Starlink

[Patrick]

If anyone is self-installing the dish, I sell pole adapters and wall brackets. The original Starlink pole adapter was rubbish as it was too shallow. The newer version is a bit deeper. I have 3D printed or metal ones which have a good grip on the pole.

https://forms.gle/13KojgjZoEbGAXZr8

[Seán]

I think Starlink is building up a backlog of orders as they moved back my delivery date from between 5th and 9th May to between 9th and 13th May.

I called Three to cancel my Broadband. When I mentioned Starlink as the reason, they didn't say anything to try keeping me this time. They said I will be be billed for the next 30 days (i.e. 30 days notice), after which my Three plan will end. This means anyone ordering Starlink, fibre, etc. and currently on Three bill pay should call straight away to cancel.

[Seán]

I just did a quick test with the kickstand sitting on the ground to make sure it's all working.

First impression - It may not be fibre, but it's impressive!! 

One of the first tests I wanted to try is a Bufferbloat test . . .

   

https://www.waveform.com/tools/bufferblo...2e1d15ca2a

Ethernet traffic graph during above test:

   

10 minutes of continuous pinging while I was running various speed tests, including the above test:

   

Even the above speed is the fastest speed test I've seen on Starlink to date, not that I would have expected to see this on my own connection.  It does however fluctuate up and down (I've had a few below 200Mbps) obviously depending on what satellites are currently above and obstructions due to being at ground level near our house.  

I am curious to see how well it performs once it is permanently mounted.

[erik_ei4kf]

Ordered Starlink today. I shall be glad to be rid of Three Ireland. At least I hope so but for sure the above quick test shows an impressive result.

Erik.

[Seán]

We got the dish permanently mounted on Thursday.  My Dad went for a 42mm pole to have both the Freesat dish and starlink on the same pole, only to find that the Freesat dish and wall brackets were too narrow, so this part turned out to be the most tedious due to replacing the wall mount and modifying the Freesat dish bracket.  The Starlink dish was the most straight-forward.  Once the App was ready for carrying out the alignment, this part took just a few seconds.  If only aligning 4G directional antennas was that quick!

So far in my first two evenings of using it with a temporary Wi-Fi connection from my desktop PC, it feels just like my brother's SIRO connection for browsing, streaming, etc.  Speed tests are regularly in the 300s.  They intermittently top out at just under 500Mbps, so the above at least is not a one off.  The second speed test below is right now (1:15pm) as I write this post.

       

I also have our VoIP line on it and already had a 30 minute telephone call at 9pm that was fine while I was using the connection from my PC.  Downloads and uploads are barely noticeable in a continuous ping test, unlike 4G where they would often spike over 200ms. 

Today I am busy re-doing our home network as we no longer need a separate network for the VoIP line.  This means I can also use our Fritz Box for Wi-Fi for nearby Wi-Fi devices such as our printer, TV set top boxes, etc. 

I will also be doing away with the Tenda Mesh Nodes.  The Fritz Box covers our ground floor and the Starlink upstairs also seems to cover the ground floor and upstairs.  I will have one more virtual Wi-Fi network for Getflix, for example our Freesat box does not have DNS configuration, so needs the DNS provided by DHCP.

[erik_ei4kf]

Starlink arrived and is installed. But I cannot use it so far. In the app it says that I am not at the registered address even though I am at the address on my account and the product was sent here. So I contacted customer support and was shown how to edit my address which involves moving a map of Ireland so that the location dot is at the right place and then hit enter. This brings me a screen at which I am asked to confirm the change and that there is a fee for doing so of 349 Euro. So I aborted that and went back to customer services who so far have done nothing about it except send me repeated messages about how to make the change and that it costs 349 Euro. I will give them 24 hours more to fix it and then, if same issue, return it and give up and stay with Three Ireland.

