4G internet or Starlink?

[mushtafa]

My business address doesn't have fibre and connects at like 10 down and 1 up on a good day.

It seems I have two choices;
1. Go for a 4G setup (but would require an external antenna - poor phone reception in the building - have to use WiFi calling)
2. Give Starlink a go.

Is Starlink worth the extra money over 4G? I've not used either, so doing some research.

 

[Rroff]

Hard to say without knowing what kind of reception you get with an external antenna - 4G can work quite well but it can also be pretty hit and miss.

 

[m_c]

How much speed do you need?

I used to only get 6-8 on FTTC but the cabinet was 2 miles away.
After falling out with BT over repeated outages, I went 4G.
With a Teltonika RUT and biggish antennae, I used to get between 6 and 15, but it would suffer very noticeable slow response times occasionally.
I very nearly went Starlink at the time, but I got a tip off that full fibre was imminent and was only being held up by blocked duct that was due to be repaired.

I have worked at several events which have used Starlink as their sole connection, and it is far better than 4G, however it all depends on whether the additional cost is worth it, as if all you're doing is basic web browsing with the occasional download, I'd struggle to justify the extra cost, but if you're regularly transferring big files, then probably is worth the cost.

 

[Rroff]

4G can vary wildly - I found a spot in my bedroom where EE gets between 70mbit during peak times and up to 120mbit down during the night, 20-30mbit up and a surprisingly good latency - solid 30ms ping and very rarely spikes or the connection drops out, on the other hand if I go a few metres either end of the property it'll drop to like 8mbit and be flaky.

Vodafone, O2, etc.: 12-15Mbit down, 2-5Mbit up, latency 40-100ms with spikes and the occasional drop out.

Many of my neighbours are still on ADSL2 kind of speeds on 4G and/or are still actually on ADSL.

Starlink according to neighbours is around 130Mbit down overnight but can drop to 50 during the day, can't remember exactly but around 10Mbit up and latency has been talked about as being broadly similar to 4G and though generally reliable they've had days where it has been pretty flaky.

We also had BT FTTC but it wasn't great - 35Mbit down, 6Mbit up, low latency but due to being in a rural area with the connection coming in on overhead lines it could be a bit flaky sometimes - fortunately we recently managed to get gigabit FTTP from Wessex though.

 

[HoneyBadger]

We have FTTC but it’s rubbish as we live in the sticks. So I use this as a secondary connection and use Starlink as primary. On SL I can get up to 500Mbit down and about 30Mbit up, but that’s peak. For example on Sat I downloaded BF6 from steam at circa 380Mbit but usually it’s consistently circa 200.

 

[mushtafa]

Thanks for the info. The flaky 4G speed/connection is my main issue after reading a few other posts online.

Think I'll contact Starlink and have a trial.

I don't really require speed, but 10 down and several disconnects a day makes the day painful when everything is web based these days. A stable connection with 30 down would be fine

 

[mushtafa]

Just spoken to Starlink, business package of 50GB for £39 month, or 500GB for £99. And no contract. Upto 220 down and 30 up.
If unhappy, everything can be returned for a full refund including all hardware & shipping costs! Sounds like it's worth a go

 

[m_c]

For that price, I wouldn't even consider 4G.

When I looked at Starlink, I think it was still over £50 per month, and you had to buy the hardware.
And having just checked the website, it's still £75 for residential, and having looked at the business options, you still need to buy the hardware.

Roam option looks good though, although I'm not doing enough events just now to justify it, and I actually don't mind the occasional day or two with limited internet access in the back end of nowhere.