What are /r/Starlink's favorite Products & Services?

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The first Fast.com result can't be correct. The Starlink Dish and PoE adapter only have 1Gbps ports. Still threw me when I saw this result though. 300-400Mbps is still a great speed either way! Location: Bendigo, VIC, Australia.

Excellent!

One last thing you should do- put a cat6 lightning arrestor on each end of the cable and ground it properly. So the cable come in the wall, then to the lightning arrestor, then to the router.

Reason why- when you have a lightning storm, a lightning strike nearby throws out tons of EMP (electromagnetic energy) in all directions. A long Cat6 cable ran outdoors absorbs this like an antenna, generating voltages that can reach into the hundreds, frying devices on each end. The lightning arrestors prevent that.
I personally use fiber optic cable for all building-building links for that reason- non conductive = no possibility of surges.

Magnets (2 packs of 2)

MUTUACTOR 2Pack 100lb Anti-Scratch Neodymium Rubber Coated Magnet for Off-Road Vehicle Lighting,Outdoors Level Strong Magnetic Base with # M8 Female Thread for Led Working/Signal Lights,Antenna https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07ZJ9DL36/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_FQGB3S7F46GR2D4BQ1NS?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

M8 screws:

M8 Screws for Samsung TV, M8... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08Q7SWCM6?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Tricky situation as you have to do everything in temporary mode. You can add 200 ft of cable to Dishy's 100 ft. Everyone will say you can't, but I've been running it that way successfully for months now. I used an unshielded Cat 6 with this weatherproof coupler: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B07FLY7233, though others have pointed out that I should be using shielded cable. You can put the power brick in a weatherproof housing, too, if it's too far for the main cable. Just keep in mind that it gets VERY hot and needs ventilation.

But there's one very major risk with all of this: fire. Since you can't properly bury the cable and it's a public space, all someone needs to do is hit the cable the wrong way with a bike and they could damage the cable to the point that it could start a fire. If you could at least run some conduit across the ground, then that would be better than nothing, but the risk is still there. Not sure where you are, but I'm in the Pacific Northwest US and we're expecting a bad fire season this year due to a very dry spring. Please be careful with whatever you decide to do.

Bought a typical satellite mount off of Amazon (link below) and also bought the pole mount from StarLink. Mounted it to the beam at the roof line on the back. Predrilled holes then used self taping screws at the four corners and then bolts with nuts in the top and bottom center holes of the mount to keep it extra sturdy. Then my neighbor climbed on the roof of the dock and dropped Dishy in his final resting place (I don’t do roofs!). Then I slightly zip tied the Ethernet cable to the electrical conduit on the dock and down the side of the ramp.

Unfortunately I had to add 50 foot of Ethernet cable to get it back to the house and I’m not loving the performance of internet speed with the extension ethernet cord. So I may end up moving Dishys power brick to the end of the ramp enclosed in a water tight box. I have a shore shut off breaker box right at the edge of the ramp on land so adding power wouldn’t be an issue. Then run the additional 50 feet of ethernet from there to the house. I believe this may fix the issue. I’ve got some more options this was just my first/preferred way of installing and will work for now. Getting 30-40mbps down and 20mbps up. But should be running closer to 80-100mbps down so I know the current set up has a bottleneck.

Mount: Winegard DS-2000 Universal 22-inch Tower Mount for Off-Air TV Antennas (1.5in Diameter Mount Pipe) - Includes 2 U-Bolts, Fit 1in to 2in Pipe/Towers GRAY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00068YUN4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_BQ22VPZCV0YW8FYGTM52?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

IP67 Ethernet connector I used to add the 50 feet of additional Ethernet cable: VCE 2-Pack IP67 Waterproof RJ45... https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07FLY7233?ref=ppx_pop_mob_ap_share

Hope this helps!

For the time being, you might want to consider something like this for her:

Garmin inReach SE+, Handheld Satellite Communicator with GPS Navigation https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MRZ9ATL/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_tai_WdwaDb4E916B9

Cheaper than a full satellite phone or data connection, lets you send text messages basically to any regular phone or email address, along with GPS location. Also has an SOS connection to emergency services. Runs about $15 a month depending on the plan. Works globally over the Iridium Next network, as long as you have a reasonably large patch of sky.

