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Starlink UK
- Thread starter OneTinyFish
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- starlink
Not trying to trivialise the problem. I just think it wil become cheap once the cost to orbit is much lower and more effort is spent on putting electronics up there. They have to cool the starlik sattelites as well...
The "dish" is flat...
Right!
But on vans and buses, boats/ships, planes - amazing.
Even potentially as a public wifi spot.
Indeed. However there's probably a few of orders of magnitude difference between a Starlink satellite thermal output and a server farm.
The point about cheap cost to orbit is very valid though. Hoisting an orbiting server farm will cost a heck of a lot less once SS is flying.
£76+vat = £91.20 - that's all well and good for wealthy folk or when it can be offset for business. For the vast majority of the public a grand a year after tax is a serious sum .. especially since eveyone seems to need a mobile phone and some sort of TV package.
I can afford it but baulk purely on principle at a lot of this stuff (no TV or licence here and no cell coverage anyway). Looking at the installation instructions doesn't look promising for where I live with a 300ft hill right behind the house to the north.
Does anyone have a clue as to the data limits within the system? If it gets popular then you can be sure there'll be usage caps and contention issues.
Have you priced satellite broadband in the UK?
For example, Bigblu's most popular tariff (Silver) gives 18Mbps and 50Gb of "priority" data per month (once you hit 50Gb then your speeds are restricted). That has an equipment and installation fee totalling £130 and a monthly charge of £45.90. Their gold package costs the same installation and £80 per month. That gives a piddling 33Mbps with 100Gb of data per month. Both of these will also have massive latency times (measured in significant fractions of a second).
Starlink, even if it was available here, is a bargain compared to that. 50Mbs and lower latency than a fibre connection. I'm not sure what you are comparing it to to be considered expensive.
The beta doesn't mention any data caps.
There's no evidence to suggest that when (not "if") it gets popular that caps or contention will be an issue. Bear in mind that SpaceX increased their beta operating licence significantly. They were granted a licence for 1 million terminals in March and in August they requested to increase that to 5 million. 700,000 people had applied for beta access in March this year.
The beta is running on 895 sats at the moment which clearly is good enough to roll out the beta trial. All going well, this constellation will be increased to 12,000 sats. The Generation 2 constellation is expected to have 30,000 sats on orbit in addition.
I wasn't comparing it to other satellite systems. I'm simply stating that for average Joe that is a lot of money. Mind you average Joe probably wastes that much on takeout coffee and bottles of water and complains he's broke...
ACarneiro
Active Member
You are, of course, more than welcome to not buy the service. My point is that this is by far (on paper at least) the best value for money that you can get given the constraints of your geographic location.
The North thing surprised me, I though the idea was that there will be satellites all over the place and you can always get LoS to at least one of them, regardless of which way you orient the antenna.
We had satellite for a while ... possible to hit the data cap in a few days unless you were very restrictive on usage (don't mix up your bits and bytes as above). In practice latency on these systems is not "measured in significant fractions of a second" ... its even worse than that ... we're talking multiple seconds latency not fractions of seconds! Unlimited 4G is an absolute joy in comparison with faster downloads and better latency but if Starlink can get the latency down to circa 20ms then that will become very attractive for people out in the sticks with no other options.
No data limits specified at the moment.
Each "cell" will be covered by satellites and will have a maximum capacity. It's up to Starlink to decide whether they want to try to pack customers in. In some regions with very low population density, there might not be enough customers, but Starlink might instead want to use that node as a preferred node for Space Laser communications.
Starlink is high-speed, low-latency satellite broadband. The absolute cost is not the question. It's the relative cost compared to current data-capped, high-latency satellite systems that are some peoples' closest thing to high-speed broadband.
At the current advertised bit-rates and latencies for Starlink, people would easily be able to stream HD video. Expect rural LEO Internet customers to be able to ditch satellite TV subscriptions and switch to cheaper OTT streaming services.
