Starlink

 "It is always our choice whether or not we wish to pay the price for life's rewards.  And often it is best for us not to pay the price, for the price might be our integrity." - Epictetus

Below is a pretty typical internet speed test result where I live.  I'm in a rural place that has no cable service and no fiber available.  The service is DSL, and the phone/internet company has shown no interest at all in improving the quality of their service.  I've called plenty of times.

I investigated possible alternatives.

When we first arrived here, I used a WiFi hotspot through our cellphone carrier.  Although internet service was pretty fast, the service was expensive, and the data limits were ridiculously low.  I bumped up against them all the time.  After a while, I switched to the DSL that we now use.

 One alternative to DSL is Hughes net satellite internet.  Hughes is expensive to set up, has high monthly fees, and it has data caps.  Also Hughes net satellites are in very high (25,000 miles) geosynchronous orbits.  As a result of this distance, the signal takes a fair amount of time to make the trip there and back to the receiver.  This means that the "ping" times are quite high - sometimes 1200 ms (or 1.2 seconds).  As a gamer, I would find that off-putting to say the least.  I'd be killed a dozen times in that span.

A geosynchronous orbit is awesome if you want to monitor weather on a certain part of the earth at all times, or if you want to point a TV receiver dish at one satellite and forget about it.  For a fast exchange of information to and from a satellite, not so great.  

Below, a satellite in geosynchronous orbit - not to scale.  Geosynchronous orbit is way the heck out there.

Below is an old Jtrack 3d image from NASA, showing satellite locations.  The geosynchronous satellites form a ring around the equator.  The small specks near earth are satellites in low-earth orbit.

Below is an image from this website, https://maps.esri.com/rc/sat2/index.html which provides live data of all known satellites.  The old Jtrack 3d alas is no longer with us, but the idea lives on!  If you go to the website, you can click on any satellite dot, and it will give you the name of the satellite.  Very cool.  The white "fuzz" around the earth are those satellites in low earth orbit, so you can really see the significant distance difference between geosynchronous (the outer rings) and low-earth orbits.

Anyway...

Hughes net was out because of the very long ping time.  Recently though, I learned of another internet offering that works great for rural users and is now available locally.  The company's name is Intermax.  To use this technology, you need line-of-sight to one of their fiber-connected towers - which are normally up on mountaintops.  You purchase a directional antenna that can send an receive an encrypted signal to that fiber-connected tower.  Once the internet company installs and aligns the antenna at your house, it's as if you have your own fiber connection!  Too bad we live in the forest and have line of sight for maybe 200 feet.  

I called to learn if I could install a tower to clear the trees - and would they work with me on that?  They said that it would have to be engineered for a human to climb or they wouldn't touch it - and that would be very expensive on my part - as in several thousand dollars.  So I was still stuck with dial-up modem quality internet, but with quite high broadband cost.

Recently though, I learned that SpaceX has begun offering Starlink Beta service to certain parts of the country that are "under-served" with broadband internet.  Obviously, that's us.  Rural houses are far apart from each other, which is why the cable and phone companies won't invest in their networks - they won't get as many customers per mile of fiber as they do in cities and suburbs.  Maybe they think we are all a bunch of backwards morons and aren't worth the effort.  I don't know or care what they think. I care what they provide for $80/month - which isn't much.

I understand the modern business model:  Provide a smidgeon of value at a high price, while investing as little as possible in your company or employees - preferably with a monopoly or duopoly market.  Thirty years of MBA teaching has brought us to this god-awful situation every aspect of our lives.

Anyhow, I applied for Starlink's Beta terminal and service.  They call their beta program "Better than nothing Beta".  Starlink may become another inefficient and shitty-service monopoly, but right now, it's better than the one I was stuck with.

Starlink uses satellites in low-earth orbit, which due to the short distance, allows your data to quickly get back to the ground from your rural location.  Because the distance is a mere 340 miles to orbit, the signal gets there and back much more rapidly than it would with a geosynchronous Hughes satellite.

Below:  60 stacked Starlink satellites about to be deployed into low earth orbit.  By Official SpaceX Photos - Starlink Mission, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=79191427

Below: This box arrived today

So what's in the box?  Not a lot.  A phased array transceiver, a WiFi router, a signal cable and power supply.  Oh yeah - and a small tripod to set it up out in the yard, hahaha.

Below: The instructions are so simple that even I should be able to make it work.

I'm confident that this technology will be a game-changer.  We should be able to watch Netflix now - something most city and suburban folks take for granted.  Unlike Hughes and Verizon, there are no data limits.  SpaceX has recently proposed speeding up the network even faster than it currently runs.  As we sit right now, we can't even watch a YouTube video without having to wait for it to load into buffer.

 The FedEx driver said he has been delivering a lot of these lately.  I suspect that my new internet provider will be going bankrupt shortly - just like the previous one.  They will be forced to make a choice: Compete against a company that offers excellent service, or lose their customer base.  The days of sitting back and collecting money, while not trying to improve the network are nearing an end.

Edit February 12, 2021.  And my internet provider just bumped up their fees, while providing no better service!

I just need a day off to set things up and see how this thing works!

UPDATE:  Starlink is up and running, and it's awesome.