Hasty Treat - Starlink Rural Internet

In this Hasty Treat, Scott and Wes talk about Wes’ new satellite internet setup — best use-cases and how to set it up.

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Show Notes

04:06 - Rural internet is huge for:

• Access to information
• Remote work
  • Opens up job opportunities for many residents who can’t relocate due to family
• Home values
  • Big city folk moving into rural areas and driving prices up is another issue altogether
• Smart rural home

05:46 - Previous setup

• We have a cottage
• LTE Routers
• Yagi Antennas
• Worked well, but slow
• $4/gig over 100gb
• Grey market - one went up/down
• Alternatives
  • WISP - no access
  • XPLORNET @ (hughesnet) - BRUTAL
  • Bell LTE - $$$ - slow

08:35 - The signup, install, price

• $129 CAD Deposit ($100 USD)
• $650 for the dish
• $120/month
• Unlimited bandwidth
• Needs a clear view of the northern sky
• Clear from obstructions is key
• Every 1 foot up is 2 foot of obstructions cleared
• I put it on a 25ft piece of wood
• Bought a pipe adaptor from Starlink

09:59 - The performance

• These numbers are not impressive to anyone with fiber, but are LIFE CHANGING to rural folks
• From 30mbps - 200mbps down - some users posted ~350 down
• Upload from 25mpbs - 80mbps (better than you can pay for where I live in the city)
• Ping is around 40ms
• Downtime is measured in seconds
• Youtube streams super smoothly
• Zoom works great
• Facebook + Instagram issues
  • Many reported changing DNS fixed it

14:21 - The equipment

• Starlink comes with a router
  • Does not support bridge mode
  • Doesn’t have WPS
  • Only one hard-wired port
  • POE-only
• UniFi Dream Machine
• Three access points
• POE switch for Starlink Router
  • Gives you stats
• The ethernet is hard-wired into the dish, so you have to drill a huge hole in the house

Links

• Starlink
• Wyze
• UniFi Dream Machine

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