Absolutely the rest of us learned that when we carry dish net work around this is not news whenever you have any kind of DIRECTV dish Netwerk and Starlink won’t be any different you must have direct site lines
I travel in a van and camp as far from society as possible. Miles and miles beyond Verizon coverage. Starlink has been a game changer. No longer do I leave beautiful spots because there is no cell coverage. Now I look for those spots because they keep the riff raff out. I travel in the west in national forests. I can always find an open spot with a northern facing opening. It is wonderful. Well worth the cost.
Hi Aaron. You might want to consider a peplink or other similar mobile router. Here's a few reasons why. * They can combine multiple carriers into one pipe. So Starlink, LTE (up to two LTE carriers on some models) and wifi all at once. As carriers fall out of service the others take over seamlessly so that means far fewer perceived service drops for you. * The LTE radios in those fixed mobile routers are far better than anything in pocketable hotspots, especially when combined with good antennas. * Easy to configure and manage, especially peplinks. Almost set and forget. * Bonding service AKA sdwan is very inexpensive. You might spend $30-$50/year? It is inherently a VPN too and you can choose from multiple endpoints, globally. It's also not required. You can just wire up multiple carriers and let it work in fail-over only mode. * You'd probably do very well with just Verizon and Starlink and the occasional wifi with one of those routers and some good antennas so no need for additional service lines. But if you were going into an area where you know Carrier X is better just get a pre-paid sim for the time being. These are carrier unlocked so do whatever you want. I've started using these at work for sites where I need LTE fail-over. I recently got to use one for myself for two weeks and really got to put it through it's paces and needless to say such a router is now at the top of my RV stuff to get list. And the one's I've been shopping start around $300 so not too bad. Unlocked pocket routers are about that much and these are so much better. If nothing else I'd consider getting a better antenna than that Netgear. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent device. I have one myself. But even with just a basic pocketatable router similar to your Verizon one (I have a Netgear Nighthawk) I noticed a vast improvement when I went to a fixed roof mount omnidirectional mimo antenna with 8db gain. Carry an omni and a directional and you've got a good road warrior kit. Oh and speaking of antennas. For anyone who has an RV that came with the Winegard 360+ TV antenna and opted not to get their optional router there's a pretty good LTE mimo array in there and one external wifi antenna, all with T9 connectors. You can find the leads clipped on the back of the little beauty cap on your ceiling. One can command strip mount a pocket router right there if it has external antenna connectors [and those are typically T9] and there you go.
Would you recommend the higher end Pepwave with multiple modems? I got the more basic single router one and plan on combining that with starlink but am wondering if having multiple cell connections simultaneously is worth the extra price for the higher end pepwave router
I see that the new "Starlink for RV" program may offer a new solution for managing expected down time as it allows you to pause monthly service. I believe the way it works is that if you know in advance that you can go without Starlink in a given month or months, you can pause service cost for that period and resume service when you need it. I have not investigated this part of the service so I do not know how flexible it is.
My seasonal campsite is a remote, heavily wooded area. My dishy is on a 20’ pole aimed at a northwest section of the sky. Only a small area is unobstructed yet my Starlink works flawlessly. We visited a campground in a very populated area where the only choice of location was under a large tree. Late fall so, no leaves, still worked well.
I now RV full-time and had mine for the last two months or so. Thankfully, I haven’t had any problems whatsoever. The ordering was easy and the installation was ridiculously easy. I know I’ll run into problems here and there, but so far I’m loving it!
@@FamiliarAnomaly I’m fake? A person that simply stated he’s enjoying it and hasn’t had any problems as of yet? Sorry if you’re having problems but I have had none to this day. But what a way to come at someone 🤦♂️
Yes true. But when at small campsites it doesn’t help to do the test as you might have only one spot to put your dish. Like the last site where I put it on the roof and just had to hope for the best. Unfortunately there were big trees to the north and we didn’t get any usable Starlink service.
TREES!!!!......Well, DUH! They warn you about that up front......Anyway, I got my Starlink about three weeks ago. I set it up in the front yard. There are some minor tree obstructions but I'm averaging about 10 minutes of obstruction in every 12 hours. It's pretty much unnoticeable. It has proved to be a wash as far as cost is concerned. I had a Verizon Jetpack with 100 gigs then throttled above that and two phones with unlimited data and it was costing me about $217.00/month. Now I have eliminated my jetpack and have both phones on a 5 gig plan. It works just fine for me and costs $107/month. That means Starlink is costing me $10/month more than Verizon with no data cap or throttling, plus faster internet most of the time, particularly upload speed and lower latency. It will be even more dependable when I get it installed on the peak of the roof so no obstructions.
Duh?? You do realize the satellite array is composed from a thousand units circumventing the earth in a NON synchronous way ...yet not only you can't use it on the go but you also have to aim to a specific predefined orientation highly susceptible to interference due to thin surfaces like leafs rain or subtle movement?
When you are surrounded by trees, cut them all down OR get a real real long pole that will reach beyond the trees or get a drone that you can mount your star link to it and let if fly up in the sky.
Must have 100 degree cone unobstructed view of the sky. I would think a canopy of trees is pretty much a deal breaker. The dishy finds, then locks onto a bird as it comes into view (up from the horizon), as the previous one disappears from its view. Plus, when you are "roaming" you are at a lower priority than someone subscribed in that area, so data speeds can be affected. Initially align the dishy either 53 degs either north of south.
Dude ive had mine for 1 yr, and in 1 yr I only had 2 drops of service for 10 minutes each , I love mine and won't change it, plus I'm a gamer and works fine with my ps4
the dish must see the sky. that rv site was closed in. On the Starlink app it has a viewer that is easy to use and tells if it is ok, which it would have said it was too obstructed. satellite receiver needs to see satellite or it only works when it is /if it is overhead. there are 2500 satellites so coverage improves with every SpaceX launch
We just hooked up our starlink rv yesterday, were able to grab a gap in the trees here in gainesville fl. I have a robust att, Peplink system, I see this as an adjunct to that, for when the att has connection problems or congestion. Trees are a problem with starlink, I see us using it sparingly, pausing and restarting the service as necessary. Great job with this update. First time on your channel. Larry
Hey Larry👋 sounds like a good plan you have with Starlink! I’ve heard good things about the peplink and I need to also get a system to bond our Verizon and Starlink. So far since being on the East coast Starlink is not a game changer for us 😬 but It should continue to get better and better.
My wife and I don't travel full time but I still picked this up as soon as roaming was turned on. Previously I had used a combination of AT&T (tethering)/Verizon (hotspot)/TMobile(hotspot) since I wanted to work on the road. We are mostly in the Western US (CO, WY, UT, NM, AZ). Boondocking out here is awesome since there are so many places you can do it, but a lot of it has no cell coverage, especially in the CO mountains. Starlink has worked flawlessly out here. However, trees are few and far between unless you are in the mountains. Right now I'm paying $85 for home internet, $50 for Verizon, $50 for T-Mobile and $5 for phone tethering with AT&T. That's $190 total. I plan to cut everything but tethering and Starlink. That'll drop my bill to $140 ($110 + $25 roaming + $5). When we are at home I might not even move the dish off our class B since the batteries and solar will keep it going and I think the router will reach all of the house. If not I plan to get another cable and just move the dish & router between house and van. I think it's a game changer for people out West at least.
I'm in rural quebec, cell service is spotty where I live and starlink works great. We've had it for about 8mo and have had one outage which lasted about an hour. Our average speed is well over 100mb/s which is night and day to the 3 we used to have through cellular at a lower price. The seaplane operator I fly for has starlink at all their bases. We have subsized service from the provincial government at 115 cad per month taxes included until 2025.
LOL, I bought a service that requires the dish to see the sky and when I don't allow it to see the sky it doesn't work. I'm not happy. LOVE THIS REVIEW. LMAO
Roaming costs can be attributed to capacity issues as well. Starlink has a capacity limit (in theory) in a single area that the satellites can handle. Without roaming, it is much easier to calculate how many dishes can be in this block without impacting performance heavily. Allowing roaming if say a person went into an area at max capacity could have some issues. They most likely added a buffer to ensure this doesn't happen.
