This has been going on for almost a month now but....We're almost 100% moved into our new home!
We decided to take our time and stretch the move out over a month instead of packing everything up in a truck and moving all at once. It's a different way to approach it but let's be brutally honest...The main reason I didn't make the move all at once is because...I had no internet out where the new home was!
It's in the middle of West Bubble, Alberta! Literally the closest cell phone tower is like 10-15 kms away so not only is there no cable companies coming to hook me up with some fiber optics, getting cell reception is a challenge itself.
So I needed an option...
And it comes thanks to Elon Musk!
After a little over a week or ordering it, I got my Starlink satellite system today!
Starlink?
What's the big deal...Isn't there like a million different satellite internet services to choose from?
Yeah but see, they all suck lol. Because of how satellite internet works, lag and high latency are major issues. And I need high speed for everything I'm doing, especially for all the live streams I co-host. So along comes Elon and creates this brand new internet service called Starlink - Which brands itself as "high-speed, low-latency broadband internet in remote and rural locations across the globe..."
So the box showed up and I have to admit...The set up was stupid simple.
I found a great spot with open skies around my home, and temporarily drilled the dish into my deck for the time being. I'm going to get the dish on my roof in the next few days but for now, I just wanted to try the service out:
Of course, a thunderstorm passed through so all the cloud cover would hurt reception right?
Not at all...But more on that in a second.
The box came with the satellite dish, a 150 foot cable, the router and a power cable. Even I didn't mess up the set up. I had to download an app to get things set up, but it was as straight forward as could be. Literally, follow the steps, plug it in and presto....
The router is pretty slick and my wife thought she would be decorative and....Put a plant behind it?
Hey, happy wife, happy life....
But let's get down to the facts...How does Starlink perform?
The Good
Crazy simple set up
Almost 100 MBPS download speeds
I have been running it for a few hours now, and so far 100% uptime
Low latency! No buffering at all.
The Bad
Upload is still pretty slow. I didn't notice it too much when I uploaded a short 30 second video to Twitter (see below), but it's just above 4 MBPS upload. Not sure how that'll go with my live streams...
The costs are high. $599 USD for the initial set up and dish. And monthly it's $110 USD per month as well. Which is around what I'm paying for my current internet but then again...I'm getting massive speeds both upload and download with it.
The Curious
- When you order Starlink, you have to put the mailing address it the field so they see if service is available where you live. I did and got my dish but the app says I'm not in the right geographical location...So this means, I might get better service when I recalibrate...If I can?
Still....The service so far, has been flawless. And the router does a pretty good job of covering my home, but I might buy one of the signal boosters they offer to make sure I'm fully covered.
The big test...Is next week for a lot of my live streams because I'm fully moved on Sunday! But here's what I uploaded on Twitter this afternoon...It took about 30 seconds or so to upload this, which might be a little slow but not too bad at all:
https://twitter.com/Jon_G_Olson/status/1539734198914646016
- Jon_G_Olson
We'll see how it goes but so far....
Starlink wins! lol
Ready to join the 'Swarm?