Satellite Broadband

[die hard doonhamer]

Do any of you have experience with satellite broadband? I’ve just had an offer accepted in a house in a more rural location. Wired internet is awful, with download speeds apparently in the 3mb/s area, and cellular signal to weak for 4G/5G to be viable, so I’m looking in to satellite options. Starlink seems to be the best of them. Anyone got any personal experience or advice?

[EH75]

Can't comment from a rural point of view, but I work in the shipping industry and we have recently switched our on board internet from more traditional satellite connection to starlink and the difference is night and day. Internet is like being at home whereas before it was like being on dial up. So I wouldn't forsee any problems with using it in your situation but I dunno what the costs are like etc. Whole shipping industry seems to be moving towards it though so I think it could be the way forward for people in situations like yours.

[die hard doonhamer]

16 minutes ago, EH75 said:

Can't comment from a rural point of view, but I work in the shipping industry and we have recently switched our on board internet from more traditional satellite connection to starlink and the difference is night and day. Internet is like being at home whereas before it was like being on dial up. So I wouldn't forsee any problems with using it in your situation but I dunno what the costs are like etc. Whole shipping industry seems to be moving towards it though so I think it could be the way forward for people in situations like yours.

That’s really useful, thanks. I’m comfortable with the price (ish, I’d rather not have to pay £75/month for broadband but it is what it is), so it’s more wanting to be sure that the system is actually reliable!

[EH75]

Yeah I think it is pretty reliable. We used to get internet outages on the old system if we were in a Fjord with high mountains, cliffs etc but Elon has put so many satellites up there that with Starlink this is no longer a problem. Our onboard electrician was showing us a diagram of how many satellites Starlink has - they are bloody everywhere! So I doubt you will have any issues.

[roy of the rovers]

I suggest having a look at the following

The broadband universal service

If you can’t get a download speed of at least 10 Mbit/s and an upload speed of at least 1 Mbit/s (this is defined as a 'decent connection'), you can request an upgraded connection. You can make this request to BT, or to KCOM if you live in the Hull area. You don't need to be an existing customer of BT or KCOM to apply.

 

https://www.ofcom.org.uk/phones-telecoms-and-internet/advice-for-consumers/broadband-uso-need-to-know

[welshbairn]

2 hours ago, die hard doonhamer said:

Do any of you have experience with satellite broadband? I’ve just had an offer accepted in a house in a more rural location. Wired internet is awful, with download speeds apparently in the 3mb/s area, and cellular signal to weak for 4G/5G to be viable, so I’m looking in to satellite options. Starlink seems to be the best of them. Anyone got any personal experience or advice?

The dish needs a clear line of sight so if you have many trees around it could be worth mounting it on the roof. Just heard this anecdotally, haven't got it myself.

[TxRover]

26 minutes ago, welshbairn said:

The dish needs a clear line of sight so if you have many trees around it could be worth mounting it on the roof. Just heard this anecdotally, haven't got it myself.

If you’re using a Starlink antenna, there’s a “snow melt” feature (off/on/preheat) that is in the control menu that might need selection depending upon your location and the prevalence of snow and ice. Also, expect some signal degradation during heavy precipitation, and possibly during heavy fog.

[SpiderDee]

3 hours ago, die hard doonhamer said:

Do any of you have experience with satellite broadband? I’ve just had an offer accepted in a house in a more rural location. Wired internet is awful, with download speeds apparently in the 3mb/s area, and cellular signal to weak for 4G/5G to be viable, so I’m looking in to satellite options. Starlink seems to be the best of them. Anyone got any personal experience or advice?

I live rural mate and we recently switched to Starlink about 4 months ago and it has been a game changer.

We were with BT originally but speeds were 2-3mbs but now with Starlink it's 180mbs +. Used to take me days to download games on Xbox now it's minutes!

Equipment is very costly that's the only downside (I opted for it when they were doing new customers for £99. Not sure if that's still the case?)

As someone stated earlier in thread make sure line of sight for dish is clear but you can experiment with mobile phone to find the best place to put dish using the Starlink app.

 

[die hard doonhamer]

18 minutes ago, SpiderDee said:

I live rural mate and we recently switched to Starlink about 4 months ago and it has been a game changer.

We were with BT originally but speeds were 2-3mbs but now with Starlink it's 180mbs +. Used to take me days to download games on Xbox now it's minutes!

Equipment is very costly that's the only downside (I opted for it when they were doing new customers for £99. Not sure if that's still the case?)

As someone stated earlier in thread make sure line of sight for dish is clear but you can experiment with mobile phone to find the best place to put dish using the Starlink app.

 

Unfortunately there doesn’t seem to be any deals on the equipment at the moment, but I’ve got a few months before moving so I’ll keep an eye out every so often to see if that offer comes back. Otherwise I’ll just have to accept paying the £450. 
 

Good to hear it works well for you, though. I work from home, so I need a reliable and reasonably quick connection.