Starlink - anyone using it?
- Thread starter Dirk Diggler
- Start date
Associate
What upload speed do you get?
How high up have you installed it?
I'm planning on putting it on the side of the house, fixing the mount just below the soffit so that the dish will be just sticking out and above the bottom of the pitched roof. The roof has a 30 ° pitch so I hope it won't obscure the view of the sky. If that is no good it will probably have to go on the chimney but that will be a much bigger job to install.
Associate
I've set up the starlink and run some tests.
Download speed is great 80 - 200
Upload speed is not great 8 - 20
for £75 / month
With our 4G setup we usually get
Download 20 - 30
Upload 15 - 30
for £44 / month
Download speed is great 80 - 200
Upload speed is not great 8 - 20
for £75 / month
With our 4G setup we usually get
Download 20 - 30
Upload 15 - 30
for £44 / month
What are you expecting, upload speed on a satellite service will always suffer more, but for a satellite service 8 to 20Mbit up is pretty good
Soldato
- Joined
- 14 Jun 2004
- Posts
- 6,270
plus 4g coverare will vary depending were you are, were as i assume maybe wrngly sat coverage is a lot better and works out in the sticks.
Associate
@Wizzkidy @LostCorpse , i probably should have said this is for our home internet connection rather than for a connection when out-and-about.
I wasn't really expecting anything, i knew the download would be much faster than our 4G connection but i hoped the upload would also be faster. I wanted to test and see whether starlink will give us a significantly better connection than our current 4G. Both myself and wife work from home a lot, and sometimes our 4G connection can struggle to meet our requirements. In our case I don't think starlink is offering a significant improvement over what we've got for the cost. Maybe i'd better off trying to get more out of our 4G connection by improving the signal. The cable between the aerial and router is quite long and the signal to noise ratio is fairly high. If i put my mobile phone in the same location as our 4G aerial, the phone gets much faster down/up speeds than i can get via the aerial.
I wasn't really expecting anything, i knew the download would be much faster than our 4G connection but i hoped the upload would also be faster. I wanted to test and see whether starlink will give us a significantly better connection than our current 4G. Both myself and wife work from home a lot, and sometimes our 4G connection can struggle to meet our requirements. In our case I don't think starlink is offering a significant improvement over what we've got for the cost. Maybe i'd better off trying to get more out of our 4G connection by improving the signal. The cable between the aerial and router is quite long and the signal to noise ratio is fairly high. If i put my mobile phone in the same location as our 4G aerial, the phone gets much faster down/up speeds than i can get via the aerial.
@rangor gubbins
This makes no sense as one quick Google takes you to the starlink specifications and it says right there between 5 to 20Mbit upload
Did you purchase the service without any research? You knew download would be good but didn't know anything about upload?
4G service in the end will be slower and less reliable, you also didn't post latency speeds
This makes no sense as one quick Google takes you to the starlink specifications and it says right there between 5 to 20Mbit upload
Did you purchase the service without any research? You knew download would be good but didn't know anything about upload?
4G service in the end will be slower and less reliable, you also didn't post latency speeds
Last edited:
Associate
I did some research before ordering the kit. The 30 day trial is also part of that research. Posting on here to see what others' experiences of using starlink is also part of that research.
This is the spec from the starlink website but it is general, not specific to sites.
A couple of people around where we live that I've spoken with have said they get >100 Mbps down, and 30 Mbps upload, one person said they got 80 Mbps upload in the past but now it was a bit slower. I wanted to see for myself.
This is the spec from the starlink website but it is general, not specific to sites.
A couple of people around where we live that I've spoken with have said they get >100 Mbps down, and 30 Mbps upload, one person said they got 80 Mbps upload in the past but now it was a bit slower. I wanted to see for myself.
| SERVICE PLAN | STANDARD (FIXED) | PRIORITY (FIXED) | MOBILE (MOBILITY) | MOBILE PRIORITY (MOBILITY) |
| AVAILABILITY | ≥99% | ≥99% | ≥99% | ≥99% |
| DOWNLOAD | 25-100 Mbps | 40-220 Mbps | 5-50 Mbps | 40-220 Mbps |
| UPLOAD | 5-10 Mbps | 8-25 Mbps | 2-10 Mbps | 8-25 Mbps |
| LATENCY* | 25-60 ms | 25-60 ms | <99 ms | <99 ms |
A lot of generic/noname brand 4G aerials are actually kind of poor unless you've got no other choice for positioning as the cable can undo a lot of the potential gains. If at all possible it is better to reposition the router and/or use a [outdoor] 4G modem and connect it back to a router.
Associate
According to www.speedtest.net our 4G connection has an idle latency of 20 -50, but the download latency and upload latency is much higher (>200). It looks pretty similar with starlink.
Associate
Thanks. Sounds like a good idea. I'll try and see what i can do. Using an external modem might be good.