Your explanation is spot on. Starlink has capacity issues that roaming can disrupt in certain regions that are near or at capacity. I suspect the roaming fee will be used to increase capacity in certain areas in the future.
I mentioned this on a few videos. Right now, most users will experience great speeds and low latency because nobody else in their area is using starlink but as users grow and now you can roam with your setup, expect bandwidth to decrease greatly. A few things can fix this. Increase ground to satellite connections thus increasing overall bandwidth, limit the resolution that can be viewed, or lower the bandwidth each user uses.
At some point the ground stations that are everywhere, will be expanding capacity wise and hopefully will eliminate these issues. So the ground stations that serve you, (i have at least 3 to my address) may or may not be at capacity. However expansion will allow them to accommodate us hopefully soon. However expansion is money capital. So we will see
And don't forget weather. That can impact connections, too. We are on the fence about this service. It is just that cell service speeds are starting to degrade in many of the places we often visit.
Yeah, it does suck that we have to pay for roaming but that's not all that sucks. I noticed in the past week that Starlink lost hundreds of satellites all over the US. Not sure why! The Starlink map shows they're no longer there. I haven't went out and tried to connect to see if that's true but they're gone from the map. So with the price increase to $110. The additional $25 per month increase to roam. The throttling while roaming; I'm falling out of love with Starlink really quick. Right now, I'm out $712.28 now with zero connectivity unless I pay $135 per month and move to a location with coverage.
Rual areas in Alaska are gonna love it we pay close to 200$ a month and. The ping at its lowest is 600 and not even 1mb down. So 100 a month is a upgrade and the speeds are also a upgrade.
My Cox bill keeps going up in price. I gave up cable to lower my bill but they still charge too much just for tv and modem. If I kept the cable it's only $10 more, go figure. I need more options, although we live in an apartment. We did full time RV a couple of years ago but gave it up. We currently live in AZ and have a cat we don't want to risk his air conditioning, sometimes RV resorts had electricity outage at times while we were at work. We always stayed close to work because we don't have the luxury of working at home.
I'm still waiting. Signed up Nov 2020. Reserved Feb 2021. A month ago, the map said, 'Coming summer 2022' and I thought I'd finally will get it. But recent map update now says, 'Expanding in 2023". Bummer. I don't need roaming. Just good home internet. Thanks for being honest and straight forward about the capabilities and limitations of Starlink.
I guess , Starlink is just another option for those who doesn't have the option to get the fiber internet. This would help a lot of people, not just from city who has crowded internet as usual, but the people far from city. It might be another option, but for some, it will be a solution.
I guess as a full timer you have to ask yourself how many places do you go and how often that you don't have cell service enough to use your hot spot device, and is it worth the additional cost to have the option of the Starlink service. I suppose if your business can afford it it's a no brainer. If the hot spot gets the job done, then maybe not.
I live in the middle of the woods. Dishy on the ground marginally worked with many drops. I bought an Old Glory Flag Pole (25ft telescopic) and it cured all of my problems. Dishys mounting stem is 1.49” OD, the flagpole’s ID is 1.5” so no additional hardware is needed. Just tape the shoulder to the flagpole. Mounting high is a necessity under tree lines. Height tremendously increases skyline exposure. I have no choice living in a rural area with marginal cell service, no hard wire internet and only high orbit satellite options. Starlink was a game changer for me. Because dishy is not mounted to my roof, theoretically with a spare cable I can take it with me. I do agree that you need cell service when traveling anyway so the combination of cell and Starlink may not work financially for everyone. For me, I had Viasat with a large data package costing $168/m and run out of data. Viasat was unusable for Zoom calls and large collaborative files . Starlink at now $110/m still makes sense for me. I thought the $25/month Starlink roaming could be used only when you need it but I could be wrong. Anyway your decision made sense. It’s a lot of money for the few times on the road you can’t find cell service. I guess it all boils down to your need to be connected with high speed. I think with a pole you could have cured the tee line problem.
I live in East Tennessee, starlink is going to be pretty much useless in 80 percent of the area around here and the surrounding nearby states because of trees and hills
Trees are absolutely an issue. I have been forced to create a mostly clear area for Starlink to work and I have raised the receiver as high as possible. It would be useful to have a longer cable.
Negative, TREES, duh…c’mon, is that even a question? 😂 Anyway, if you live in an area of the world where there are NO options or NO service, this is all stellar at $2X even if you need to go sit in a open peanut field to rock out;). Party on friends🤙🏼
I use an LTE modem (Pepwave) with a MiMo antenna. Two issues. GB are expensive I have an ATT and Verizon plan with 2 SIM cards on each plan. Plus where there are no cell towers there is no internet. I think the Starlink can replace my Verizon plan and give me access when I’m out back.
Not sure what roaming means, but with the new starlink RV unit you can use it anywhere, and pause service when your not on trips. The areas that don’t have service yet still work , but service will be what they call “best effort” Best thing about trees is you can get around them. What we need is to get a portable pole and long cable . I’m thinking what you want is a carbon fiber base , telescoping or bungee couples rods to get it above the tree line.
ROAMING means you aren't on the same "network provider"...meaning you can still get coverage/service, but you will be paying MORE generally in order to do so. just like you can get healthcare outside of your "network" but you will PAY MORE to do so. same thing.
The original design intent for Starlink was to provide suitable internet access for folks who have little or no access at all. I live in rural Tennessee where broadband cable doesn't exist and slow DSL is 600' away. The upcharge to run the DSL line is prohibitive. If I'm lucky I can get a bar or two through AT&T cellular and hope the hot spot works. I received my Starlink system about 2 months ago and would love to have the speeds you complain about. I'm currently getting 25 - 35 down and usually about 10 up but it is lightning speed compared to nothing. Where the problem exists is that people are expecting Starlink to be what they dream it "should" be, and then compare it to what it actually is intended to be. It was never designed to provide 300 mb to everyone all the time nor was it designed for portability. The more the system grows the less bandwidth will be available. Moving from an area with low usage and high bandwidth into an area with high usage and low bandwidth, performance differences should be expected. At one point Starlink was telling people that if they moved their service and then returned to their original location, they couldn't guarantee that service would be available when they came back. They leased out the available bandwidth to someone else when you left the area. People are buying a Ford F-150 and acting as though they bought a CAT earth mover. All the things you find at fault were never a service promised by Starlink. They are all things you THINK Starlink should do and probably never will. I am very pleased that they provided the service the promised to me and I expect no more.
The math doesn't support your argument. If this was only to provide for "those who don't have any options", then the service would NEVER pay for even its existing overhead (not to mention the constellation replacement investments). The only way this system even reaches "break-even" - let alone eek out a profit - was to poach users of more traditional ISPs in areas that already have other high-speed options. Hence their new "business tier" of service. Plus, it would be dumb for them to NOT focus on both rural, unserved areas AND more built-up areas as well, since their satellites fly over both areas indiscriminately.
@@PWN_Nation Thanks for your response. While your logic is sound Starlink has never promoted their service as a replacement for urban users. They'd be the first to tell you to stick with fiber if you have it, or a good copper-based broadband service. Starlink has said over and over that available bandwidth will be its most immediate problem. Like those who complain about the service they thought they should have had, you have now come up with a financial study that supports how Starlink"s intended purpose will not succeed. I certainly wouldn't argue with your logic but it runs counter with Starlink's promotion materials. Maybe you should reach out to Mr. Musk and run this by him 😉 In the end we have a segment of users that think the service should perform better than Starlink says it should, and those who fashion financial models to support those who are disappointed it doesn't do everything they dreamed it would do. I mean no offense and I do understand your reasoning. I just don't see where Starlink has presented any financial data to support your model. I base all my points on what Starlink has said the network would do, not on what I wish their service would do.
Thank the FCC and the regulators for each state as to why they have to cap your data speeds when you roam. It’s not because of Starlink it is because of the laws and regulatory issues. They are taxes and Utility fees that she would avoid paying in one state using the service while you are registered in another state. To get around that you would need a residential address in each state that you desire to have somewhat reliable service. With that said I would say can you go to Colorado? I think that’s the state that the Rockies are in find someone’s address of she can register at that’s close to where you are going.