[Seán]

That's a pity, particularly as it has not been activated. The only thing I can suggest is send them a screenshot of the €349 charge to update the address. At least this explains why it is advisable to do a test run on its kickstand before mounting it as I can imagine this would be a right pain hiring someone to mount it on a pole only to have to return it.

I currently ran into one small issue in that I have had several power outages since getting Starlink installed. The power is currently off as I write this post, so am back on Vodafone 4G temporarily with a 12v battery. The Starlink has a proprietary 52V power supply, so I have ordered a small Eaton 900VA UPS for the Starlink, so will see how that works during the next power outage.

[erik_ei4kf]

Hello Seán, actually it has been activated. It came online, started an update, then dropped the connection and reported that my account was restricted (due to their system mis-assigning the registered address to about 150km south of me). I had bought a roof mount and installed it there and did not do the test run (silly me).

Last response this afternoon from their customer services is my account remains restricted unless I pay 349 Euro even though it is their error. So tomorrow I will cancel and return it.

So a total and disappointing disaster.

[Seán]

I suspect they sent you a previously returned Starlink dish that did not have its GPS data wiped. GPS can take a few minutes to lock in a new location, if this is the case it probably reported the previous GPS lock during activation before its GPS module locked on to your current location.

If you have not already started the return process, one last option would be to make a formal complaint with Comreg:

https://www.comreg.ie/advice-information/consumer-care/

[erik_ei4kf]

Ok thanks for that and I have made the complaint to Comreg. I will hold off on starting the return process to see what, if any, answer I get. You have to name the type of broadband product - Fibre, Fixed, Mobile - but satellite is not an option. Still, I just called it Fixed and filled in the form.

By the way, now you mention it, it is very possible that the dish was previously used. The kick stand attachment, though fitted, was broken as if someone had attempted to remove it and snapped it. 

This sort of inconvenience always happens to me. So far its been one of those years for it.

Erik.

[erik_ei4kf]

Quick update: Comreg told me what to write in an email to Starlink Complaints. I did not get any reply so far and neither has my Support Ticket seen any reply after several days either. But I found this morning that it is working and that my service address has been corrected.

Speeds at the moment are 280 Mb/s D/L and 24 U/L. It is raining heavily and, having no experience of satellite broadband, I don't yet know if this rain affects speeds. Also I see that my dish needs alignment so I will do that later once the weather improves. Anyway, progress and it looks like goodbye Three Ireland about whom I am not sorry to see them go. Yesterday I had 40-70 Mb/s D/L during the day but only 6 Mb/s to 12 in the evening, using the MikroTik LTE18. I used to get reasonable speeds in the evening but for the last month or so their service has bombed.

Erik

[Seán]

That's great, I'm sure once they saw the complaint being brought to ComReg, they had to do something as the provider has 10 days to resolve the issue of raising the issue with ComReg, after which ComReg can then intervene directly.  For example, many years ago when I had DSL I moved from BT Ireland (before becoming Vodafone) to Digiweb.  BT Ireland kept billing me with their customer service insisting that my connection is still with them and the same with Digiweb.  When I contacted ComReg, they had me make a formal complaint with both providers and get a reference number from each to provide ComReg.  After about 2 weeks (when I presume ComReg intervened) I got a call from a manager in BT Ireland apologising for the billing and refunded going back to the date of porting.  

That's a great speed even without alignment.  At least it is a lot easier to align than a satellite dish as you don't need to adjust for tilt, assuming the pole is plumb.  The following internal link shows how many degrees it is out on rotation and tilt:

http://192.168.100.1/

While heavy rain itself does not appear to affect the speed, it looks like Cumulonimbus clouds (that produce intense rain / hail) do if its connecting to a satellite through one.  For example, yesterday evening around 9pm to 10pm, I had a few low speed tests.  A retest a minute or two later and the speed is well over 100 / 200 again by which time either satellite moved past the thunderstorm or it switched to a satellite in another direction.  The second set of test results is from Sunday evening where all the peak time tests were in the 100's:

       

Despite the dips, YouTube had no issue streaming manually set to 4K from around 9pm to 11pm.