Besides, for many people in those poorly-served rural areas, the savings on the mortgage will outweigh the 91 quid per month.
Check the video, he explains that due to the initial orbits the coverage will mainly be towards the north of the North America (for now).
Glan gluaisne
Active Member
Those raising their eyebrows at the thought of $99/month might want to look at the sort of prices that some out in the sticks pay for significantly poorer performance. Our neighbour is paying that much for her satellite broadband, and the performance of that is pretty poor. Speeds are reasonably high (a LOT higher than the handful of Mb/s we get on FTTC), but latency is really bad. It makes anything interactive, like Skype or Zoom, almost unusable. As she lives on her own, with family who live miles away, during lockdown the problems with latency made life even more difficult, so she's pretty much stuck with using the landline phone.
A group of us have been working at getting something that will give us better broadband for some time now, and this has gained a bit of extra impetus this summer with a couple of the people affected trying to work from home. With no mobile signal, and slow broadband (because of the copper wire distance to the fibre cabinet) we're open to pretty much any option. We're trying to get a grant to run a fibre across the valley, as having FTTP would be great. The snag is that it would need half a dozen new poles, as apparently it's not technically feasible to run the fibre along the same route as the copper takes (to do with the distance and the other services on some of the poles, apparently).
If Starlink could give us reasonable broadband, it would open up more possibilities, and, perhaps, give us something to beat Openreach up with by way of competition. At the moment, we're getting the feeling that Openreach have priced up running fibre to maximise their profit, secure in the knowledge that they have zero competition here. Even trying to have any sort of sensible conversation with Openreach is close to impossible - so far we've been working on this project since about May this year, and it seems we're no further forward.
A group of us have been working at getting something that will give us better broadband for some time now, and this has gained a bit of extra impetus this summer with a couple of the people affected trying to work from home. With no mobile signal, and slow broadband (because of the copper wire distance to the fibre cabinet) we're open to pretty much any option. We're trying to get a grant to run a fibre across the valley, as having FTTP would be great. The snag is that it would need half a dozen new poles, as apparently it's not technically feasible to run the fibre along the same route as the copper takes (to do with the distance and the other services on some of the poles, apparently).
If Starlink could give us reasonable broadband, it would open up more possibilities, and, perhaps, give us something to beat Openreach up with by way of competition. At the moment, we're getting the feeling that Openreach have priced up running fibre to maximise their profit, secure in the knowledge that they have zero competition here. Even trying to have any sort of sensible conversation with Openreach is close to impossible - so far we've been working on this project since about May this year, and it seems we're no further forward.
England/Wales/Ireland has extremely good coverage at this early stage if the online coverage maps are accurate.
Starlink daily coverage estimates
I agree though - those with terrestrial broadband availability already are not the target audience for this, the price is set to reinforce that.
Starlink daily coverage estimates
I agree though - those with terrestrial broadband availability already are not the target audience for this, the price is set to reinforce that.
Just to make this point ... from Easter 2018 this was part of a communication with Special Offers ... check out the super-cheap bargains and weep! These prices, before VAT, are for extra data in case you run out part way through the month:
Looks like a race between Elon & Manx telecom FTTP. Recently lettered PSM in next phase of rollout. Not as cheap as Openreach but you’re likely to get it quicker than most of us. Fibre Broadband FAQs - Manx Telecom
Huge market in Scotland - you’d be gutted if they did release it now given the coverage. Imagine it dropping out if you had a missing satellite in the constellation.England/Wales/Ireland has extremely good coverage at this early stage if the online coverage maps are accurate.
Starlink daily coverage estimates
I agree though - those with terrestrial broadband availability already are not the target audience for this, the price is set to reinforce that.
Same sort of issue here - 3 miles to the nearest fibre line from my place and another mile to the next two farms and in total that'd be a dozen properties and not sure they'd all chip in on cost either....
As for our copper it follows a tortuous route to the nearest town. If my line turned right out of the property instead of left it'd be a mile shorter but obviously we're on the end of some arm of the system.
