where no one offers internet at this speed level. USA is also large country with large rural areas probably without high speed internet providers. If I remember correctly Starlink is intended for rural areas where is no other options at this speed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Flying dutchman Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 2 hours ago, Codraroll said: The crux is in the name: "Better than nothing". If you live in a well-connected city you surely have better and cheaper options available. But out in the jungle, remote islands, or deep in the mountains (or heck, just the countryside in some places), this would be a vastly cheaper alternative to dragging miles and miles of cable. 2 hours ago, Hannu2 said: In urban area 99$/month is ridiculous price but in Finland we have large areas where no one offers internet at this speed level. USA is also large country with large rural areas probably without high speed internet providers. If I remember correctly Starlink is intended for rural areas where is no other options at this speed. I thought starlink was also supposed to compete with regular internet providers in urban areas Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 Share of adults with internet faster than dialup, US (2017): There are faster options in many areas now even with wireless. Even in ABQ, it was only in the last 10 years I got 1 MB DSL (45, now, for about $40/mo). Some people up here in the foothills don;t even get DSL (too far from a CO), and we don't have cable TV up here. The problem is population density, and terrain. Starlink is not going to be competitive in urban areas I would think. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sevenperforce Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 39 minutes ago, Flying dutchman said: I thought starlink was also supposed to compete with regular internet providers in urban areas It will when the constellation is fully operating. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 From the Starlink terms of service: Free Mars! (lol) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
magnemoe Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 4 hours ago, Superfluous J said: No it's free. I don't own it but frankly I don't want to, and if I didn't use it my monthly cost would be the same. When I had cable, though, yeah theirs was a rental and they really made it hard to use your own. The standard cable modems are cheap, as the ISP buy them in bulk I guess its less than $50 for them. The starlink antennae is far more complex. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okhin Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 4 hours ago, Superfluous J said: No it's free. I don't own it but frankly I don't want to, and if I didn't use it my monthly cost would be the same. When I had cable, though, yeah theirs was a rental and they really made it hard to use your own. Well, here in France there was some technical leaglities around abuses of GPL in those boxes, that were settled by the fact that the boxes were the property of the ISP, meaning that users of the ISP were not buyers of the software and therefore could not ask to access the source code of the modification made to the linux kernel. Since then, there's always a monthly fee for the modem, you're supposed to send it back to them when you change your provider and you should technically be able to refuse the modem and use your own (I'm not sure you can do it easily with optic fiber, I did not try and I've seen no such case). The monthly fee is usually under 1e, and never displayed on your bill since it's part of the package, so you don't see it. Does not mean you don't pay it. Also, depending on your local laws and regulations things can change accordingly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannu2 Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 34 minutes ago, sevenperforce said: It will when the constellation is fully operating. It is very hard to see that any radio bandwidth would be enough to handle data traffic of large cities. I think cities must rely on optical fibers in foreseeable future. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Okhin Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 Well, it's all about multiplexing. I mean, we have high res TV on hertzian broadband in Paris, like 4k streaming on 27 channels (and more if you pay for it I guess) to each house. TV Satelite network broadcast their shows in big cities too. In HD. And there's a lot of them, and it works. Still one way, I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elthy Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 (edited) 24 minutes ago, Okhin said: Well, it's all about multiplexing. I mean, we have high res TV on hertzian broadband in Paris, like 4k streaming on 27 channels (and more if you pay for it I guess) to each house. TV Satelite network broadcast their shows in big cities too. In HD. And there's a lot of them, and it works. Still one way, I know. Thats not comparable at all since TV satellites do only send the same stuff to every user. Edited October 28, 2020 by Elthy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mikegarrison Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 11 hours ago, Okhin said: Also, those "free" modem and boxes you got with your internet access ? They're not free, usually they're rented, included in your monthly payment, and you don't own them. I own my own cable internet modem. When I had DSL, I owned my own modem for that too. It's not hard to do, but you do end up being your own IT support. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shpaget Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 Every ISP I've had gave me a modem at no cost whatsoever explicitly stated (I'm sure they all include it in the service cost, though). They did mention that they keep the ownership of it, but never asked for them once I terminated the contract, or even bothered to take them away in a handful of occasions when the modem broke down and their technician came to replace it. Apparently those things are so cheap that it's just not worth the paperwork, which suits me just fine; each time one of them breaks down I get a free enclosure and a 12V power supply, and we all know you can't have too many shoe boxes full of them just waiting for a project to use one, only to find out that none are powerful enough so you have to buy one regardless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tater Posted October 28, 2020 Share Posted October 28, 2020 When I first moved into the foothills, there was no DSL available. I could not deal with dialup, so I ended up having a directional 802.11 antenna pointed at my ISP many miles away (luckily being up high, we have LOS virtually everywhere in town). I had to buy all the hardware on both ends, lol. Since we now have decent DSL for less than $99/mo, no real reason for Starlink unless it's much, much faster. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Terwin Posted October 29, 2020 Share Posted October 29, 2020 (edited) 5 hours ago, Shpaget said: Every ISP I've had gave me a modem at no cost whatsoever explicitly stated (I'm sure they all include it in the service cost, though). They did mention that they keep the ownership of it, but never asked for them once I terminated the contract, or even bothered to take them away in a handful of occasions when the modem broke down and their technician came to replace it. Apparently those things are so cheap that it's just not worth the paperwork, which suits me just fine; each time one of them breaks down I get a free enclosure and a 12V power supply, and we all know you can't have too many shoe boxes full of them just waiting for a project to use one, only to find out that none are powerful enough so you have to buy one regardless. Keep track of them all. My ISP did not seem to care about them, until I tried to terminate my service(moving out of the service area) and they refused to stop charging me until I returned my modem(to their service desk(at HQ), during normal business hours) Edited October 29, 2020 by Terwin Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hannu2 Posted October 29, 2020 Share Posted October 29, 2020 12 hours ago, mikegarrison said: I own my own cable internet modem. When I had DSL, I owned my own modem for that too. It's not hard to do, but you do end up being your own IT support. In Finland trend has developed from rented modems (you paid certain amount monthly) to modems you got from provider when you made a contract, but was your property to whatever modems you buy yourself. I have always got a new modem, which has been included in monthly costs. But at that time it was obligatory to make 2 years contract and modem's retail price was less than 10 % of total payment . Now I think there is no minimum time in all contracts and I do not know if they give "free" modems anymore. In any case if my modem is broken I have to buy a new from shop and install it myself. I think that moving responsibility of support and broken things to customer has been the reason for the trend (in addition to decrease of prices for modems and connections, of course). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SOXBLOX Posted October 29, 2020 Share Posted October 29, 2020 19 hours ago, Shpaget said: They did mention that they keep the ownership of it... Gosh, sounds like our old telephones we had to rent. That was a long time ago... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.