I have had my Starlink for a about 4 months I only have 3 issues with my Starlink system 1: I am not getting the up and down load speeds that I thought I would get. I get in the range of 50 to 70Mbps down and 10 to 15Mbps up but that is MUCH better than what I was getting with Frontier DSL (4Mbps down and 300Kbps up). And no it's not a tree or other obstruction issue, on the visibility display I only have two tiny little bits of red. One south south east of my antenna at the very bottom of the blue sky part of the graphic and the 2nd one is North West at the bottom as well. 2: The 2nd issue that I have is RAIN FADE, I was a C-band and Ku -band satellite dealer/installer for years and later I was a dealer/installer for Dish network and DirecTV so I know about rain fade but I did not expect it to be as bad as it is with Statlink, Even with the rain fade Starlink is so much better than what I was getting with Frontier DSL. The 3rd issue is speed related if Starlink is having congestion issues that is resulting in slower speeds I would like to see a tier level system where the monthly price is reduced if you opted for a slower up and down load speeds help Starlink with congestion. I live in a house not an RV.
I have not taken my Starlink on the road yet, but you will have to pry this dish out of my cold dead hands to get it from me. I live in the northern part of Michigan and we have lots of trees, but my Starlink is mounted on the top of my house and gets a 360 degree clear view of the sky. From the time I started using it I have never not been connected to less than 5 satellites often my connection has 12 to 17 satellites. I had cable internet before but it would drop below 33 Mbps during the evening hours. My Spectrum provider said this is due to me being on a block package which could include as many as 30 to 50 houses on the same connection! On Starlink I have never lost signal yet and never has the speed gone below 150 Mbps, I have seen some huge speeds of 523 Mbps but one thing is sure; my family has no problem watching 4K movies every night. The downside for me is that after 4 months of use the price has jumped from $99 to $110 per month! I got Starlink as every review said that as more subscribers joined the price would go down. Well Elon, you gave us a great product so instead of increasing the prices like your Tesla vehicles get, why not reduce the monthly cost?
Starlink service will never get cheaper. keep dreaming. DSL service never became cheaper either. Only heavily populated areas see cheaper rates since they have lots of fiber bringing internet bandwidth
I got starlink today it's totally amazing I could not get anything internet related to work. Starlink is easy to hook up 160% Speed now. Everything works super great it moves to find satellites and melts snow. I love starlink.
Thanks for your updates! Tower congestion on Verizon in Florida is crazy bad. Fort Myers area we just upgraded to new phones thinking our old LG G6'S were at fault. They weren't! When we hit 5G, still rare... it's as slow as LTE. ATT in our trucks OnStar is not better. T-Mobile seems to have a big edge right now on the two larger telecoms at least in SW Florida. Hoping Starlink gets solid coverage here, then we will jump on Starlink.
I would think, that if you were full time employed, or in business for yourself, on the road, Starlink could make sense for primary use. But, for the average person, initial price, plus multiple monthly use fees add up and it quickly becomes unaffordable. We had considered various connectivity items for us, but found that a Jetpack does the job at a significantly less cost per month. Good review and appreciate the time it took to make.
This is the exact vid I was looking for. Currently in Coeur d alene, ID surrounded by trees. Will definitely order starlink prior to going back down to Arizona where we will have open skies! Also, can you suspend your monthly membership? I've heard that's an option which could save you money if you're parked at places with trees for a while.
Technology is never all-in-one. Every tool works differently in different setting and needs. Great update. Sounds like a good solution if you’re west of the Mississippi.
We recently got a caravan, and after our first couple of trips we've realised that mobile service can be very poor. We need to be connected for work, so I've just got StarLink RV. I set it up and tested yesterday and got 222mb on the dish speed test. Looking forward to our roadtrip next week!
Speedtest can NOT be used to test Verizon/Visible wireless. Verizon purposely opens full speed but only for speedtest. Any other speed testing site will show the true speed. Only about 5 mbps, usually much less.
I do not know about roaming and RV's. I have it in my home and we have lots of trees and obstructions. But we love ours. I don't do Zoom calls, but I can watch movies all day long without interruptions.
I went with the RV service...and like that it can be paused when not needed or in use. There are some decent telescopic antenna poles that I'm looking to test, but Starlink clearly shows you don't want building or tree obstruction.
I guess I can see it being used for that reason, but it's being markets and Federally subsidized to provide broadband to consumers in rural areas like where I live, which are often surrounded by large trees and or in valleys that make it harder to run cable/fiber. They are already receiving phased subsidies of $1billion, but as of not that long ago, Musk said they will need an additional $30billion to avoid bankruptcy. I'm not sure if he is expecting the portion of the initial Billion dollars to create a "sunk cost fallacy" situation for the government to enable such an increase in federal funding or what, but if you look at the numbers required to fully implement and maintain this system, it doesn't seem worth the investment. I'm pretty sure more people would be better served in the US by using a fraction of that amount of subsidy to lay fiber/cable to those rural areas then branch off to line of sight wifi to any households that would be cost prohibitive to continue trenching to. This is just another of his hype money making schemes. Seems like a conflict of interest to let him make so much money off investments before fulfilling the goal of that investment. He makes bank even if he fails to even try to achieve the stayed objective. There is not much incentive to try. Even if they pull it off, I don't see how it will make much money let alone pay for expenses....then again if the government coughs up tens of billions to cover those costs for them maybe the investors will make something, but I only see him coming out as a benefactor of such a scheme. His stupid companies have been stealing money from real innovators and progress smokey because so few people understand what he is actually doing or even the problems he is claiming to be solving. It's actually a bit obscene imo.
As more satellites are launched do you think the required sky-view for the dish will shrink? I have a line of tree-tops to my west that just barely peeks into the sky-view on the phone app. It gives me a message saying that this may cause a 1 - 2% interruption time. If the required sky-view was just slightly smaller this line of tree-tops would not be a problem. So... more satellites, smaller required sky-view?? Anyone?
It wasn't designed to be carried around and more like the old satellite dish you have that was fixed on a wall or somewhere in the roof. The issue are the line of sight not the service so if you are a camper and you wish to have a internet but there is no cell service, good luck using starlink.
It sounds like a great service for anyone not in the Northeast or Northwest where trees are (thankfully) rampant in camping areas. Essentially it's the perfect service of you have ready access to deserts.
Live in Phoenix....deserts and higher elevations with light forestry but the flexibility of I'm not a super glamper im on open land.. Starling is absolutely amazing.. if I'm at a complete rv park with cell service... why get starlink....understand the right tool for the job....
Those additional roam fees (extra 30 here in canada) now have it close to 200/month. When i first signed up for Starlink this is not what I expected. Disappointed. ps parents used mine up at the cottage and it worked perfect for them considering they have never had internet before.
Ah what I would pay to be back on high speed internet in the jungle…definitely easy to take it for granted;). I’d probably pay $300/mo., small price to be connected to the planet from anywhere, once you are no longer connected:)
About to become a full-time RVer! Thanks for this very helpful review! Makes sense that multiple options are best if you need consistent service, which I will. The most helpful piece of advice I've found!
I was just about to buy the larger roaming in motion dish for my rv and boat, but they changed it, wont work on a boat? I know several full time boaters that have had it, I will have to see if it still works for them.
Our starlink worked through not 1 but 1 cat 3 hurricanes so considering not even traditional tv can do that I’ll stick with starlink it’s super fast and work’s ALWAYS
I keep getting the Obstructed warning too, but still getting 150-200Mbps. My Obstructed chart is no where like yours though. On a side note, do you guys ever do meetups? I’m in FL too.
Yeah it’s kinda weird how it works with the obstructions….. We’ve actually never done a meet up! We do the annual Xcapers and Escapees get togethers but have never done our own. We’ll have to think about doing one😊
The mountains shouldn’t be a big deal unless you are right at the base and can’t see sky. But, you have to get the dish above the trees. Some people get the 150ft cable and even mount the the dish High on the trees.
Thank you for sharing your experience... I don't like the portable antenna and stringing wires all over the place... Think we'll hold out for a slightly more robust installation... Do appreciate your take on it though!...
