Question for anyone who has Starlink
 

Did you install it yourself? If so, how difficult was it? If not, who did you use for installation?

i/m watching this thread closely, as i'd like to have it too. when i called about it, a rep said it's not available here yet. my nephew up north has it & loves it.

It absolutely is available here and the whole state of FL. Their website shows the coverage map.

Install is simple. Basic grunt work.
Plant a pole where there is a clear view of the sky to the north. Bolt on antenna panel. Run cable (the hardest part, getting cable into house). Power up. Connect to your home network.

Antenna does not move to track satellites. That happens electronically.
No need to put on the roof because that extra 15ft height is trivial to a signal hundreds of miles away. Only reason would be to overcome trees blocking view of the sky.

You do need to buy antenna ($500 I think).
Subscribe ($100/month last I checked).
Link speed is a couple hundred mbps.

Cost wise, it is easily beat by the CATV or fiber physical service where available.
Would likely perform better than cellular phone network based internet.

There is a version for motor homes. Similar install onto top of vehicle roof. Costs are higher.

Thank you! I'm a bit perplexed as to where to run it into the house. I really didn't want it on the roof as I don't want to go into the attic and down into a room as it would probably require the longer cable that I don't want to buy, lol.

For running the cable, take a look at where your low voltage box is in the garage, if your house is like mine, you will find multiple coax cables and I was able to feed the new cable out the TOP of the box, and then go outside and remove a piece of soffit and route to an antenna (in my case). If you have a newer home, I understand they no longer install the coax, so I will let others provide info on a suitable location and wiring method.

This speed of UP TO 200mbps seems quite slow by today's standards. A $100 for that speed?
With Xfinity we are paying $79 a month with average speed of 800mbps. What am I missing here?

If you have another wired-cable/fiber optic option in your area then Starlink is definitely a bit more expensive.

Starlink was never intended to replace the standard cable providers. Starlink (Tesla) offers faster speeds and lower latency in remote areas where satellite and cellular internet are the only options. For those areas without a cable provider (islands, Ukraine!, remote cabins, ships, RVs, etc) then the $120 per month for Starlink is a viable option.

I believe Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines uses Starlink for their ships.

We have it at our northern summer home (rural lake area). I installed it myself. Basically you use the phone app which helps you find a suitable location. Otherwise, it's a self pointing dish when it comes to fine tuning. As long as you're comfortable mounting something on your home using a ladder and a drill, the installation should not be a big issue.

You will have to plan how you run the cable into the house from the outside to the Starlink provided modem/wifi router. I drilled a hole in the house and used spray foam to reseal the hole.

Performance wise it's just as fast as normal city cable or DSL internet.

The provided cable is quite long. I believe it's 50 feet. If you have a clear view of the northern sky from either side of your house, mounting on the wall might be your best bet, otherwise I think you would have to mount it on the roof.

The price of a longer cable would really be like less than 1% of the total cost if you include operating it for at least one year.

Not a good comparison. Xfinity, Comcast, Spectrum, and others are combinations of Internet (the data pipe) plus TV in most cases and telephone in most cases.

Starlink is ONLY the Internet (data pipe) service. If you want TV, you need to add another service such as YouTube, HULU, Sling etc. Same for telephone service too, although telephone service is in their plans for later this year.

For most, the value of Starlink is providing data streaming access to remote places that have no other options; deserts, oceans, under-developed towns and countries, etc. Yes, much more expensive than the quoted Xfinity ... unless there's no Xfinity (Comcast, Spectrum, etc.) service available. More reliable too. When that winter ice storm, erm hurricane, knocks down the electricity and cable goes dead, Starlink is still working.

As for speed, it is more marketing than reality. That is, 800 sounds better than 200 in the sales literature, but an extreme minority of customers actually use more than 200. You can stream video to 2-3 TVs and 3-5 computers, and 3-4 phones with 200mbps. You don't really know, nor can you easily measure accurately, how much of that 800mbps service you're really consuming.

Additionally, Starlink's 200mbps service is likely a short term capability. Knowing how Musk's businesses advance, after there's a globe covering cloud of Starlink coverage, they'll probably start cranking up the bandwidth.

What is starling?

StarLink is an internet access service delivered via satellite. They are launching more sats often, and are the majority of rocket launch events from KSC

One consideration for anyone in the Villages using Starlink, but has access to Fiber or even cable based internet. Starlink is very robust in weather overall compared to older DirectTV etc. That said, it can be effected by heavy rain, hard to get passed the laws of physics. In most cases, I've seen data rates slow, but in very heavy rain you can have complete outages for a brief period. For anyone that has cruised recently, most major cruise lines have or are in process of switching to Starlink. Very impressive service, but you may have noted you lost internet (or it slowed way down) or TV during very heavy storms...... and the cruise ship antennas are far more robust than the home version.

Starlink is a GREAT service, but was not meant to replace fiber/coax where available in the near term. Fiber is the best solution if available. As indicated above, Starlink for remote areas, cruise liners, airplanes, RVs etc it is a God send.

We have Starlink in our motorhome when we travel from April to November. When we return to TV, we turn it off and use Spectrum. It works well for us, averaging speeds of around 120Mbps. I would not recommend it for a home in TV as there are much better options such as Spectrum 400Mbps for $49.95. If you go with Starlink, you would need ARC approval and I am assuming they would view it the same as they do an outdoor antenna.

Have it!
 

I use Starlink in my RV, similar to others. I have used it all the way to Montana and in Canada. I was streaming TV and browsing the internet while others were not.

I recommend fiber in The Villages. I pay $30 for 200Mbps up/down fiber. Starlink is $120 month when we travel. We have 100Mbps plus on Starlink but rain can impact performance.

Before the speed demons attack me, you don’t need Gig speed at home. Streaming only requires 7Mbps for HD. Why pay for speed you don’t need? Unless of course you are a gamer!

Good Luck.

$
 

120/mo?? Century link $75 for top speed

We often see them speed by at night, several in a row(s). They generally travel from west to east.

I believe that the FCC law on making antenna bans illegal would apply to this.

Over-the-Air Reception Devices Rule | Federal Communications Commission

Interesting: I am a promoter of using outdoor antennas for television and TV’s deed restrictions are bogus for this. The Q&A section of the fcc rules imply antennas for the internet are also included.

PS
Bogus dead restrictions;
https://www.talkofthevillages.com/fo...41-post58.html

If the term used "is allowed by law", then that deed restriction is valid, but not enforceable due to the override by state law, ie there are no places where the deed restriction is applicable or enforceable.

Basically, the deed restriction is trying to take advantage of residents not being a FL attorney, and copied from before the internet took over the world.

Also, being Harold Schwartz's personal fiefdom when it was a small development, he was a bit controlling to keep the villages in his vision. . . and many not wanting to anger him, or change the development, copy and paste with only minor changes is the norm. . . No thinking allowed, just repeat past success while it works, until it doesn't. . . like maybe overdevelopment runs out of water, or waste water capacity or other natural limitations not believed to apply to developers in FL. . .

Correct. I did not want to hijack this thread so only gave the link about misslesding, illegal, and ridiculousic dead restrictions. Below is my full statement on BOGUS dead restrictions from a different thread. Pay attention to 2.19 & 2.23

great thread, thanks for all info