SpaceX Starlink Internet Experience & Performance

[alberto-pv]

I'm in a larger town near DE-CIX InterneNode until this year i was not able to get DSL over 50Mbit. FTTH? Cable? No way even if I'm living near the city center. Now I will be able to have 200/50 for around 40-50€/month

I live in Veneto, these speeds (FTTC) are quite common, more or less. In Treviso, a 90k people town north of Venice 1Gbit connections will be soon available. Here in Italy there's a lot of competition in telecommunications market (probably the only one, but that's another story)

[jbean]

With Vdsl2 we have 5ms latency not 50ms. It supposed that low altitude will give as 20ms not 50ms. Trash.

With xDSL, VDSL2 included, latencies can vary widely depending on your distance from the CO. As the distance increases, error correction and interleaving plays a big role to prevent unreasonable packet loss, so you're fortunate such latency is even possible for you. When you factor those in which many customers have to deal with, the latency to the gateway can easily go from your sub 5ms to 20ms. I would guess, given the fact most users on average are not always living on top of the CO, that this is the case for most people using xDSL, not a minority of them.

So for many xDSL customers, especially when you factor in throughput, Starlink is still a very worthy option. Also given the fact much POTS infrastructure is going largely unmaintained by ISPs in markets where it's not profitable to upgrade to FTTP, the need of starlink for these users increases even further. Going from 40 ms to 60 ms in CS:GO, using SSH or something is not that noticeable anyway at those latencies.

[tildearrow]

Hmmm... Michael...
Why Comcast though? Often the most known ISP isn't the best.

Oh wait I forgot about coverage!

[jbean]

Hmmm... Michael...
Why Comcast though? Often the most known ISP isn't the best.

Probably the only option I'd guess. I wish i had more options here...

[sverris]

How many W uses it when idle and how many when busy? And what about temperature range?

[r1348]

Every single speed benchmark is still faster than my VDSL (100Mb in theory, 20Mb actually). But I get better latency. And I pay 29€/mo, no data caps.
Yes, there are no faster options where I live, but supposedly my street will be covered with FTTH in 2023.

[knuckolls]

Any reason the unofficial speedtest-cli was used? https://www.speedtest.net/apps/cli is the official speedtest cli that contains the same engine as the native applications

[bradh352]

Michael, can you explain your mount using the Winegard mount a bit more? It looks from your picture you just slid one tube inside another and used some electrical tape to secure it. Is there something more holding it on? What about a major wind storm, can it come off?

I just received my Starlink yesterday but haven't yet ordered a mount for it as I wanted to physically see how it would work, but it looks like a proprietary mounting solution.

Also, have you tried "hacking" the proprietary cable they ship with it? At my desired mount point I have an RJ45 jack in a weather proof box running back to my wiring closet. From what I understand the it should be possible to re-terminate the cable and use my own already run cable as the backhaul rather than trying to run this special cable.

[Michael]

Michael, can you explain your mount using the Winegard mount a bit more? It looks from your picture you just slid one tube inside another and used some electrical tape to secure it. Is there something more holding it on? What about a major wind storm, can it come off?

I just received my Starlink yesterday but haven't yet ordered a mount for it as I wanted to physically see how it would work, but it looks like a proprietary mounting solution.

Also, have you tried "hacking" the proprietary cable they ship with it? At my desired mount point I have an RJ45 jack in a weather proof box running back to my wiring closet. From what I understand the it should be possible to re-terminate the cable and use my own already run cable as the backhaul rather than trying to run this special cable.

Yes it slides in there quite far and is sized just right that it isn't loose -- no wobbling or anything. I did put some electrical tape around it as an additional safety measure. Originally was going to look at some of the U clamps (I think some also came with the Winegard mount) but didn't get around to it and in the few months so far this electrical tape hasn't caused any problems. I think the only way it would come out would be like with a crazy updraft of air from underneath / tornado... But it's endured 70mph straight line winds already without issue. The cable is also routed from the inside down the tube, so if that cable is taunt it's even less likely it would blow out of the mount.

No, I haven't tried hacking the cable.

[Michael]

Hmmm... Michael...
Why Comcast though? Often the most known ISP isn't the best.

Oh wait I forgot about coverage!

Yeah no other option, unfortunately.