Thanks for the update and keep them coming as you learn more. Finally had a nice week here and supposed to be 85 one day next week. They think the most northern lakes will have ice out some time this week for the fishing opener next weekend. Hope so for all the fisherman/woman/ kids.
Based on our travels, cellular service is the worst out West except in urban areas. This is where Starlink would shine. East of the Mississippi can just about guarantee decent cell signal from at least 1 of the 3 major carriers. Plus, the trees east of the Mississippi are more plentiful where Starlink wouldn't shine. Couple Starlink with a Pepwave cellular router and you have a total internet system with redundancy for the entire country.
Hey, I have a question for you. We have a property in Wisconsin and we have a wide open field on our land but it’s about 12 1300 feet from the main cabin. Do you think I can install the dish in the field on our property and send a signal to the main house that kind of distance how can I do that?
The max length cable Stalink sells and recommends is 150ft.....you might be able to search the internet to see if anyone has successfully went longer.....Also some people choose to go up... like mounted 150ft on a tree to get above the obstructions...
I've had first and second generation GPSes blocked by simple forest cover. It took 13? years before the equipment got sensitive enough to really be reliable.
Whats the difference between roaming & normal residential exactly? I'm currently in a whole new country & my living situation isn't really fixed yet so idk if I can still get residential & take it with me when moving it take roaming?
It's available for immediate order for me but I cannot justify it. I get 1.2gbps down and 1.1gbps up with fiber. We don't use our rv enough any more to buy it for our nomadic journeys.
But the Verizon hotspot SIM card setup has a data limit, Starlink doesn't. Verizon SIM card insertion into the RV antenna requires some intelligence, or you can fry your antenna and I'm sure you're on it for limited times because Verizon RV SIM card service doesn't have unlimited data, Starlink does. You'll rack up alot more cost using a cell phone provider RV antenna hotspot setup versus Starlink.
Our Verizon plan does not have a data limit or slower speeds after a certain amount used and only cost $65 per month. If I could only have one or the other we would have to have to choose the Verizon hot spot. Starlink has too many limitations with obstacles, and incomplete satellite coverage. I think the general consensus is Starlink is a good backup option...if you can afford it.
@@IreneIronTravels Interestimg. My Verizon hotspot plan is the same price per month and caps at 30 Gig. I'll talk to them because unlimited would be great because the Verizon SIM setup in my antenna is pretty fast.
We got our plan in 2019 and they don’t offer that anymore unfortunately! I don’t think there are any truly unlimited plans anymore… which to your point, is really nice about Starlink 😊
@@IreneIronTravels Okay, yes, Verizon got rid of their truly unlimited data plan back then. I just got off the phone with them and my SIM hotspot through my RV Wineguard antenna is the highest data plan they offer, 30 Gig, but they say I'm not charged if I go over. But I had to tell them my speed drops after 30 Gig which they replied "Yes", but of course couldn't tell me drops to what speed.
Thank you for your honest answer, I myself have been thinking about traveling over the winter months to warmer states, but I need fast internet speed with no drop out. I work for a call center so my phone system is through the internet
@Irene Iron Travels Is there any way to know if I have slow speed in my area before buying? I know there's a couple people in my area who have Starlink but I'm not sure how well it works for them
You were in non service areas for Starlink. Pretty good for non service areas. Just imagine when you are in service areas. More satellites more service areas Also you can deactivate your account when not in use.
I just got mine days ago, the speeds are fine, but the app always says router unreachable. Don't try to tell me anything, already been doing that for several hours. All this stress just to try and change network name
Hello 👋. Yes, I have seen a few people using the flag pole mount and I am sure that would help in some situations. Maybe 20% in the places we’ve been. Mostly I need to run the dish out to avoid trees as much as possible and point to the northern sky, so we use the normal stand. Just haven’t invested another 100$ into this back up system yet.
Do you think it will get better in the coming years? Planning to become a digital nomad 2024 but my job HAS to have connection Monday thru Friday. No wifi hotspot services offer more than 150 big data caps ☠
It will definitely get better as more and more satellites are launched. It’s slow progress, but by 2024 it should have a pretty substantial constellation!
Great video. This is truly the bottom line with regard to Starlink. If you have to work on the go, as I do, it is a great business tool "option". But it does have its limitations. Thanks for the video.
@@DaveBowman345 Just a guess. More satellites increases the probability of one being overhead and not obstructed on the horizon. Overhead satellites are also closer than ones on the horizon.
So, if you move to a heavily wooded area, then order Starlink, knowing it won't work...it'll give you the perfect subject to complain about on youtube. Next video will be about not being able to get water to run uphill...followed by not getting any sunlight in a cave. Stay tuned for more mind-bending reviews. And remember this: You can bitch about just anything if you care to.
It’s not your fault for being a Dick. I should have realized this video would reach beyond our subscriber base and done a better job of letting the new viewers know we are full time rvers that travel and move locations every week or so. Starlink is an amazing option for travelers like us and I am letting others know how it works in real world situations. A lot of people find this info valuable... and then there are a few people like you… have a good one 😊
I love my Starlink.... I just don't park near any trees.
Yes! Works great in the open😊
Absolutely the rest of us learned that when we carry dish net work around this is not news whenever you have any kind of DIRECTV dish Netwerk and Starlink won’t be any different you must have direct site lines
I heard Starlink Hans its own satellite which would be a help
Many places on the east coast have nothing but trees
Duhhh... WTF? 🤦🏻♂️
I travel in a van and camp as far from society as possible. Miles and miles beyond Verizon coverage.
Starlink has been a game changer. No longer do I leave beautiful spots because there is no cell coverage. Now I look for those spots because they keep the riff raff out.
I travel in the west in national forests. I can always find an open spot with a northern facing opening. It is wonderful. Well worth the cost.
Thanks for sharing. We are looking forward to getting back out west and enjoying the solitude and beauty as well. 😊 ~safe travels
Hi Aaron. You might want to consider a peplink or other similar mobile router. Here's a few reasons why.
* They can combine multiple carriers into one pipe. So Starlink, LTE (up to two LTE carriers on some models) and wifi all at once. As carriers fall out of service the others take over seamlessly so that means far fewer perceived service drops for you.
* The LTE radios in those fixed mobile routers are far better than anything in pocketable hotspots, especially when combined with good antennas.
* Easy to configure and manage, especially peplinks. Almost set and forget.
* Bonding service AKA sdwan is very inexpensive. You might spend $30-$50/year? It is inherently a VPN too and you can choose from multiple endpoints, globally. It's also not required. You can just wire up multiple carriers and let it work in fail-over only mode.
* You'd probably do very well with just Verizon and Starlink and the occasional wifi with one of those routers and some good antennas so no need for additional service lines. But if you were going into an area where you know Carrier X is better just get a pre-paid sim for the time being. These are carrier unlocked so do whatever you want.
I've started using these at work for sites where I need LTE fail-over. I recently got to use one for myself for two weeks and really got to put it through it's paces and needless to say such a router is now at the top of my RV stuff to get list. And the one's I've been shopping start around $300 so not too bad. Unlocked pocket routers are about that much and these are so much better.
If nothing else I'd consider getting a better antenna than that Netgear. Don't get me wrong, it's a decent device. I have one myself. But even with just a basic pocketatable router similar to your Verizon one (I have a Netgear Nighthawk) I noticed a vast improvement when I went to a fixed roof mount omnidirectional mimo antenna with 8db gain. Carry an omni and a directional and you've got a good road warrior kit. Oh and speaking of antennas. For anyone who has an RV that came with the Winegard 360+ TV antenna and opted not to get their optional router there's a pretty good LTE mimo array in there and one external wifi antenna, all with T9 connectors. You can find the leads clipped on the back of the little beauty cap on your ceiling. One can command strip mount a pocket router right there if it has external antenna connectors [and those are typically T9] and there you go.
Wow! Thank you for all the information! Sounds like a Pepwave would be a great option for us. We’ll look into all this😊
I second that!
I will second Pepwave products they are fantastic. Pricey but excellent stuff.