Failover wouldn't help your use case, failover detection usually takes a few seconds, and your external IP changes which resets connections. You'd still have the same bad experience on video calls, and by the time it finished going through all the steps Starlink would probably be back, since individual obstruction outages are short, cue another IP change and reset connections.

What you need is bonding - using both ISPs at the same time with an external IP that stays the same. Speedify does this.

You're not alone, and I think a good portion of us have this issue. In the beta, I do think there are cells that are much better than others, regardless of obstructions. Not saying people shouldn't do what they can on the obstructions, but it does get old when some users who have good uptime simply say "deal with your obstructions". I have near zero obstructions, but have some hours with 40-60 outages, most small, around 4-6 seconds. So I continue to pay ATT Fixed Wireless as a backup for the family members who aren't as excited as I am about the possibilities. And I use Speedify to bond Starlink, ATT (with horrible upload) and my cell phone (decent upload), to successfully get through online meetings.

For people out there checking out the Beta, I would only do it if you can pay for a secondary connection for the rest of this year, if you need live consistent connections. People post the high speeds and I've had 260dl and regular 100+ speeds. But that is just half the story. Reliability is a big deal to most.

For the last two weeks, the service has been near unusable, and I just pull up the old connection for streaming. People should be excited about the possibilities and VERY realistic about the short term pain during the beta. It will all be worth it soon.

No it would be harder but still not impossible with enough resources and time especially if you use IPV6. I would get a VPN if it is a concern (IVPN is my overall recommendation) but also check out to limit your fingerprint on the web and make sure never to use your real name or information that can be connected back to you if your talking about your car and you own a Ford say its a Honda if you live in Florida say the weather is cold up here in Alaska this week etc.

Removing the wifi mesh and having only a wired connection from dishy to the PS4 will help. This is not a Starlink specific think - wifi as any part of your setup for online gaming is bad regardless of our ISP.

Some people who really care of gaming, or 100% stable video calls, have taken the approach of keeping their old ISP service and using a product like Speedify to bond the two connections. Basically, if your Starlink connection drops then Speedify will fail back to your old ISP's connection while Starlink recovers. It's not a very cost efficient option, but it is an option.

Disclaimer: I haven't gotten my Starlink delivered yet so am only repeating the advice that I have heard from others.

I used these:

https://www.amazon.ca/UBIQUITI-LBE-5AC-GEN2-Litebeam-Wireless-Bridge/dp/B072KQNGB1/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Ubiquiti+bridge&qid=1606066122&sr=8-2

to connect a NVR camera system for a storage yard to a neighbors internet connection about a block away

was an easy install and works flawlessly

Link…

Wingostore Heat Sink Cooling Module Aluminum Heatsink Cooler Fin (3.9" x 2" x 1.2") https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9GGAX9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_6KQBEC1MFK99FPC2SYWE?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Awxlumv 2Pcs Small Heatsink 4 x1 x 0.4 Inch / 100 x 25 x 10mm with Pre Thermal Conductive Tape Aluminium Heat Sinks for Cooler Electronics Gpu Led https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QMPK3LJ/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MN70Q6TBE7Z48SA6PXJF?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 try these.

These smart switches are awesome. You can plug dishy power into 1 AC outlet and then if you have a home router, plug that into the other AC outlet. Then you can fully customize what you ping, and when it should kill power in Outlet 1 or Outlet 2 or both. When it goes into reboot mode, you can set a delay for say your router and wait maybe 2 minutes and then power on the router. It's all customizable in its built in web server. With BETA outages, I would set the ping timeout to 10 minutes or something before it reboots. https://www.amazon.com/5Gstore-App-Controled-Remote-Power-Switch/dp/B0831T2DYV/ref=sr_1_3?dchild=1&keywords=msn+switch&qid=1622215128&sr=8-3

Did you view the attachment like it says to do? That will tell you what was downloaded.

