Starlink for home use?

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Flyfish1

Recycles dryer sheets
Joined
Apr 17, 2016
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275
Location
Coastal CT
So, I am sick and tired of cable creep, here it is Xfinity/Comcast and in 4 years we have gone from $160 /mo to $250/mo. To be fair we did add the Outdoor Channel, but the increase is ridiculous.

I recently put the Starlink ROAM on my boat for $150/mo and can activate/deactivate it at anytime. It's smokin' fast and has been great this last boating season. Thank you Elon.

So, now to my question: I'm thinking of installing a Starlink residential unit at $120/mo and Youtube TV at $73/mo. Definitely some savings there, but I realize all prices will creep upwards. Does anyone have Starlink at home? How's it going?

Thanks in advance.
 
Thread moved to the technology forum. Interesting question. I didn’t know Starlink was available for residential use.
 
My brother has been using Starlink at his home in north central Wisconsin, and he has been happy with the service so far.
 
We've had it for a year or more. Great technology that works. Had a brief outage, 15 minutes, the first time it needed to heat the dish in heavy snow. Yes, it is $120 a month. We paid half that for our other option, CenturyLink 2.5 Mbs, that was frequently out.

Actually, this summer, a construction crew hit the fiber line, and the whole town was out except those who had Starlink.
 
I signed up for early adoption for my cabin, but lucky me, a cell tower was installed, so I just go for unlimited data for the 2 months I might be there.

Since OP has tried it out, seems like OP would know how well it works.

Could always tow the boat to the house and use it there :D
 
We just got Starlink last month in our rural area. So far, it is beyond wonderful.

We pay $120 a month. Our local internet provider charged $96 a month and we had to have a landline for that. Local said we could drop the landline and the charge would "only" be $99 for the internet.

The speed with Starlink will vary at times, as you are well aware of if you already have the roaming version.

The day we installed it, our old internet had 4.03 Mbps download and .47 upload. I kid you not.
Our Starlink clocked in at 137.1 download and 4.71 upload.

Of course it varies; sometimes it's a bit lower and other times it is much higher.

I will say that I was on a Microsoft Teams meeting call yesterday and it froze up a bit and I had to re-enter the meeting. I can't blame it on the weather b/c it was a beautiful day with no obstructions. This would happen occasionally with our old internet set up and that I attributed to very low speeds at high peak times. With the Starlink, I am thinking it is the occasional satellite instability? I really don't know.

All this to say, it has been a HUGE step up for us as rural internet users. In the city, we have Comcast and it's fine. But oh gosh, I think for anyone in rural areas especially, Starlink is the best thing since sliced bread. Okay, maybe homemade bread...
 
If you have a decent cellular signal, why not consider TMobile or Verizon home internet? About $50/ month, I believe.
 
Flyfish1 said:
So, I am sick and tired of cable creep, here it is Xfinity/Comcast and in 4 years we have gone from $160 /mo to $250/mo. To be fair we did add the Outdoor Channel, but the increase is ridiculous.

I recently put the Starlink ROAM on my boat for $150/mo and can activate/deactivate it at anytime. It's smokin' fast and has been great this last boating season. Thank you Elon.

So, now to my question: I'm thinking of installing a Starlink residential unit at $120/mo and Youtube TV at $73/mo. Definitely some savings there, but I realize all prices will creep upwards. Does anyone have Starlink at home? How's it going?

Thanks in advance.
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We don't use Starlink because we have access to reasonably priced cable internet, but my SILs folks use Starlink at their summer home that has poor cell signal and no cable and it works well for them.

Depending on your needs, if you have good cellular signal at your home you might try cellular home internet from AT&T, T-Mobile or Verizon. A friend of mine with modest need for internet uses Verizon successfully and IIRC it costs him about $50/month.

What would internet only from Xfinity and YTTV cost vs what you are paying now? We have Xfinity internet at our Florida condo and it is very affordable. At the same time if you have multiple TVs cable tv can get quite expensive.
 
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Flyfish1 said:
So, I am sick and tired of cable creep, here it is Xfinity/Comcast and in 4 years we have gone from $160 /mo to $250/mo. To be fair we did add the Outdoor Channel, but the increase is ridiculous.

I recently put the Starlink ROAM on my boat for $150/mo and can activate/deactivate it at anytime. It's smokin' fast and has been great this last boating season. Thank you Elon.

So, now to my question: I'm thinking of installing a Starlink residential unit at $120/mo and Youtube TV at $73/mo. Definitely some savings there, but I realize all prices will creep upwards. Does anyone have Starlink at home? How's it going?

Thanks in advance.
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If you already have Roam just use that at home, you're already paying for it. Or if you need internet at home when you aren't there then I would get SL Residential as well.

Also, if you haven't been updated, Roam now stops working when you are in motion at speeds over 10 mph. They are now enforcing this speed limit as of Oct 1. I can verify it; I just returned to KS from CO and while SL worked fine at highway speed on the trip out Sep 17 it did not work at all on the trip home Oct 8. You can pay for "Priority Data" at $2/GB and it will continue to work at faster in motion speeds.

As to YTTV I just compared it to my DirecTV Stream $115 service this week and it would be more expensive for me to get 106 channels when my DTVS service has 186 channels. The base YTTV package is missing a lot, particularly sports. I'm grandfathered into the DTVS GoBig package with HBO, Showtime and the sports package for free, otherwise it would be another $40 or so.
 
