I have lived in rural areas for 20+ yrs. I have had DSL, Hughesnet and Viasat, and now have Starlink. Starlink has its blips but is hands down the best of my internet experience since leaving the city! There wasn't streaming yet with DSL so I can't really speak to that. But with Hughesnet I paid $80/month and was allowed 50 gigs of internet during waking hours. With Viasat I was allowed those same 50 gigs for $125 and it was worse service (better customer service though worse internet svc). Latency was easily in the 1400ms range with both, and a 50 gig limit meant no streaming and no updating video games because we had to save that data for my WFH. Cloudy, stormy days also made working from home difficult with frequently dropped internet connections and even longer latency. Upload speeds averaged .5 mbps, and downloads around 15-20.
Enter Starlink.
We installed it in November. At first, 70-120ms latency was the norm and we dropped internet frequently, apparently due to obstructions. We moved the dish, per Supports recommendation, and the drops are much less frequent. There's still 'beta downtime' and occasional obstruction drop offs. Zoom calls are often the most frequent victims which makes work interesting. But in this post-covid world where nearly everyone is WFH, that sort of thing is expected. Latency is averaging 20-40ms, downloads are averaging 80-100 (and we've seen speeds as high as the 150s), and uploads are around 2-5. Service is still really good even during a snow storm that dumped 8 inches of snow in a few hours, we only had the buffer wheel twice and didn't lose internet at all. The best part so far is the unlimited access - I have now seen Lost, and Game of Thrones, and a bunch of other series as well as movies! I have an xBox Live acct and while the lag can drop connections for COD Warzone (and Outbreak) sometimes, I've made it to #2 in Warzone which means it's still possible to win. And considering it was impossible before Starlink, it's really hard to get mad. You can also buy a game that came out a year ago and download that 60 gig update in an hour or so. Again, with a 50 gig limit on the old satellite services, it wasn't possible to do the updating even at the 3am additional 20 gig non-peak hours window. Also, once WFH became 100% due to covid, we were constantly paying an extra 10, 20, 30 bucks with Viasat because we'd be throttled before the month was over, JUST from me doing my job.
So yeah, Starlink is amazing!!
Pros: download speed, latency compared to other satellite avcs, constant improvements to the system and service, unlimited data at $99/mo, snow melts off FAST so you don't lose signal from that (and can put it on the roof without worrying about access to clean it off)
Cons: Had to drill a 1" hole into the side of the house to get the cable in (to pass a standard 3-prong grounded plug), there is no admin portal to the router (yet), still dropping sound and freezing video calls maybe 2 out of 5 times (meet, webex, zoom, & ms teams, both pc and mac)
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