If any of you use Starlink for internet, and if you have a minute, would you let me know what you think about it? If you don’t want to write it here, you can send me an email.
Our internet has become awful. Yes, we CAN live without internet but in the last six months, there’s hardly a week that goes by that it doesn’t go off and stay off for 6+ hours. Because we living in a valley, we have no cell service here and have to use wifi for our cell phones. Without internet, we have no phones. It’s gotten to where, if we need to do something tomorrow or the next day, I go ahead and do it today while we have internet because who knows if we’ll have it tomorrow or the next day.
Yesterday it went off about 1 p.m. Apparently it came back on between 1 and 2 a.m. because a weather alarm went off on our phones at 2. It didn’t wake me but Vince told me that’s when he knew the internet was back on. I went to bed about midnight and it wasn’t on then.
We’re thinking about switching to Starlink. We know the startup costs and the monthly cost but what I’m mostly wondering is whether it has limits for upload/download and whether, maybe in the evenings when more people are using it, does it get extremely slow? Can you tell that’s it’s fast at times when you would expect less people to be on it?
We don’t have a lot of options. It’s basically stick with the service we have or go with Starlink or, I guess move to somewhere that our cell phones would work without internet. I don’t see the last one happening. If (BIG IF) we were to move, it would probably be somewhere with worse internet or no internet except for Starlink.
Thank you.
Paula Nordt says
My son in law takes care the internet stuff, so I don’t have details. He switched us to Starlink last Christmas after we spent decades with miserable service from the phone company. We are out in the country (for now, subdivisions being built all over), so our options were limited. But we love Starlink! We have as many as three smart TVs, plus cell phones, plus iPads, all going at the same time. No problems.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thank you! It’s so hard to know what to do and since we have to buy the equipment, it wouldn’t be feasible to switch to Starlink and then switch again soon if we weren’t happy with it so I want to make sure it’s right for us. Thank you for responding.
Kathy says
We had to wait several months, and pay for the equipment up front, but we’ve had Starlink for about a year now, and it is the BEST! It’s expensive, yes, but not that much more expensive than other, far less reliable services. The ONLY time that we have had an outage with Starlink is when our power has gone out due to storms, or whatever…we choose not to hook it into our generator.
Installation was no problem. We chose to purchase weights rather than putting holes in our metal roof for holding it in place. They have an app that you use to determine best placement. It was a cinch, even for us ole’ timers!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I think Vince is going to put ours on a pole because we also do not want holes in the roof. Vince will have ours set up so we can plug it into the batteries charged by the solar panels since we don’t use generators since the freezer and fridge are the only things we’re concerned about running here. We bring a small solar generator in to power the router/modem even when the power goes out with our current ISP.
Thanks for letting me know. It is kinda scary to spend so much on the equipment before you know you’re going to like it. There is no wait for Starlink now – at least not here. We can buy the equipment at Best Buy or Home Depot, install it and have it connected almost immediately — I think that’s what Vince told me.
Frieda says
We have it also. We are rural. We don’t have any trouble with it. It has stayed on in some crazy windy weather. We have been really satisfied with it.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Great to know. Thank you!
Pat Anderson says
From a health standpoint, there is equipment that you should install to remediate Star Link…I would have to get the info from Michele…let me know!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
Thanks. Yes, I’d like to see that. I thought the potential health threat was from the actual satellites themselves, not what goes into our homes but I have no idea. We will wait until you can get info on that.
Sherry V says
We are in East Tennessee and there are limited access to internet. We have Starlink and have had no issues.
However, the speeds we are able to get are not suitable for working remotely. I had a position in New Jersey that would let me work completely remotely, but I can’t because the speeds aren’t sufficient for their requirements.
I am on the computer quite a bit….and have done streaming without a problem. A little pricey but we don’t have many/any other options.
Heather Sedlacek says
We were all set to get starlink when t-mobile added service in our area. Since t-mobile was cheaper we tried that first and it works great for my husband who is constantly streaming and me working from home. For starlink everyone in our area loves it and quite a few people say it is faster than fiber optic that they had at previous homes in more populated areas. Our only concern was getting a clear path to the satellite because we live in the woods. A very un tech savvy friend was able to set up her system with no issues so you should have no issues with Vince in charge!
judy.blog@gmail.com says
T-Mobile is here and the people in higher locations but the neighbors who have tried it say it doesn’t work well in our area. I would love to have something where we didn’t have to buy the equipment but I don’t think we have that option. I’m sure Vince will be able to install it with no problem. He’s pretty good with that kind of stuff.