Associate
We're moving house quite soon (although not moving very far at all from where we currently live) and it seems that the max speed available at the new house is 8-10mb! So a big change from our FTTP 500mb we currently have and it's essentially led us down the rabbit hole of finding out what we can do.
Checked with Open Reach, no plan for Fibre to be installed any time soon but it is on Gigaclear's roadmap for an estimated Q4 2024/Q1 2025 install. I am fully expecting that to be a more realistic 2 years... So it looks like Starlink is our only real option at this time.
Both my wife and I work from home full time, we're both on video calls for around 50%+ of the working day so we don't think we can get away with the 10mb line unless we really tried to balance our calendars to never be on calls at the same time. I also play a decent amount of games in the evening and my wife will stream things over BBC iPlayer/Netflix etc. so we're definitely considering that Starlink will remove any potential headaches with that.
I'm tempted to go with the rental option (so no 450 up front cost - but an extra 10 per month) as if we do end up with Gigaclear installed in the next 45 months (so almost 4 years) then we'd be better off than buying the entire unit.
Has anyone purchased/ installed it recently? Does it come with the new gen 3 router? We'd rather run wired where we can and the gen3 router has ethernet (and would save us buying the ethernet adapter).
Checked with Open Reach, no plan for Fibre to be installed any time soon but it is on Gigaclear's roadmap for an estimated Q4 2024/Q1 2025 install. I am fully expecting that to be a more realistic 2 years... So it looks like Starlink is our only real option at this time.
Both my wife and I work from home full time, we're both on video calls for around 50%+ of the working day so we don't think we can get away with the 10mb line unless we really tried to balance our calendars to never be on calls at the same time. I also play a decent amount of games in the evening and my wife will stream things over BBC iPlayer/Netflix etc. so we're definitely considering that Starlink will remove any potential headaches with that.
I'm tempted to go with the rental option (so no 450 up front cost - but an extra 10 per month) as if we do end up with Gigaclear installed in the next 45 months (so almost 4 years) then we'd be better off than buying the entire unit.
Has anyone purchased/ installed it recently? Does it come with the new gen 3 router? We'd rather run wired where we can and the gen3 router has ethernet (and would save us buying the ethernet adapter).
Associate
I bought the refurbished standard package from starlink in early Jan and it came with gen 2 so I also bought the ethernet adapter.
@t2na have you checked https://bidb.uk/?
Associate
Yeah, it shows the planned Gigaclear line but everything else is regular.
A shame really, we’re moving a 10 minute walk away so it really is frustrating.
There might be an option to pay a provider to install fibre.
Personally I wouldn't move to a house if it didn't have full fibre of some form to it, but I understand in certain situations it can't be helped, ie dream home etc.
Associate
Yeah, we really were weighing up our decision to go ahead with once we found out about the internet situation - but the house is lovely, we're getting a really good price on it and it ticks nearly every box (apart from the internet!) that we were looking for.
We know eventually fibre will be installed - and I think we'll find a way to make it work either with Starlink or standard line - or a combination of both. I'm tempted to have both in place and then just balance usage between the two (i.e. if Starlink ping is high but regular line ping is low then use the regular line for gaming - and Starlink is used for downloads / WFH etc.).
We used to live in relatively central Birmingham and we had so many options for FTTP there. We used Aquiss via OpenReach but Grain were there, Virgin, CityFibre etc. They were always digging up the pavement to install them so we were spoilt for choice! Also meant prices were mega competitive.
Starlink totally works. We've found it absolutely fine for working from home multiple video calls and streaming happening simultaneously.
Just did this speedtest:
https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/9846809106
318 down 36 up
Just did this speedtest:
https://www.speedtest.net/my-result/a/9846809106
318 down 36 up
Soldato
Decided to take a risk on this. I've been suffering terrible internet service in a rural area(Dorset) for far too long now. Despite some initial talk of FTTP with Wessex internet, it seams a long long way off in this area(not this year), with no short/medium term access to any fast internet services/fibre. A solution was needed. Even with 2 people online streaming video its a struggle, game downloads take potentially days.
Whilst its an expensive option, considering how much I rely on a good internet connection for both pleasure and work, I think in the short/medium term I am happy to take the hit. I have a month trial period which I will most definitely take advantage of, as if I dont have a solid stable connection its just not worth it for me.
I very much look forward to receiving my kit and getting it all up and running. I have spoken to a few industry partners over the last year who use this regularly (Albeit in a commercial sense, not private) and they sing its praises. I've seen it work in some very isolated location within the UK, including near me. So I guess we'll see!!!
Whilst its an expensive option, considering how much I rely on a good internet connection for both pleasure and work, I think in the short/medium term I am happy to take the hit. I have a month trial period which I will most definitely take advantage of, as if I dont have a solid stable connection its just not worth it for me.
I very much look forward to receiving my kit and getting it all up and running. I have spoken to a few industry partners over the last year who use this regularly (Albeit in a commercial sense, not private) and they sing its praises. I've seen it work in some very isolated location within the UK, including near me. So I guess we'll see!!!