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All,
The general rule for living in the country is that people that live there want space. That space comes with some limitations and one of them is seemingly bad Internet service. There appears to be real hope on the horizon.
Kathy and I moved to 75 acres bordered on three sides by US Forest Service 23 years ago. Suffice it to say that we have tried it all. ISDN, multiple lines through a custom built modem box, “dial-return” satellite (dial up connection, send email or page requests via that dial up connection, download email and page returns via satellite dish – almost impossible to network to other computers) to Hughes Net, Wild Blue and then a Wireless Internet Service Provider (WISP). We were in the first handful of customers to go with the local startup WISP which has subsequently been bought by people with deep pockets and who did a pretty fair job of building out their network. They spent hundreds of thousands of dollars buying their own fiber-optic connection to the local source and we generally only have a few complaints. 1) They consistently run off the good technical talent. 2) They don’t have backup power at their tower sites. Or at least not the site we get our service from. 3) Due to the nature of the service we must have our WISP radio atop an 85′ tall tower to get over our trees. 4) We pay nearly $200 a month.
Starlink is a SpaceX product which means it is Elon Musk’s outfit. It is a different kind of satellite Internet. The older style ones are in a geostationary orbit and are 22,000 MILES away from Earth. Because they are 22,000 miles from Earth you have a lag, called satellite latency, when you send and receive. Because they are big satellites they cost a lot to launch to their location and so they use what they euphemistically call “Fair Access Policy” (FAP) rules to limit your downloads. Kathy and I routinely got FAPd by the 9th or 10th of the month prior to the change to WISP service. They just limit you to absurdly low amounts of data. Musk’s solution is to launch a whole array, literally thousands, of small satellites to blanket an area and to perch them at a much lower altitude. Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) is an orbit with altitude of about 1,200 miles. I suppose Musk’s satellites would be at Very Low-Earth Orbit since they are at 340 miles. 340 miles versus 22,000 miles means that the latency issue is nearly eliminated. And the plan is if they need more bandwidth they just launch more of the satellites.
The Gen1 satellites weigh 573 pounds while the Gen2 satellite is considerably larger at 22 feet long and weighing 2,755 pounds. There are currently (as of June 2, 2022) more than 2,500 Starlink satellites orbiting the Earth. SpaceX is producing approximately 120 satellites a month and they have launched as many as 240 in a single month. The latest use lasers to do data transfer satellite-to-satellite and perhaps satellite-to-Earth based network operations centers, in order to further reduce latency. The latency experienced by end users should be around “10-20 milliseconds versus 17 milliseconds for fiber”.
Musk’s SpaceX is not the only one going this route, he is just further along than anyone else. The competition includes fellow space billionaire Jeff Bezos. Amazon.com Inc.’s Kuiper Systems which wants to launch more than 7,000 satellites. Beijing-based GalaxySpace, which plans a constellation with as many as 1,000. The European Union has announced a plan for a constellation and Indian billionaire Sunil Mittal’s Bharti Global, along with the British government, is an investor in OneWeb Ltd., which plans to begin operating its LEO constellation of 648 satellites this year.
Enhancing the utility of the Starlink unit, last Thursday (June 30) the Federal Communications Commission licensed them for mobile use. Previously restricted to fixed locations, but with people posting TikTok and and YouTube videos showing that they worked in motion on on everything from airplanes and boats to RVs, Starlink sought and received authorization for mobile use from the FCC. The authorization covers both consumer and business vehicles.
Pricing has evolved with enhancements to the Starlink system. It basically costs $600 to start ($100 down and $500 when they are ready to ship) and the monthly charge is (as of 07/05/2022) $110 per month unless you want the portability option which costs an additional $25 per month. I use the word “evolved” because clearly people could use their package outside of their registered location and to date service has not been turned off for those that do. It looks like Starlink will implement some sort of compulsory “fixed” versus “portability” pricing and I figure that means if you start taking it from its fixed location they will either turn it off or bill you the higher monthly charge. But, for someone getting about 25Mbps down and 15Mbps up for ~$200 a month, 150Mbps down and 80-100Mbps up for $135 is a bargain.
Unknown at this point is how hard it may be to tie it into an existing mesh network or how difficult it will be to access IP cameras. Kathy and I have not taken the leap yet, mostly for those two reasons, but at least two members of the Club are on the Starlink system. If you have experience with it please chime in with your observations!
Phillip Beall (W5EBC)
Sources:
Version 2 Starlink with Lasers and Gen 2 SpaceX Starlink Bigger and Faster
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