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patswin said:
Has anyone checked out Starlink? It's getting pretty good review even in beta stage. The performance numbers are pretty good. I am considering it for my camp in NH, as the local cable service sucks. I think it depends on where you are as to feasibility.
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I've read from some other Dish techs who've helped set up or have signed on with Starlink that it's living up to expectations. We install Hughesnet and Viasat/Excede and these guys have made out that Starlink will cripple both of those services.
 
Well I made the decision to stick with our current plan for the time being. I know some advised against it but I ordered one of the top rated all in one modem/routers. I know just enough about technology to be dangerous but having two different devices to mess with just didn't sound great to me. Our current one is all in one and we've had great luck with it. We don't live in a huge house and actually have ethernet cables ran to each room that has a pc/console in it so we don't need anything that covers a huge area. Fingers crossed that it actually shows up on Monday like it's supposed to and I can get it all hooked up before the 28th deadline.
 
shecolt said:
I don't have any clue as to how to answer Alk's question. I'm posting because I had to pick my jaw up off the floor after reading those download and upload speeds. On a good day (of which there aren't many), I'm lucky to get a download of 5 Mbps and an upload of 0.5 Mbps (no, those aren't typos). Consequently, I don't spend a lot of time online because it's just so frustrating to watch a rotating circle.

My daughter and her family will soon be moving into my mother's home which is about 1/4 mile east of me. Knowing how slow my service is, my SIL went with T-Mobile home internet which I think is fairly new to the market. While they don't have speeds anything like Alk mentioned, they still have service that is at least 5 times better than I have while paying the same monthly fee.

So, I go to the below link only to be given the answer that this service isn't available in my area. I then enter the address of a home that is about 1/4 mile west of me. The service is available for them. I then called T-Mobile to inquire as to why this service wasn't available to me when it is to these homes on the same road. The guy just kept telling me that this service isn't available in my area. It makes no sense to me, but I plan on visiting a T-Mobile store soon to see if they can explain why I seem to be living in a cold spot.

High-Speed 5G Home Internet Service Plans | T-Mobile 5G Home Internet

Check your internet availability for T-Mobile's fast, in-home 5G internet by address. We're working hard to deliver our 5G internet across the country.
www.t-mobile.com
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Do you live in a rural area? That can be tough. We complain about the lack of high speed options in our little town but we have friends that you can throw a rock and hit their house from the city line and they have really no high speed options because of their location.
 
HipKat said:
I've read from some other Dish techs who've helped set up or have signed on with Starlink that it's living up to expectations. We install Hughesnet and Viasat/Excede and these guys have made out that Starlink will cripple both of those services.
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That is a correct assessment on Viasat, et al. The reason is "latency". This is the term measuring the amount of time it takes a data signal to go from one point to another. The satellite guys have huge latency, resulting in god-awful speeds, especially on uploads. This is because those satellites are thousands of miles out in space. It greatly increases the time it takes for that signal to reach the ground. This isn't so much an issue browsing the web but when you are using Zoom or teams on video, it is a huge problem.

Space X has their satellites in low earth orbit, so the latency is very low, and in some cases faster than even the cable guys. That is why their speeds are so good, and getting better as they add more satellites.
 
patswin said:
That is a correct assessment on Viasat, et al. The reason is "latency". This is the term measuring the amount of time it takes a data signal to go from one point to another. The satellite guys have huge latency, resulting in god-awful speeds, especially on uploads. This is because those satellites are thousands of miles out in space. It greatly increases the time it takes for that signal to reach the ground. This isn't so much an issue browsing the web but when you are using Zoom or teams on video, it is a huge problem.

Space X has their satellites in low earth orbit, so the latency is very low, and in some cases faster than even the cable guys. That is why their speeds are so good, and getting better as they add more satellites.
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I've seen reports of Pings in the range of 50 - 70 MS. Hughes and Viasat, on installs I do, I see in the high 600's - low 700's. That's just not sustainable with the demand people have on their internet these days. My house probably uses multiple terabytes of data each month
 
gomezcat said:
Is it just a case of the faster fibre cables not having been installed where you live? I'm guessing here (as a Brit) but old cables where you live could be the issue. It may be worth checking with other ISPs locally.

Some rural areas in the UK experience similar speeds to yours, something that the main infrastructure providers are trying to fix through putting down more high speed cables nationally.

Also, I'm not defending the companies, as it's inexcusable to be experiencing your problems in this day and age.
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Thank you for your sympathy. There aren't a lot of choices open to me. I could switch to Frontier which would give me better speed, but those in my area who are Frontier customers often complain of lengthy outages.
 
Alk said:
Do you live in a rural area? That can be tough. We complain about the lack of high speed options in our little town but we have friends that you can throw a rock and hit their house from the city line and they have really no high speed options because of their location.
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Yes, I do. I've been told that this T-Mobile home internet is being marketed only to the rural areas to give us another option that is better and not more expensive. The device is free and so easy to set up that even I could do it.

Today, I was at my daughter's home where I got online to check to see if this service was now available for me. No luck. Then, I entered the address of my daughter's home only to be told this service wasn't available there either. So, that means that I was using the T-Mobile service from her home only to be told that she couldn't have that service in her home. That's crazy!
 
shecolt said:
Thank you for your sympathy. There aren't a lot of choices open to me. I could switch to Frontier which would give me better speed, but those in my area who are Frontier customers often complain of lengthy outages.
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Sorry to hear that. It really is unacceptable and I hope it gets better.
 
still waiting for 4G LTE...it SOMETIMES hits 3G...the dumbfux (NOT kidding) who got the jab will zombify when the 5G gets humming along.
 
So just a little update on our internet situation. I received our new modem/router on Monday and got it hooked up and activated without having to talk to anybody. Once I was sure that it was working, I asked my wife to call the internet company just to ensure that they didn't automatically switch our internet plan. She had it on speakerphone so I could hear the conversation. She told the lady on the phone that we had updated our modem per the email so we could keep our current plan. Then I hear the lady on the phone say that she sees that we activated our new router and that now she could go ahead and upgrade our plan to the higher down load speeds. My wife explained that we had upgraded the modem because the email said that we needed to in order to keep our old plan. So the lady proceeds to try to trick my wife into going along with the switch. It was at that point that I asked for the phone. She proceeds to feed me the same line and I told her that the email clearly said that we needed to change our modem in order to keep our current plan. Finally she said that we could keep our old plan if we want and that she would notate it on our account. So at the end of the day, it sounds to me like they are just trying to trick everybody into switching plans so they can retire the old one. I don't know if I even needed to switch modems but after I upgraded it our download speeds actually increased to a consistent 325 mbps (sometimes 350 mbps) and upload went up to about 35 mbps. Here's an actual screenshot of the email that they originally sent us.
 

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