Then you can grill your kids on not downloading movies without using a VPN. :) I've found NordVPN to be reasonably priced and fast enough to handle Starlink download speeds.

People have various experiences extending the cable attached to the dish. It works for some and not for others and isn't recommended by SpaceX

I used a high quality shielded 23AWG cable and a shielded, waterproof inline coupler.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0874B4KMN

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07FLY7233

Usually people bury their cables inside a PVC conduit. You can buy PVC conduit at your bigbox hardware store.

Downloading movies that you have not paid for is illegal on any ISP because it is simply illegal. It's called copyright infringement and in the US may come with five years in jail and or fines and charges of up to $150,000 per file. I think they are also trying to make it a felony and make the charges worse.

And any movie before 1923 still falls under copyright and is not in the public domain (thanks to Disney).

So to answer your question, YES. You should be using a VPN. While they probably won't go after you if they catch you, if they catch you enough they may shut down your Internet. A VPN is always a good idea.

I'm a fan of both Private Internet Access (PIA).

Do you know how to run Wireshark to capture the traffic to the Starlink terminal?

Either there is a mixup between the routes your getting via DHCP from the terminal and the ones your setting manual. Or there is some form of authentication going on that only work with the Starlink router.

Yes.... I use it regularly. It's been rough, and the behavior you are seeing is common. Lately it's been good though, suffering from occasional lag spikes between satellite switches and packet loss. All of which is improving but still a ways to go. Starlink offers the bare minimum in rendered quality... 10mbps and sometimes will upscale when it can sustain 20+ but it doesn't do that often.

One thing which I find helps tremendously is to use a VPN. I use ProtonVPN, but others will work as well. I don't know why a VPN helps.... but for me it works wonders. This probably has something to do with some of the routing inefficiences that Elon tweeted about. Maybe. Anyway..... I had a ticket opened up with Starlink on the matter a while back and they acknowledged the issues but at that point their primary focus was stabilizing the network as a whole so they didn't keep the case open. Once we are out of beta, and if Stadia is not working as intended, I may re-engage them.

Or maybe this will improve once the latency is cut down. I'm still hitting 40ms+ on average.

Sounds to me like your choice of VPN may be the issue. I use Firesticks on multiple TV’s with ProtonVPN (paid sub) with no issues on Starlink. The worst I’ve experienced thus far is an infrequent buffer now and then, but that happens without a VPN as well.

A user 18 miles from the cell reported about 50% ping success, and another user at 20 miles just 30%. If you want stable service you made the right decision waiting until a closer cell is activated:

• at up to three miles the service is almost identical to being in the cell, possibly just a tad slower
• 10 miles out is considered the upper limit for somewhat decent service, beyond that phantom obstructions multiply greatly

If you really need Starlink, there's a trick you can use to get a more stable connection - if you're willing to pay for both Starlink and another ISP you can use Speedify to bond the two connections.

This way you can benefit from the higher speeds when Starlink works and when it doesn't you instantly fall back to the other ISP so you don't get booted from video calls/games, etc.

For anyone who wants to optimize their setup, particularly if you're not using any thermal interface (and just resting the heatsink on the brick), a pin fin-style heatsink like this or this will be the most effective for passive cooling.

A heatsink with channeled fins like the one /u/Waker1999 used is most effective when placed with the channels oriented vertically (for natural convection) or with active airflow (forced convection).

I am using this router very successfully with Starlink, including native IPv6 routing. Highly recommended, using open source and with ssh command line no less! I would like to compare it to Peplink as mentioned in another reply.

TEW-829DRU TEW-829DRU

AC3000 Tri-Band Wireless Gigabit Dual-WAN VPN SMB Router, MU-MIMO https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07D5W2FGQ/ref=cm_sw_r_em_apa_glt_fabc_J22PPP146WCV0N25WA42?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1 

Search for a j mount antenna mast on Amazon. Then you need a way to keep the dish from rotating. Some people drilled a hole for the lock pin on the dish. I used a security camera pole mount... VideoSecu Pole Mounting Bracket for Security Camera Housings CCTV Security Cameras Wall Mount Bracket, TV Monitor or DVD, Compatible with TV Mount or DVD Mount A3H https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01M71U4D4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_DXB2B90MA0R0KVD575HY?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

aka The Life.

in the early 80s I read this book about a rogue hacker who decided to go mobile in a camper truck.

