Starlink – Part Deux

I’ve been meaning to write an update to our Starlink saga, but we’ve been busy with house stuff. More on that in the next post.

First, apologies to my former high school and band mate Wally who sent me a link to a Starlink review ( https://www.theverge.com/22435030/starlink-satellite-internet-spacex-review ) over a month ago. The article’s title (“SpaceX’s satellite internet service is a technological marvel — when it works”) signaled the direction of the Starlink review.

In a nutshell, in the whole week he evaluated the service, the author seemed most concerned about the fact that Starlink was not as fast as his cable Internet service.

Dumb. Starlink was designed from the getgo as a rural, not urban, Internet service.

Internet in the Boondocks

First, as a rule there’s no cable Internet available in the sticks because it’s just too expensive to run cable lines for so few customers.

So rural Internet options are typically cellular, microwave, and HughesNet.

For example, here in Mariposa, CA where we live, before Starlink our Internet options were cellular (Verizon, AT&T, etc), microwave (unWired broadband), and satellite (HughesNet). I’ve had experience with all of them and reviewed my cellular and microwave services is an earlier post ( https://rvseniormoments.com/2021/03/23/starlink-vs-att-verizon-microwave/ ).

From RVing, I’ve also had extensive experience with HughesNet ( https://rvseniormoments.com/projects/hughesnet-gen-5-satellite-internet/ ).

Starlink

We’ve been using Starlink since March and we’re very happy with it. If anything, Starlink service has become more dependable and faster over time.

About a month ago, we moved the Starlink dish from our backyard fence to our house roof:

In order to mount the Starlink dish on our roof, we used a special Pipe Adapter kit and a Cable Routing kit. Both kits were exemplary for what they included . . .