[jyl]

Starlink box arrived last week, today I opened it and set up the service.

There are zero instructions in the box, but you just install the Starlink app on your phone and follow the instructions. Which are basically:
- Use app to scan the sky while standing where you plan to install the dish, to see if the dish has a good enough view of the sky
- Set dish into base, place in location
- Plug dish cable into controller/wifi access point, plug that into power
- Connect your phone to STARLINK Wifi network
- In app, give the network a name and password
- Reconnect to the newly renamed network
- You’re online

Actually, there is waiting involved. The system needs to boot up, find satellites, etc, all takes 10-15 minutes before the app shows “ONLINE” and your phone gets internet.

If you set up in a bad location, ignoring the app’s reservations, like I did, there will be a further delay while you move the dish to a better location. As far as I can tell, all you do is pick the dish up and move it, there’s no rebooting etc.

My better location is still not great. I live on a tight urban lot, houses and big trees squeezed together, and the dish is on the roof of my one story garage with the three story house to the north (exactly where the satellites are) and my neighbor’s house to the south. But it seems to work.

I’m getting 90 to 140 Mbps down, per fast.com, when standing by the Wifi AP. I’m in the heart of urban Portland, I’ll guess there are very few Starlink users here, so I imagine these speeds reflect uncongested conditions.

Unfortunately, the station is in a bathroom at one end of the house and my favorite napping couch is at the other end of the house, where I get only 36 Mbps. So I’ll deduce the Starlink Wifi AP doesn’t have as good coverage as the Orbi mesh APs I use with cable internet, and there are no ports on the AP to cable it to repeater, router, etc. Odd design decision, maybe there is a more featured AP available for a higher price? But the cable from dish to AP is very long, maybe 100’ (?), and I could put the AP in a better location, if I cared.

No comment on reliability etc, the system has been online for all of half an hour.

I am probably going to try this out for a month or two, then switch from the residential account to the RV account ($135/mo, can turn service on and off, can use dish anywhere, but speed may be slower than residential account if there is congestion in the area) because I don’t need this thing for my primary internet service and that way I won’t pay $110/mo all the time, just pay $135/mo for the months that I switch service on (either because I’m camping or because internet is out in my office).

Anyway, my very brief experience is good. Those of you in rural locations should consider Starlink if you’re unhappy with what you have.