I've got a Cybertruck on order so with that and starlink I'll have half of what I need to go way OTG for a week or three at a time.

ELI5 explanation: Failover for your link is like taking another car on another road when you get stuck in traffic. The issue with this is that your destination will no longer recognize you as you have changed roads/cars (even though you’re the same person). That means you have to re-establish a relationship with your destination so they now recognize you.
Speedify gives you a consistent starting point for your trips. As far as your destination is concerned, you are always coming from Speedify’s house in the same car on the same road. It’s like a disguise so it always looks like you’re in the same car coming from the same road even though you might be taking a different road to get to Speedify’s house at any given time.

The short answer is that the Speedify software isn't perfect. It's actually pretty decent and a great value based on their pricing, but it isn't quite the silver bullet I'd hoped. When I first got Dishy, I had it on my roof and there were substantial obstructions. Starlink couldn't stay connected for more than about 30 seconds at a time, so I was using Speedify with my slow but stable DSL to round out those downtimes. For some reason, once every 10 minutes or so, Speedify would stop using my DSL and therefore be completely down when Starlink was obstructed. And once that happened, it wouldn't self-correct for a long while (30+ minutes usually) unless I cycled the connection state on my DSL. I worked for several weeks with Speedify support but we never really got to the bottom of it. Some settings changes that they recommended made some improvements, but never resolved the issues. I have to say that they tried, though, and it was an overall good support experience.

After I got Dishy high enough to see over the obstructions, Speedify worked much better. I'd say that it prevents a majority of the Starlink outages by using my DSL. Given the huge gap in bandwidth between the two, I don't get much from the bonding aside from failover. Since both are active, most Starlink outages are seamless, even when I'm in Teams meetings.

>e

There is no need to go to the store when you can order it from Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/EW-Designs-Explosive-Dynamite-Magnetic/dp/B07W3LC3MK/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=EW+Designs+Magnet+Explosive+Dynamite+Bomb&qid=1605656501&sr=8-1

I’ve had less down time but slower speeds. Was hitting peak 160 to 230 a few days ago now getting 80 down max.

To keep some kind of context on this read up on a software deployment strategy often used by companies called canary deployments. https://semaphoreci.com/blog/what-is-canary-deployment

Just for the folks who haven’t seen behind the current in a software company shop how changes are propagated out to the users.

Think back to junior high when you learned about scientific method that’s what their doing. And were the lucky rats on the cage.

I have dual wan. If you just failover at your router you will get disconnected because your IP address will change when you change wan.

You could try speedify VPN or just game on your phone service. Gaming usually doesn't use much data so maybe just try it and monitor your usage.

Not by itself. If you have a second ISP (i.e. 4G mobile data) there are routers or software like Speedify that can combine the two internet connections.

This is called "bonding", not to be confused with failover or load balancing.

I haven't done it with two dishes but I was using speedify for two DSL lines which essentially would be the same process. Using an old laptop to run Speedify and then going to UDM-P. Had pretty good results with it.

I use UDM PRO with T-Mobile LTE failover, works great 99% of the time, I can do Skype calls and Zoom without loosing connection, no issues at all streaming. As poster stated above the ultimate is Speedify or similar for seamless operation. I’m ok with the way mine works.

I believe he meant a Yagi antenna on an LTE booster. Like so many of you guys, I'm in the same boat. I moved out to the middle of nowhere to help out my parents (mid 70's and can't remember a thing) and my cell service here was horrible until I bought this booster from SolidRF. It boosted my signal from around -110dB to -80dB to -90dB, which is HUGE. I still want my Starlink but this helped me quite a bit. Now, if your signal is much worse than -110dB, it just won't work. There's got to be at least a weak signal to amplify.

The "six nines" reliability is something like a little over 30 seconds per year, so I'm not aware of any provider of anything that actually delivers that.