[Seán]

So far in the first two weeks with Starlink, it's great no longer having connection hiccups while streaming or browsing, particularly with the Three 4G tower clashing issue I had over the past few years, especially during high pressure weather.  It would be nice if Starlink added signal readouts to watch the readouts as it hops from one satellite to the next.  Apparently an older firmware did temporarily provide this capability, which this Starlink map visualiser made use of.  

Despite the lower upload speeds in speed tests, so far this has not been an issue due to no Bufferbloat.  Whenever I did large uploads over 4G such as placing files on my pCloud I usually tried to run them when I'm about to eat or head off, etc. as the connection would become laggy while uploading.  With Starlink, uploading has no noticeable effect, not even on voice calls, so it does not matter how long most uploads take as I can now just let them run in the background.  If I need to upload something large in a hurry such as with Swiss Transfer, I can use the Linux VM workaround which lets me upload through a web browser at about 50Mbps continuously, double the speed I got on 4G.

I have however ran into an issue with my Goldfish VoIP line in that incoming calls are randomly not getting through over the past week.  When this happens, the person calling hears the ringing sound, but our phone does not ring and there is nothing in the VoIP log to indicate any incoming call attempt.  I have lowered the "Keep port forwarding" interval to 30s (Fritz Box's equivalent setting for Keepalive) and rebooted. A few test calls from mobile have got through, so will need to wait and see if anyone mentions again about having trouble getting through. 

Last week I dropped by someone's house for a Starlink installation as they were on vacation and the antenna installer was only able to fit in that day.  The technician mentioned one issue he has been running into is where after he leaves the site, the customer calls to complain that the alignment is 30 degrees off!  It appears that when Starlink is first set up, it can take an hour or two for it to determine the correct alignment.  Another thing he mentioned is that he has been busy with Starlink installations with customers that he previously set up on Three mobile broadband, particularly since Storm Eowyn.

[erik_ei4kf]

Early this morning an email from my electricity supplier prompted me to go and read the meter. With only a 'fridge, freezer and two clocks running, I was struck by the speed that the dial was moving. Not massively rapid of course but faster than I expected. What else could be the cause? Ah of course, Starlink. 

Whilst researching online the power consumption, I saw references to a near doubling of watt hours used when 'heating' is running. On checking I found it was running. I turned it off, checked the meter and the dial had slowed considerably. I don't know what the extra current draw would cost per hour, perhaps not much, but it does seem unnecessary for the automatic setting to enable heating in June. I presume it was because of the persistent drizzle here at the time.

As I understand it, 'heating' is actually an increase in output power to overcome attenuation caused by snow and this extra output draws more current which raises the dish temperature. Measuring download and upload speeds during the heavy drizzle after heating for 15 minutes and then after a gap without heating, I saw absolutely no difference. I have changed the setting from automatic to off.

Erik.

[Seán]

That is a good tip to disable snow melt as it is very rare that we get snow here even during winter. I still remember when Met Éireann issued a nationwide red snow warning, only for not a single snow flake to fall around here.

Turning off the automatic snow melt also avoids it heating during frosty winter nights where there is no snow to melt off. I don't think a thin layer of frost will have any effect, particularly as rain droplets have no noticeable effect.

[Seán]

Today I helped someone with a Starlink connection e-mail several GB of photos and figured the best way to send them is in several batches with Swiss Transfer, a good alternative to WeTransfer.  Their laptop has Windows 11 and without any tweaking, it went surprisingly quick.

I checked the Starlink App on my phone and it appeared to average around 30Mbps over the 30 minutes graph, the dip being me preparing the next batch of images to upload:

   

When using Starlink App with another person's Starlink, obviously requiring Wi-Fi access, the App provides access to the following sections:

• Statistics - Same as own Starlink
  
• Network - List of certain device names only, no details. 
  
