Starlink - Anyone get it yet?

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120813736#Comment_120813736

Wouldn't imagine give you better service in this scenario without the large outlay on equipment... just a thought.

Happy_Harry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814389#Comment_120814389

Nope, been there done that.. had them for 4 years or longer, great at the start but was unusable towards the end..

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814595#Comment_120814595

I've had them for 6 years now zero problems. I don't see how you'd get better gaming off Starlink and also be down 500 euro for the pleasure.. ?

Happy_Harry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814292#Comment_120814292

When you say : go to exact location, you mean climb on a ladder and then hold up phone high and keep turning it until app says 100% ? That sounds like fun for a guy who has a fear of heights 😂

Pic from google maps ( North is top, South is bottom).. red circle is the front of the garage. Was initially thinking of actually putting dish up at the other side ( out of sight), but didn't know about need for south facing ( so thanks for that)..You can see my neighbour's tree and it is actually quite high, so could potentially block I guess- and yes the side of the garage is a possibility, that is where Imagine had their modem. Just wondering how heigh it should be.. south facing not a big issue with clear sky , but I was under impression it needed a 360 degree clear view in which case the roof would be in the way.

I would like to keep the router in the garage. I presume it can be put in bridge mode ? As the rest of my wifi set up works very well. One of my modems right now is in garage , in bridge mode, and connects to dual WAN router in house

To add insult to injury my eir speed is up again to normal (75/15), I start to suspect some very heavy users on the mast during day time.

The Continental Op

Plonk the dish down in the middle of the drive plug it in and see which way it decides to point. Then you'll know exactly how you'll need to mount it to best achieve the dish angle. If thats a wall to the right of the garage then try dishy on the wall.

eirlink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814637#Comment_120814637

assuming you dont yet have a starlink, and you are attempting to survey to see where to place it, then yes you should climb the ladder and scan the sky using the app. as i said before, height of the dish is NOT a consideration PROVIDED you have a clear unobstructed view of the sky above. and for your information the upward view is not a full 360 pointing straight up, its 360 but tilted ( aka azimuth ) ....again the app will allow for this deviation and show you graphically. theres a reason we added this feature to the app, so the customer can assess and survey multiple potential locations in advance of ordering.

Speaking of ordering, go to the starling website and enter your co-ordinates ( not your eircode ) to establish if theres service at your location. if theres no service then everything else goes on hold.

starlink calls bridge mode by a different term, " Bypass mode" and this can be setup in the advanced part of the SL app.

eirlink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814637#Comment_120814637

what part of ireland are you? nearest town?

eirlink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814637#Comment_120814637

by the sun shadows in that pic, id be looking at mounting at the side of the garage, wither wall mounted or ground mount, out enough for the building to allow unobstructed view

Happy_Harry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814825#Comment_120814825

Kells, Co. Meath

Happy_Harry

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814738#Comment_120814738

That sounds like a pragmatic approach and no it is not a wall, it is 6ft fence between my and my neighbour's property

eirlink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120815034#Comment_120815034

5 nodes around you there up to 13 birds overhead with 100% quality

Eleusis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120814631#Comment_120814631

You absolutely will get far superior gaming with starlink than imagine.

listermint

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120815964#Comment_120815964

That's not a ubiquitous statement.

micks_address

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120815359#Comment_120815359

What's that screenshot from?

ItHurtsWhenIP

https://starlink.sx/

...

Happy_Harry

I think I am convinced (apart from gaming performance , it seems a bit hit and miss). I found a location to put the kit up with the app.

Now just wondering now whether to buy or rent.

For sure I won't have FTTH in the next 20 months ( more likely to be 30-36), so pure financially it makes sense to buy..

But having been bitten by both Imagine and Eir (with great service at the start and after a while it starts to suck), maybe the flexibility of renting is attractive.

Also, as has been asked before but never answered, in case of damage or malfunction, would SL give you new (-ish) stuff easier when you rent than when you buy ? It is not clear in their ToS, what happens if rented equipment breaks..If there will be a better version of HW at some point , you'd expect to be able to simply upgrade ( Even if it is done by cancelling and re-subscribing)

I think I have just answered my own question by writing this, but will sleep over it.

Bedouin79

Buy it. You won’t regret this purchase. I wish I did a year ago

eirlink

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120823907#Comment_120823907

buy it. renting model may change per territory, and likely will.

Eleusis

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120816596#Comment_120816596

Im not sure why starlink gets a bad rep for gaming on this thread. I feel its unfounded and not really backed up with evidence. I would urge anyone visiting this thread and wondering about gaming on starlink to look elsewhere for info. The overwhelming opinion online is that is ok for gaming. Its not as good as wired obviously. The poster has stated that he was having problems with gaming on imagine and someone stated that starlink would be an expensive way not to fix this. I disagree with this.

I had mobile broadband for 10+ year and had nothing but problems. I tried all sorts of set ups and different providers. Sometimes you can get a speedtest and get 100mb/s and then at peak time its 3-5mb. Gaming was inconsistant with pings were around 20-100ms with random spikes into the 100's every now and then and sometimes (rarely though) discconects. Jitter and packet loss high and unpredictable.

Starlink has a more stable ping (roughly 30-45ms) for games that have servers in london. I think the vast majority of ireland gamers will be playing their games on london servers. Both packet loss and jitter are lower on starlink.