100 % Pepwave! I'm running Pepwave with a T-Mobile SIM and Starlink. LOVE IT
Would you recommend the higher end Pepwave with multiple modems? I got the more basic single router one and plan on combining that with starlink but am wondering if having multiple cell connections simultaneously is worth the extra price for the higher end pepwave router
I see that the new "Starlink for RV" program may offer a new solution for managing expected down time as it allows you to pause monthly service. I believe the way it works is that if you know in advance that you can go without Starlink in a given month or months, you can pause service cost for that period and resume service when you need it. I have not investigated this part of the service so I do not know how flexible it is.
Now THAT is a good selling point for signing up for this!
There's telescoping antenna masts available for reasonable prices, height increases the visible open sky
We’ll have to look into those thanks!
My seasonal campsite is a remote, heavily wooded area. My dishy is on a 20’ pole aimed at a northwest section of the sky. Only a small area is unobstructed yet my Starlink works flawlessly.
We visited a campground in a very populated area where the only choice of location was under a large tree. Late fall so, no leaves, still worked well.
I now RV full-time and had mine for the last two months or so. Thankfully, I haven’t had any problems whatsoever. The ordering was easy and the installation was ridiculously easy. I know I’ll run into problems here and there, but so far I’m loving it!
I think you are fake. I live in rural montana with a wide open north view and its' utter shit
@@FamiliarAnomaly I’m fake? A person that simply stated he’s enjoying it and hasn’t had any problems as of yet? Sorry if you’re having problems but I have had none to this day. But what a way to come at someone 🤦♂️
Starlink has always stated that trees or tall buildings would be bad for it. That's why you need to take your phone and do a clearance test with it.
Yes true. But when at small campsites it doesn’t help to do the test as you might have only one spot to put your dish. Like the last site where I put it on the roof and just had to hope for the best. Unfortunately there were big trees to the north and we didn’t get any usable Starlink service.
TREES!!!!......Well, DUH! They warn you about that up front......Anyway, I got my Starlink about three weeks ago. I set it up in the front yard. There are some minor tree obstructions but I'm averaging about 10 minutes of obstruction in every 12 hours. It's pretty much unnoticeable. It has proved to be a wash as far as cost is concerned. I had a Verizon Jetpack with 100 gigs then throttled above that and two phones with unlimited data and it was costing me about $217.00/month. Now I have eliminated my jetpack and have both phones on a 5 gig plan. It works just fine for me and costs $107/month. That means Starlink is costing me $10/month more than Verizon with no data cap or throttling, plus faster internet most of the time, particularly upload speed and lower latency. It will be even more dependable when I get it installed on the peak of the roof so no obstructions.
Duh??
You do realize the satellite array is composed from a thousand units circumventing the earth in a NON synchronous way ...yet not only you can't use it on the go but you also have to aim to a specific predefined orientation highly susceptible to interference due to thin surfaces like leafs rain or subtle movement?
Cut trees, because #teamtrees is a scam anyway.
Camping in beautiful campers and running all over the states isn’t enough fun without internet. Let the women go and learn what truly matters.
When you are surrounded by trees, cut them all down OR get a real real long pole that will reach beyond the trees or get a drone that you can mount your star link to it and let if fly up in the sky.
I love my Starlink thanks Elon
Must have 100 degree cone unobstructed view of the sky. I would think a canopy of trees is pretty much a deal breaker. The dishy finds, then locks onto a bird as it comes into view (up from the horizon), as the previous one disappears from its view. Plus, when you are "roaming" you are at a lower priority than someone subscribed in that area, so data speeds can be affected. Initially align the dishy either 53 degs either north of south.
Had it 6 month. Gift from God! Didn’t waste time watching this video. Just getting my two cents in regardless of what he has to say.
We just got our shipping notification for one we are excited!
Nice 👍
Dude ive had mine for 1 yr, and in 1 yr I only had 2 drops of service for 10 minutes each , I love mine and won't change it, plus I'm a gamer and works fine with my ps4
What games do you play?
the dish must see the sky. that rv site was closed in. On the Starlink app it has a viewer that is easy to use and tells if it is ok, which it would have said it was too obstructed. satellite receiver needs to see satellite or it only works when it is /if it is overhead. there are 2500 satellites so coverage improves with every SpaceX launch
We just hooked up our starlink rv yesterday, were able to grab a gap in the trees here in gainesville fl. I have a robust att, Peplink system, I see this as an adjunct to that, for when the att has connection problems or congestion. Trees are a problem with starlink, I see us using it sparingly, pausing and restarting the service as necessary. Great job with this update. First time on your channel. Larry
Hey Larry👋 sounds like a good plan you have with Starlink! I’ve heard good things about the peplink and I need to also get a system to bond our Verizon and Starlink. So far since being on the East coast Starlink is not a game changer for us 😬 but It should continue to get better and better.
My wife and I don't travel full time but I still picked this up as soon as roaming was turned on. Previously I had used a combination of AT&T (tethering)/Verizon (hotspot)/TMobile(hotspot) since I wanted to work on the road. We are mostly in the Western US (CO, WY, UT, NM, AZ). Boondocking out here is awesome since there are so many places you can do it, but a lot of it has no cell coverage, especially in the CO mountains. Starlink has worked flawlessly out here. However, trees are few and far between unless you are in the mountains.
Right now I'm paying $85 for home internet, $50 for Verizon, $50 for T-Mobile and $5 for phone tethering with AT&T. That's $190 total. I plan to cut everything but tethering and Starlink. That'll drop my bill to $140 ($110 + $25 roaming + $5). When we are at home I might not even move the dish off our class B since the batteries and solar will keep it going and I think the router will reach all of the house. If not I plan to get another cable and just move the dish & router between house and van. I think it's a game changer for people out West at least.
Thanks for sharing that! 😊
I'm in rural quebec, cell service is spotty where I live and starlink works great. We've had it for about 8mo and have had one outage which lasted about an hour. Our average speed is well over 100mb/s which is night and day to the 3 we used to have through cellular at a lower price.
The seaplane operator I fly for has starlink at all their bases.
We have subsized service from the provincial government at 115 cad per month taxes included until 2025.
LOL, I bought a service that requires the dish to see the sky and when I don't allow it to see the sky it doesn't work. I'm not happy. LOVE THIS REVIEW. LMAO
Roaming costs can be attributed to capacity issues as well. Starlink has a capacity limit (in theory) in a single area that the satellites can handle. Without roaming, it is much easier to calculate how many dishes can be in this block without impacting performance heavily. Allowing roaming if say a person went into an area at max capacity could have some issues. They most likely added a buffer to ensure this doesn't happen.
Your explanation is spot on. Starlink has capacity issues that roaming can disrupt in certain regions that are near or at capacity. I suspect the roaming fee will be used to increase capacity in certain areas in the future.
I mentioned this on a few videos. Right now, most users will experience great speeds and low latency because nobody else in their area is using starlink but as users grow and now you can roam with your setup, expect bandwidth to decrease greatly. A few things can fix this. Increase ground to satellite connections thus increasing overall bandwidth, limit the resolution that can be viewed, or lower the bandwidth each user uses.
At some point the ground stations that are everywhere, will be expanding capacity wise and hopefully will eliminate these issues. So the ground stations that serve you, (i have at least 3 to my address) may or may not be at capacity. However expansion will allow them to accommodate us hopefully soon. However expansion is money capital. So we will see
And don't forget weather. That can impact connections, too. We are on the fence about this service. It is just that cell service speeds are starting to degrade in many of the places we often visit.
Yeah, it does suck that we have to pay for roaming but that's not all that sucks. I noticed in the past week that Starlink lost hundreds of satellites all over the US. Not sure why! The Starlink map shows they're no longer there. I haven't went out and tried to connect to see if that's true but they're gone from the map. So with the price increase to $110. The additional $25 per month increase to roam. The throttling while roaming; I'm falling out of love with Starlink really quick. Right now, I'm out $712.28 now with zero connectivity unless I pay $135 per month and move to a location with coverage.
Oh yeah bummer! Thanks For sharing your experience with it and hope service returns for you!
Rual areas in Alaska are gonna love it we pay close to 200$ a month and. The ping at its lowest is 600 and not even 1mb down. So 100 a month is a upgrade and the speeds are also a upgrade.