Flyfish1 said:
So, I am sick and tired of cable creep, here it is Xfinity/Comcast and in 4 years we have gone from $160 /mo to $250/mo. To be fair we did add the Outdoor Channel, but the increase is ridiculous.

I recently put the Starlink ROAM on my boat for $150/mo and can activate/deactivate it at anytime. It's smokin' fast and has been great this last boating season. Thank you Elon.

So, now to my question: I'm thinking of installing a Starlink residential unit at $120/mo and Youtube TV at $73/mo. Definitely some savings there, but I realize all prices will creep upwards. Does anyone have Starlink at home? How's it going?

Thanks in advance.
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Can't you get an Internet-only plan from Comcast/Xfinity for a lot less than $120/month? Then add Youtube TV on top of that. My 400 Mbps Internet-only Xfinity service, which is several times faster than Starlink, is $45/month (promo rate - goes up to $75 in a couple of years). I could have gotten a slower speed for even less $.

Seems like Starlink is a solution for people who can't get fast wired service. It's slower and more expensive than what most people can get from their cable company, but a lifesaver for those in remote areas who only have phone company DSL available, or worse.
 
We have had SL for about 15 months. There is cable near us, but the providers will not cross the marsh to run the cable to our side of the creek. Cell service is very weak and unreliable. This left us with DSL and the very end of the line with horrible speed and reliability. During COVID, my husband would have to drive into town and sit in the library parking lot to use their wi-fi for work meetings. Then came SL! Has been night and day difference for us. It is expensive, but we don't have many alternatives.
 
You can get relatively cheap internet service from Comcast so I think it is your TV channels that are driving up your costs. 200Mbps internet service only from Comcast costs $72 per month all-in for me. This includes access to a whole world of Xfinity WiFi hotspots, which matters to me as I have Google Fi for my cell service so I pay for cellular data.

Last year I finally dropped my Comcast TV channels. I picked up Hulu Live for the football season, but I wasn't happy with it. First of all, I didn't think the streaming picture quality was as good as the picture I was getting with a CATV signal. Also, there were hiccups during some of the broadcasts, which almost never happened with CATV. Finally, the price was a $78 per month for their basic channel package including Ad supported Hulu which I didn't think was a bargain. The main advantage to going with a streaming service was the ability to drop it easily when the football season was over.

This year I researched my options again, but I've stayed on the fence. There are no deals for TV if you want to watch the big 4 networks so I'm using the Bears' games as an opportunity for social outings. I too know of at least one friend who's using unlimited 5G service for their home internet now so that could be another way to go for you.
 
Received the Gen 3 "kickstand" dish yesterday. Set it up on the deck at our mountain cabin. The one with trees, many tall trees, all around the cabin.
The Gen 3 cost $299. I ordered a SL pivot mount since I plan to mount it on the peak of the roof. But surprisingly even with expected obstructions (50%+ from the app) I have ~140 down and 20 up. Watching TV is seamless, no buffers. When loading a webpage I occasionally have to reload a page. Phone calls have some skips. But once I mount it about 20' higher I'm expecting this to all get better. Over the last 12 hours the app shows 18 minutes and 9 seconds obstructed total.
Very easy to set this one up. I actually just set it on a set of scaffold on the deck and guessed on the direction.
I'll probably keep it, it does have a 30 day return.
 
jimbee said:
My brother has been using Starlink at his home in north central Wisconsin, and he has been happy with the service so far.
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+1 DD's in-laws use Starlink at their pondside camp that doesn't have access to cable or decent cell signal and they like it.
 
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My brother installed Starlink at his home a year or two ago and liked it enough that he has just installed another at his business. Cable service in his particular location in SE Michigan was not viable and he used Verizon cell data service for a while but it tanked every afternoon, apparently due to customer load. He's very happy with Starlink but I don't think it was inexpensive.
 
NoiseBoy said:
You can get relatively cheap internet service from Comcast so I think it is your TV channels that are driving up your costs. 200Mbps internet service only from Comcast costs $72 per month all-in for me. This includes access to a whole world of Xfinity WiFi hotspots, which matters to me as I have Google Fi for my cell service so I pay for cellular data. ...
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+1 I think you are right that is TV driving up the OP's cost. We had Comcast internet in our Florida condo and it cost $47/month after credit for autopay and promotional credits that are easily obtainable by calling in periodically. IMO it would be faster and more affordable and more reliable than Starlink.
 
I've noticed the cable creep too of my Comcast internet (I only have internet through them, no other service). I'm interested for when Amazon will have there internet. However my regret is I've used my Comcast email as my primary email. Kind of painted myself into a corner that way. Wish I've used an email not tied to an ISP.
 
We just installed Starlink at our cabin in North Central Wisconsin. Huge step up from century link with 10Mbps. It is slightly more than double the price, but well worth it. We do have tall trees around the cabin, but get somewhere between 20 and 200 Mbps, most often around 100Mbps. I will have to investigate how much obstruction I have using the app. I have not investigated it thoroughly.
 
easysurfer said:
I've noticed the cable creep too of my Comcast internet (I only have internet through them, no other service). I'm interested for when Amazon will have there internet. However my regret is I've used my Comcast email as my primary email. Kind of painted myself into a corner that way. Wish I've used an email not tied to an ISP.
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We transitioned our email to gmail many years ago. I set up a gmail address and programmed our ISP provider email to forward all email to the new gmail address and send my entire email address book a notification of the email change. About a year later I felt comfortable closing down the ISP email address and we later changed ISPs.
 
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