Going from starlink to fibre was hardly noticeable. Ping went to around 35ms to london servers. the only difference which is a big one I suppose is that it is steady around the 35ms. Which is why wired is best.

Over the years I have done lots of prolonged tests with pings, jitter and packet loss. Not just a basic speed test. In particular I did testing during transitions from mobile to starlink to fibre. As I would have had 2 at the same time for a few days.

Im not saying starlink is perfect and doesnt ever have ping spikes or packet loss, but I can categorically state from experince and testing, that in my situation, starlink is far better than mobile broadband for gaming. Assuming your wired and no obstructions you should have a positive experience with gaming on Starlink, especially if you are coming from a bad mobile broadband gaming experience.

One caveat on my mobile broadband, is that Im rural and distance to mast is a few km. I dont know if this matters when you have an external antenna? Even rurally I could get 100mb+ during off peak times and pings low enough on a basic speed test, but as stated above that doesnt tell the whole story.

micks_address

Might be the fastest download speeds Ive seen yet...

Happy_Harry

I decided to buy outright, guess I will have 30 days to properly test.

Cancelled one of my EIR SIMs which was very painless, 5 minutes on the phone maybe. As they sent out letters informing about contract change, cancellation could be done immediately, and it was immediately actually.. Service stopped whilst I was on the call still 😂

Ordering Starlink was a lot more painful as they use a DHL shipping address database and if you input your shipping address that doesn't match the DHL database (City vs Eircode) you will not be able to order anything.

After many attempts and figuring out they use DHL , I found a DHL address validating tool (https://dct.dhl.com/)

You basically input country and eircode it gives you the "city" to use, which in my case is not my or any city at all ..You use that "city" and surprise surprise it even showed up with my Eircode.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120836143#Comment_120836143

Google Plus code is recommended when ordering. My brother ordered about 2 weeks ago, without issues.

Initially the order page directed you to use Google Plus code to find your address but that was removed some time ago so it can cause a bit of confusion when inputting your address.

Tommy Lagahan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120836143#Comment_120836143

Cheers for the DHL tool, I actually ran into this with some online shops last year.

joe123

Ive had Starlink since it first became available in Ireland which if memory serves was November 21?

It really has been a game changer in terms of download speeds, WFH, usability for multiple users and being able to watch 4k content on streaming services.

Speeds consistently stay between 150Mb - 250 and upload around 15-30. Very few outages in my time too.

Online gaming is where it falls down but its still very much usable and if you are not playing at competitive type levels you will be fine - typically expect ping ingame to be around 50ms with rare occasional packet loss.

At its current price of 65 euro a month, it really is a no brainer if you can't get FTTH yet.

Saying that once FTTH eventually arrives, I will move.

The Cush

Old vs new, Starlink replacing legacy bigblu/Viasat CPE/Ka-Sat (150GB priority data allowance) at my brother's. Installed 3 years ago as the only option for WFH at the start of Covid.

Starlink setup over the weekend, going well so far.

The bigblu service was only used for WFH because of it's limited data allowance, elsewhere the house was served with poor landline copper adsl, approx 3 mbps, even worse than that at times.

Both bigblu and Sky phone/broadband will be cancelled soon. The bigblu package alone cost approx €130 per month, Starlink is half this per month now. Big saving when both bigblu and Sky broadband are cancelled.

Before they cancel the Sky landline they want to move their number to VoIP, can anyone recommend a good VoIP service for them to use over Starlink?

Eleusis

I use Irish voip and it's been easy and painless. I even continue to use them after I went from starlink to fibre. Mostly cause of the limited voip options offers by ISP's with fibre packages. Off peak landline -yipee

Edit: you can also get a device that means you can use your old phones. Otherwise you will have to buy DECT phones. Although DECT phones are better if you have good wifi. You will need to weight all that up. Also some voip providers charge subscription per Dect phone instead of per number. You will need to check that too. I think Irish voip don't charge per phone but I'm not 100% sure as it does apply to me. I use their device to use old phones and I plug the master phone into their device and then other phone run from master phone.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120844504#Comment_120844504

Thanks Eleusis, they were looking at the Irish VoIP website.

They intend keeping the existing analogue/DECT phones using the ATA instead of going with WiFi phones. The house is all concrete walls and floors, WiFi coverage is weak from the Starlink router because of this.

Also because of this we had to run ethernet from the router location to the WFH office, just waiting on a crimp kit to finish the job. Currently working with a TP Link powerline adapter giving in the 60s Mbps speed.

Overall the Starlink speed is impressive with a high of 290 Mbps seen on a morning speed test.

That being said they have the drawstring in the wall cavity for fibre once it arrives in maybe 2 years time, NBI survey done a few weeks ago.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120844504#Comment_120844504

Eleusis, one further question from them on VoIP, as none of us had VoIP previously is there an incoming call charge or just the standard outgoing charge?

The Viasat dish came down today, cancelled with bigblu yesterday. They asked why they were cancelling, reasons given were cost, speed and priority cap.

Eleusis

I went for the 1000 minutes inclusive plan, but I notice now it's 30+ vat now. It was 20+vat when I signed up. They havent inceased my prices. If they do, I would shop around again.

I'm not sure on the payg plan if you pay for incoming calls.

The Cush

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120857271#Comment_120857271

So no incoming call charges on your plan in any case.

I think they're looking at the PAYG plan as most calls are done on mobiles.