My Cox bill keeps going up in price.
I gave up cable to lower my bill but they still charge too much just for tv and modem. If I kept the cable it's only $10 more, go figure. I need more options, although we live in an apartment.
We did full time RV a couple of years ago but gave it up. We currently live in AZ and have a cat we don't want to risk his air conditioning, sometimes RV resorts had electricity outage at times while we were at work.
We always stayed close to work because we don't have the luxury of working at home.
I'm still waiting. Signed up Nov 2020. Reserved Feb 2021. A month ago, the map said, 'Coming summer 2022' and I thought I'd finally will get it. But recent map update now says, 'Expanding in 2023". Bummer. I don't need roaming. Just good home internet.
Thanks for being honest and straight forward about the capabilities and limitations of Starlink.
I guess , Starlink is just another option for those who doesn't have the option to get the fiber internet. This would help a lot of people, not just from city who has crowded internet as usual, but the people far from city. It might be another option, but for some, it will be a solution.
I guess as a full timer you have to ask yourself how many places do you go and how often that you don't have cell service enough to use your hot spot device, and is it worth the additional cost to have the option of the Starlink service. I suppose if your business can afford it it's a no brainer. If the hot spot gets the job done, then maybe not.
Yes! Lots to consider for sure! Thanks Mike😊
No surprise there was a price increase soon after a bunch of folks bought Starlinks.
The purpose of going camping is to enjoy nature and get away from all this computer stuff.
So park in open area and do not mount dish on the roof of RV this will give you flexibility to move dish to anywhere near your RV where no trees.
I live in the middle of the woods. Dishy on the ground marginally worked with many drops. I bought an Old Glory Flag Pole (25ft telescopic) and it cured all of my problems. Dishys mounting stem is 1.49” OD, the flagpole’s ID is 1.5” so no additional hardware is needed. Just tape the shoulder to the flagpole. Mounting high is a necessity under tree lines. Height tremendously increases skyline exposure. I have no choice living in a rural area with marginal cell service, no hard wire internet and only high orbit satellite options. Starlink was a game changer for me. Because dishy is not mounted to my roof, theoretically with a spare cable I can take it with me. I do agree that you need cell service when traveling anyway so the combination of cell and Starlink may not work financially for everyone. For me, I had Viasat with a large data package costing $168/m and run out of data. Viasat was unusable for Zoom calls and large collaborative files . Starlink at now $110/m still makes sense for me. I thought the $25/month Starlink roaming could be used only when you need it but I could be wrong. Anyway your decision made sense. It’s a lot of money for the few times on the road you can’t find cell service. I guess it all boils down to your need to be connected with high speed. I think with a pole you could have cured the tee line problem.
I live in East Tennessee, starlink is going to be pretty much useless in 80 percent of the area around here and the surrounding nearby states because of trees and hills
Trees are absolutely an issue. I have been forced to create a mostly clear area for Starlink to work and I have raised the receiver as high as possible. It would be useful to have a longer cable.
Thanks for sharing that! We travel full time in an RV and It’s been really tough at some of our campsites for sure!
Negative, TREES, duh…c’mon, is that even a question? 😂 Anyway, if you live in an area of the world where there are NO options or NO service, this is all stellar at $2X even if you need to go sit in a open peanut field to rock out;). Party on friends🤙🏼
Thank you for educating me; I was excited too; but have decided to send back.
I use an LTE modem (Pepwave) with a MiMo antenna. Two issues. GB are expensive I have an ATT and Verizon plan with 2 SIM cards on each plan. Plus where there are no cell towers there is no internet. I think the Starlink can replace my Verizon plan and give me access when I’m out back.
Not sure what roaming means, but with the new starlink RV unit you can use it anywhere, and pause service when your not on trips.
The areas that don’t have service yet still work , but service will be what they call “best effort”
Best thing about trees is you can get around them.
What we need is to get a portable pole and long cable . I’m thinking what you want is a carbon fiber base , telescoping or bungee couples rods to get it above the tree line.
ROAMING means you aren't on the same "network provider"...meaning you can still get coverage/service, but you will be paying MORE generally in order to do so.
just like you can get healthcare outside of your "network" but you will PAY MORE to do so. same thing.
The original design intent for Starlink was to provide suitable internet access for folks who have little or no access at all. I live in rural Tennessee where broadband cable doesn't exist and slow DSL is 600' away. The upcharge to run the DSL line is prohibitive. If I'm lucky I can get a bar or two through AT&T cellular and hope the hot spot works. I received my Starlink system about 2 months ago and would love to have the speeds you complain about. I'm currently getting 25 - 35 down and usually about 10 up but it is lightning speed compared to nothing.
Where the problem exists is that people are expecting Starlink to be what they dream it "should" be, and then compare it to what it actually is intended to be. It was never designed to provide 300 mb to everyone all the time nor was it designed for portability. The more the system grows the less bandwidth will be available. Moving from an area with low usage and high bandwidth into an area with high usage and low bandwidth, performance differences should be expected. At one point Starlink was telling people that if they moved their service and then returned to their original location, they couldn't guarantee that service would be available when they came back. They leased out the available bandwidth to someone else when you left the area.
People are buying a Ford F-150 and acting as though they bought a CAT earth mover. All the things you find at fault were never a service promised by Starlink. They are all things you THINK Starlink should do and probably never will. I am very pleased that they provided the service the promised to me and I expect no more.
The math doesn't support your argument.
If this was only to provide for "those who don't have any options", then the service would NEVER pay for even its existing overhead (not to mention the constellation replacement investments).
The only way this system even reaches "break-even" - let alone eek out a profit - was to poach users of more traditional ISPs in areas that already have other high-speed options.
Hence their new "business tier" of service.
Plus, it would be dumb for them to NOT focus on both rural, unserved areas AND more built-up areas as well, since their satellites fly over both areas indiscriminately.
@@PWN_Nation Thanks for your response. While your logic is sound Starlink has never promoted their service as a replacement for urban users. They'd be the first to tell you to stick with fiber if you have it, or a good copper-based broadband service. Starlink has said over and over that available bandwidth will be its most immediate problem.
Like those who complain about the service they thought they should have had, you have now come up with a financial study that supports how Starlink"s intended purpose will not succeed. I certainly wouldn't argue with your logic but it runs counter with Starlink's promotion materials. Maybe you should reach out to Mr. Musk and run this by him 😉
In the end we have a segment of users that think the service should perform better than Starlink says it should, and those who fashion financial models to support those who are disappointed it doesn't do everything they dreamed it would do. I mean no offense and I do understand your reasoning. I just don't see where Starlink has presented any financial data to support your model. I base all my points on what Starlink has said the network would do, not on what I wish their service would do.
@@PWN_Nation Why don't you explain to SpaceX and Elon Musk how they're a bunch of idiots who can't do their own math!
Thank the FCC and the regulators for each state as to why they have to cap your data speeds when you roam. It’s not because of Starlink it is because of the laws and regulatory issues. They are taxes and Utility fees that she would avoid paying in one state using the service while you are registered in another state. To get around that you would need a residential address in each state that you desire to have somewhat reliable service. With that said I would say can you go to Colorado? I think that’s the state that the Rockies are in find someone’s address of she can register at that’s close to where you are going.
not true...
Please share your sources
No it's not. Each satellite has a 20 Gbps capacity with a 1,700 square miles footprint. It's all about the frequency bandwidth.
That's total BS. Nothing to do with regulatory issues. Do your homework!
we live in the smokies so I have not ordered Starlink, I figured it would be hard to connect
Yes, it very well might be tough there!