• Obstructions - Same visual overview as own Starlink
  
• Alignment - Same visual status as own Starlink
  
• Speed Test - Can speed test, to router, etc. like on own Starlink
  
• Settings -  Can reboot Router / Starlink.  Settings such as Network Name, Password, Advanced, etc. are restricted.
  

When I helped my brother install his Starlink, I was able to use my App to go through the set up process, help him align the dish and configure the network name and Wi-Fi password.  So it is possible to help someone set up and configure their Starlink dish without needing their Starlink credentials.  Once the Wi-Fi password is applied, this can then only be changed by the owner, i.e. requires their Starlink credentials.

[Seán]

Just to update on the Goldfish VoIP line issue above, since changing the "Keep port forwarding" interval to 30s on our Fritz Box, incoming calls seem to fine now, at least no more missed call e-mail notifications where our phone did not ring.  I may post later in a separate thread how I configured our Fritz Box and some quirks when using a Fritz Box for VoIP calls.  For example, it can connect wirelessly to the Starlink router.  The Fritz Box analogue port (on certain models) also supports pulse dialling for anyone that happens to have an old rotary phone laying around. 

Having never tried anyone's Starlink prior to getting ours set up, I have since used (and helped align) a few others including a Starlink Gen 2.  From the short time I had cross testing speed tests with mine and the Gen 2, they appear to perform similar, including on the upload. 

While I have not been able to compare the Gen 3 Wi-Fi against an earlier generation model, it completely blows away the Vodafone Wi-Fi hub (THG3000) it replaced with one work colleague.  I remember there was one spot where they had a wireless printer that was extremely slow to print and had to remove it somewhere closer to the Vodafone router.  When I ran multiple speed tests from my phone to their Starlink router in that original weak spot, I got speeds in the 200's (using the Starlink App's phone to router test feature) despite the Starlink router being in the same spot as the former Vodafone router.  

For anyone curious about placing their Starlink dish behind their house (which we did), it needs a clear view of the sky down to 20 degrees above the horizon.  This means one can mount the dish above the gutter with a shallow pitch roof and with a longer pole overcome higher a higher pitch roof.  For comparison, the 28.2E satellite service (for Sky / Freesat) has similar 20 degree pitch.  

The Starlink App's "Check for obstructions" feature does not require an account or even a Starlink kit as it works with the phone's camera and built-in compass.  This is great for testing a potential dish position before ordering.  Just beware that magnetic flip cases generally skew the phone's compass, for anyone with a magnetic flip case, it may be worth getting a non-magnetic case or borrow someone else's phone that doesn't have a magnetic flip case.  I don't recommend taking a bare phone up a ladder!

[Seán]

This is about the limit of how low one can mount Starlink on the North side of a building, not our house:

   

When their installer came to install the dish, they insisted on having it put it up behind their house.  The "Check for obstructions" had the trees and tip of the roof right at the edge.  After a few days, the obstructions viewer came out clear:

         

What this does show is that the dish does not need to go high up near the tip of the roof or on the South side.

[Patrick]

This is about the limit of how low one can mount Starlink on the North side of a building, not our house:



When their installer came to install the dish, they insisted on having it put it up behind their house.  The "Check for obstructions" had the trees and tip of the roof right at the edge.  After a few days, the obstructions viewer came out clear:

 

What this does show is that the dish does not need to go high up near the tip of the roof or on the South side.

Yes, the phone app is very conservative. A small amount showing on it will not show in the actual obstruction viewer when it has built up a full picture after 12 hours.

[Seán]

This is a 10 minute LEOViz  timelapse recording from Starlink captured on the 1st June around 1:40pm, which shows the latency fluctuations as my Starlink handed over from satellite to satellite:

   

I made a few more recent recordings, but found that one to be the most interesting with it connecting to a few polar orbit satellites in that short timelapse, which even my recent longer 1 hour recordings did not capture.