I have had my Starlink for a about 4 months I only have 3 issues with my Starlink system 1: I am not getting the up and down load speeds that I thought I would get. I get in the range of 50 to 70Mbps down and 10 to 15Mbps up but that is MUCH better than what I was getting with Frontier DSL (4Mbps down and 300Kbps up). And no it's not a tree or other obstruction issue, on the visibility display I only have two tiny little bits of red. One south south east of my antenna at the very bottom of the blue sky part of the graphic and the 2nd one is North West at the bottom as well. 2: The 2nd issue that I have is RAIN FADE, I was a C-band and Ku -band satellite dealer/installer for years and later I was a dealer/installer for Dish network and DirecTV so I know about rain fade but I did not expect it to be as bad as it is with Statlink, Even with the rain fade Starlink is so much better than what I was getting with Frontier DSL. The 3rd issue is speed related if Starlink is having congestion issues that is resulting in slower speeds I would like to see a tier level system where the monthly price is reduced if you opted for a slower up and down load speeds help Starlink with congestion. I live in a house not an RV.
100 mgps, my house has 30mbps, I envy your connection
I have not taken my Starlink on the road yet, but you will have to pry this dish out of my cold dead hands to get it from me. I live in the northern part of Michigan and we have lots of trees, but my Starlink is mounted on the top of my house and gets a 360 degree clear view of the sky. From the time I started using it I have never not been connected to less than 5 satellites often my connection has 12 to 17 satellites. I had cable internet before but it would drop below 33 Mbps during the evening hours. My Spectrum provider said this is due to me being on a block package which could include as many as 30 to 50 houses on the same connection! On Starlink I have never lost signal yet and never has the speed gone below 150 Mbps, I have seen some huge speeds of 523 Mbps but one thing is sure; my family has no problem watching 4K movies every night. The downside for me is that after 4 months of use the price has jumped from $99 to $110 per month! I got Starlink as every review said that as more subscribers joined the price would go down. Well Elon, you gave us a great product so instead of increasing the prices like your Tesla vehicles get, why not reduce the monthly cost?
Thank you for sharing that!
For the technology, the price isn’t all that bad. Space X is still improving it.
Starlink service will never get cheaper. keep dreaming. DSL service never became cheaper either. Only heavily populated areas see cheaper rates since they have lots of fiber bringing internet bandwidth
I got starlink today it's totally amazing I could not get anything internet related to work.
Starlink is easy to hook up 160%
Speed now. Everything works super great it moves to find satellites and melts snow. I love starlink.
Thanks for the update! We love our T-Mobile Home Internet we bring it in the RV.
Danny and Lynn
RV America
Thanks for your updates! Tower congestion on Verizon in Florida is crazy bad. Fort Myers area we just upgraded to new phones thinking our old LG G6'S were at fault. They weren't! When we hit 5G, still rare... it's as slow as LTE. ATT in our trucks OnStar is not better. T-Mobile seems to have a big edge right now on the two larger telecoms at least in SW Florida. Hoping Starlink gets solid coverage here, then we will jump on Starlink.
I would think, that if you were full time employed, or in business for yourself, on the road, Starlink could make sense for primary use. But, for the average person, initial price, plus multiple monthly use fees add up and it quickly becomes unaffordable. We had considered various connectivity items for us, but found that a Jetpack does the job at a significantly less cost per month. Good review and appreciate the time it took to make.
Thank you. Good synopsis you have of Starlink. Lots of different case scenarios for people out there for sure. 😊
There's also Calyx if you're looking for unlimited hotspot and Tmobile works in your area.
@@nick-leffler those thottle, starlink does not.
Best review I have seen. Thanks.
Thanks for watching!
This is the exact vid I was looking for. Currently in Coeur d alene, ID surrounded by trees. Will definitely order starlink prior to going back down to Arizona where we will have open skies!
Also, can you suspend your monthly membership? I've heard that's an option which could save you money if you're parked at places with trees for a while.
Yes you can pause your monthly subscription if you have the RV plan only. That’s the one that ships right away and is $135 per month.
@@IreneIronTravels excellent. Thank you!
Technology is never all-in-one. Every tool works differently in different setting and needs. Great update. Sounds like a good solution if you’re west of the Mississippi.
We recently got a caravan, and after our first couple of trips we've realised that mobile service can be very poor. We need to be connected for work, so I've just got StarLink RV. I set it up and tested yesterday and got 222mb on the dish speed test. Looking forward to our roadtrip next week!
Speedtest can NOT be used to test Verizon/Visible wireless.
Verizon purposely opens full speed but only for speedtest. Any other speed testing site will show the true speed.
Only about 5 mbps, usually much less.
East coast RVers and FL RV park users all seem to diss SL. However, out west SL is awesome for all those remote UT, CO, NM, AZ boondocking spots..
Why is there a roaming fee if it’s a satellite? Makes zero sense lol.
I do not know about roaming and RV's. I have it in my home and we have lots of trees and obstructions. But we love ours. I don't do Zoom calls, but I can watch movies all day long without interruptions.
I went with the RV service...and like that it can be paused when not needed or in use. There are some decent telescopic antenna poles that I'm looking to test, but Starlink clearly shows you don't want building or tree obstruction.
I guess I can see it being used for that reason, but it's being markets and Federally subsidized to provide broadband to consumers in rural areas like where I live, which are often surrounded by large trees and or in valleys that make it harder to run cable/fiber. They are already receiving phased subsidies of $1billion, but as of not that long ago, Musk said they will need an additional $30billion to avoid bankruptcy. I'm not sure if he is expecting the portion of the initial Billion dollars to create a "sunk cost fallacy" situation for the government to enable such an increase in federal funding or what, but if you look at the numbers required to fully implement and maintain this system, it doesn't seem worth the investment. I'm pretty sure more people would be better served in the US by using a fraction of that amount of subsidy to lay fiber/cable to those rural areas then branch off to line of sight wifi to any households that would be cost prohibitive to continue trenching to. This is just another of his hype money making schemes. Seems like a conflict of interest to let him make so much money off investments before fulfilling the goal of that investment. He makes bank even if he fails to even try to achieve the stayed objective. There is not much incentive to try. Even if they pull it off, I don't see how it will make much money let alone pay for expenses....then again if the government coughs up tens of billions to cover those costs for them maybe the investors will make something, but I only see him coming out as a benefactor of such a scheme. His stupid companies have been stealing money from real innovators and progress smokey because so few people understand what he is actually doing or even the problems he is claiming to be solving. It's actually a bit obscene imo.
As more satellites are launched do you think the required sky-view for the dish will shrink? I have a line of tree-tops to my west that just barely peeks into the sky-view on the phone app. It gives me a message saying that this may cause a 1 - 2% interruption time. If the required sky-view was just slightly smaller this line of tree-tops would not be a problem.
So... more satellites, smaller required sky-view?? Anyone?
It wasn't designed to be carried around and more like the old satellite dish you have that was fixed on a wall or somewhere in the roof. The issue are the line of sight not the service so if you are a camper and you wish to have a internet but there is no cell service, good luck using starlink.
It sounds like all you need is a mast, probably just a pole that normally just folds down on the top of your RV with starlink dish on top of it.
Like what this guy did
th-cam.com/video/fXyPCZi8vwY/w-d-xo.html
It sounds like a great service for anyone not in the Northeast or Northwest where trees are (thankfully) rampant in camping areas. Essentially it's the perfect service of you have ready access to deserts.
Live in Phoenix....deserts and higher elevations with light forestry but the flexibility of I'm not a super glamper im on open land.. Starling is absolutely amazing.. if I'm at a complete rv park with cell service... why get starlink....understand the right tool for the job....
Thanks for the honest review
No problem 👍
Those additional roam fees (extra 30 here in canada) now have it close to 200/month. When i first signed up for Starlink this is not what I expected. Disappointed. ps parents used mine up at the cottage and it worked perfect for them considering they have never had internet before.
Hey CC 👋 it’s getting up there isn’t it!😳 . Good to hear it worked well for your parents though!
When you signed up it was stated and operated as a fixed address option
Ah what I would pay to be back on high speed internet in the jungle…definitely easy to take it for granted;). I’d probably pay $300/mo., small price to be connected to the planet from anywhere, once you are no longer connected:)
Every person I have talked to with star link loves it
About to become a full-time RVer! Thanks for this very helpful review! Makes sense that multiple options are best if you need consistent service, which I will. The most helpful piece of advice I've found!
Glad it was helpful!😊
I was just about to buy the larger roaming in motion dish for my rv and boat, but they changed it, wont work on a boat? I know several full time boaters that have had it, I will have to see if it still works for them.
Could you get a telescoping Pole to put it way up in the air when you have trees nearby?
Yes. I’ve seen people using a flag pole with a mount for the RV, that can help.
It’s your connection to the router from your iPhone. Limitation of your hardware used and setup.
You want a cradlepoint with an MVNO subscription.
So it doesn’t connect to satellites when the signal is blocked? Just not clear what you’re on about.
Our starlink worked through not 1 but 1 cat 3 hurricanes so considering not even traditional tv can do that I’ll stick with starlink it’s super fast and work’s ALWAYS
I keep getting the Obstructed warning too, but still getting 150-200Mbps. My Obstructed chart is no where like yours though. On a side note, do you guys ever do meetups? I’m in FL too.
Yeah it’s kinda weird how it works with the obstructions….. We’ve actually never done a meet up! We do the annual Xcapers and Escapees get togethers but have never done our own. We’ll have to think about doing one😊
I live in northern VT in a regular house surrounded by trees and mountains any suggestions about equipment? Good show!
The mountains shouldn’t be a big deal unless you are right at the base and can’t see sky. But, you have to get the dish above the trees. Some people get the 150ft cable and even mount the the dish High on the trees.
Thank you for sharing your experience... I don't like the portable antenna and stringing wires all over the place... Think we'll hold out for a slightly more robust installation... Do appreciate your take on it though!...
I hear ya! I’m sure new advancements will be happening soon!
Trees will be an issue with any satellite system. Hughsnet was the same. Starlink would be great for boats if they come out with an in-motion system.
Thanks for the update and keep them coming as you learn more. Finally had a nice week here and supposed to be 85 one day next week. They think the most northern lakes will have ice out some time this week for the fishing opener next weekend. Hope so for all the fisherman/woman/ kids.
Thanks! Crazy weather I hear out there!
@@IreneIronTravels As you well know just typical MN swings. Mosquitos should be here soon, LOL.
@@IreneIronTravels Darn I forgot, Happy Puppy Mothers Day.
Based on our travels, cellular service is the worst out West except in urban areas. This is where Starlink would shine. East of the Mississippi can just about guarantee decent cell signal from at least 1 of the 3 major carriers. Plus, the trees east of the Mississippi are more plentiful where Starlink wouldn't shine. Couple Starlink with a Pepwave cellular router and you have a total internet system with redundancy for the entire country.
Hey, I have a question for you. We have a property in Wisconsin and we have a wide open field on our land but it’s about 12 1300 feet from the main cabin. Do you think I can install the dish in the field on our property and send a signal to the main house that kind of distance how can I do that?
The max length cable Stalink sells and recommends is 150ft.....you might be able to search the internet to see if anyone has successfully went longer.....Also some people choose to go up... like mounted 150ft on a tree to get above the obstructions...
I've had first and second generation GPSes blocked by simple forest cover. It took 13? years before the equipment got sensitive enough to really be reliable.
Whats the difference between roaming & normal residential exactly? I'm currently in a whole new country & my living situation isn't really fixed yet so idk if I can still get residential & take it with me when moving it take roaming?
Thanks for the insight about Starlink. Very helpful to the community. As always enjoyed these techno updates you share on your channel
Thanks appreciate the comment!😊
It's available for immediate order for me but I cannot justify it. I get 1.2gbps down and 1.1gbps up with fiber. We don't use our rv enough any more to buy it for our nomadic journeys.
But the Verizon hotspot SIM card setup has a data limit, Starlink doesn't. Verizon SIM card insertion into the RV antenna requires some intelligence, or you can fry your antenna and I'm sure you're on it for limited times because Verizon RV SIM card service doesn't have unlimited data, Starlink does. You'll rack up alot more cost using a cell phone provider RV antenna hotspot setup versus Starlink.
Our Verizon plan does not have a data limit or slower speeds after a certain amount used and only cost $65 per month. If I could only have one or the other we would have to have to choose the Verizon hot spot. Starlink has too many limitations with obstacles, and incomplete satellite coverage. I think the general consensus is Starlink is a good backup option...if you can afford it.
@@IreneIronTravels Interestimg. My Verizon hotspot plan is the same price per month and caps at 30 Gig. I'll talk to them because unlimited would be great because the Verizon SIM setup in my antenna is pretty fast.
We got our plan in 2019 and they don’t offer that anymore unfortunately! I don’t think there are any truly unlimited plans anymore… which to your point, is really nice about Starlink 😊
@@IreneIronTravels Okay, yes, Verizon got rid of their truly unlimited data plan back then. I just got off the phone with them and my SIM hotspot through my RV Wineguard antenna is the highest data plan they offer, 30 Gig, but they say I'm not charged if I go over. But I had to tell them my speed drops after 30 Gig which they replied "Yes", but of course couldn't tell me drops to what speed.
Thank you for your honest answer, I myself have been thinking about traveling over the winter months to warmer states, but I need fast internet speed with no drop out. I work for a call center so my phone system is through the internet
You need to purchase an aluminium 6m telescopic antenna pole.
I live in a rural area and have clear skies (no trees) to the north. Would I be a good candidate for starlink? My hotspot isn't cutting it anymore
Yes, it should be. Unless it’s slow speeds in your area… but you won’t know till you try it and they do have a 30 day money back I believe still.
@Irene Iron Travels Is there any way to know if I have slow speed in my area before buying? I know there's a couple people in my area who have Starlink but I'm not sure how well it works for them
If you can get them to run a speed test you’ll know more. Speedtest.net
Very informative. Thanks
You're welcome!
You were in non service areas for Starlink. Pretty good for non service areas. Just imagine when you are in service areas. More satellites more service areas
Also you can deactivate your account when not in use.
2nd video that I clicked on from you and not sure if I would consider it “click bait” but maybe you put you should put in the title it’s for an RV.
I got mine 3 weeks ago. It is amazing.
I just got mine days ago, the speeds are fine, but the app always says router unreachable. Don't try to tell me anything, already been doing that for several hours. All this stress just to try and change network name
@@michealtessier7246 are you connected directly to the starlink router? Then just use app.
You should not have any trouble selling your Starlink system.
Hi Aaron, have you simply considered buying a telescoping pole to put your Starlink on?
Hello 👋. Yes, I have seen a few people using the flag pole mount and I am sure that would help in some situations. Maybe 20% in the places we’ve been. Mostly I need to run the dish out to avoid trees as much as possible and point to the northern sky, so we use the normal stand. Just haven’t invested another 100$ into this back up system yet.
Do you think it will get better in the coming years? Planning to become a digital nomad 2024 but my job HAS to have connection Monday thru Friday. No wifi hotspot services offer more than 150 big data caps ☠
It will definitely get better as more and more satellites are launched. It’s slow progress, but by 2024 it should have a pretty substantial constellation!
Thanks for the answer! I'll be sure to stay subscribed so you can keep all us future digimads ready for the adventure!
Amazing update, super detailed, thanks so much!!!!
You’re welcome ☺️
Great video. This is truly the bottom line with regard to Starlink. If you have to work on the go, as I do, it is a great business tool "option". But it does have its limitations. Thanks for the video.
Well said!
Thank you
I'm guessing as more satellites get launched this will be less of an issue, because the probability of one being overhead will increase.
My question exactly. 👍 Have you found any answers or opinions on this from other sources? Thx.
@@DaveBowman345 Just a guess. More satellites increases the probability of one being overhead and not obstructed on the horizon. Overhead satellites are also closer than ones on the horizon.
@@andrewc662 thanks bud
So, if you move to a heavily wooded area, then order Starlink, knowing it won't work...it'll give you the perfect subject to complain about on youtube. Next video will be about not being able to get water to run uphill...followed by not getting any sunlight in a cave. Stay tuned for more mind-bending reviews. And remember this: You can bitch about just anything if you care to.
It’s not your fault for being a Dick. I should have realized this video would reach beyond our subscriber base and done a better job of letting the new viewers know we are full time rvers that travel and move locations every week or so. Starlink is an amazing option for travelers like us and I am letting others know how it works in real world situations. A lot of people find this info valuable... and then there are a few people like you… have a good one 😊
creates clicks and views to get the youtube money