Not sure of your usage situation other than 10Mbps upload can only support two simultaneous MS Teams streams? If you are really getting 10Mbps upload, you should be able to carry more streams than that.

I use Starlink for video calls regularly, and have a TMobile connection backup, using Speedify to bond the two services together. If SL goes down then it seamlessly fails over to the TMobile connection and I rarely even notice a blip.

I had tried a multi-wan router before that but it wasn't really a bonded connection, so the lag-time in detecting an outage and switching to the other WAN still left a gap in video calls.

Your stream issue might be related to high latency or dropped packets. DSL is great at providing both, so maybe look into network quality issues as a culprit.

I have done something similar. I will speak to my experience.

• You won't be able to move into your neighbors cell when you get the dish. You can't switch cells if the cells are full to orders. You may not be able to switch until mid 2022.
• IMO keep your current preorder is a good idea because it will be for the cell you are in and you don't want to lose that position yet. So don't switch the address or anything. If you must make another order use a different email.
• I did a fullorder for 100 miles dumb, I had ideas and schemes, not sure they would have worked. I was lucky and was able to get a cell 15 miles from me at its edge.
• Even with clear view of the sky I am getting lots of "obstructions". Likely fade from being 15 miles away.
• The speed is diminished both for download and upload, so 40mb to 100mb. It can vary alot.
• I get around 60 to 70% avg uptime. It may stay only for 10s before dropping again.

It is almost completely useable. I have bonded it with my DSL using Speedify/Connectify. This lets me take advantage of the download speed 50% of the time. This seems to have 2.5x on my avg downloads with my 15mb dsl. Which is kinda nice.

I just did this last night, so I haven't had time to test quality of the bonded connection much. I don't imagine voice calls or onlines games will work very well on the bonded connection. Least I can update faster.

Is it worth the $99 a month? Maybe for a few months, hopefully it gets better. I hope to move into my immediate cell when it opens up. I still have my original pre-order. So I will know when it opens.

My concerns with doing this was that I may not be able to move into my cell when it opens if its full from pre-orders. My other concern with pre-orders was that they may not be enough dishes when they let a lot more people in.

So, you can use a speedify VPN directly on the Linux laptop to bond the two connections. It just requires a monthly fee, but it will fill in the gaps in service. The main problem with this service is it seems to limit the starlink connection to 100Mbps.

Alternately-you could use a failover router. This would make Verizon pick up when starlink drops-but this has its own complications that make it not ideal. Services switching from one provider to another (and the IP address changing) can make things not work well (or kick you out of some services). Also, many of the micro disconnects you get with starlink are so minimal, Verizon won’t even kick in before starlink is back up.

Basically, Speedify is probably the most seemless/easiest solution I have personally found, but it’s limitations drove me away from it.

A better option might be a service called openmtcprouter, which can run on Linux, and also works by using a VPN tunnel so services see a consistent IP address regardless of what service is being used at the time. I haven’t personally tried this yet, but it’s something I’m looking into.

Hope some of this helps lol.

I'll put a positive spin on it and say yes with a small caveat. It can depend on how important flawless web meetings and voice are to you. If you're hosting meetings, and you have a backup isp, something like Speedify can be helpful to eliminate dropouts. If you're just an attendee, no problems at all, assuming you don't have alot of obstructions of course.

I started by using Speedify but I haven't used it at all in the last month, just Starlink. I use 8X8 Work for customer calls and inter office meetings, with Zoom and GotoMeeting for various other conferences. I get an occasional dropout on the voice calls, but they're generally less than 5 seconds (once or twice an hour) with a once-a-week 10 second drop. Customers are surprisingly understanding and always want to know more about Starlink. It has radically improved for me over time.

That's been my experience so far. There's certainly someone out there that won't agree, but you'll have to actually check it out for yourself. Chances are pretty good I think that it'll be usable though not perfect yet; again, assuming you have no obstructions.

Simple fix for network protection with a fiber break. I use this on my DSL modem and when Starlink is available I will use it there. After modem ethernet into converter and then ethernet out to router. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B097M57GHH I live in Florida where lightning is an everyday occurrence during the summer.

I have one of these installed between dishy and power brick. Works well and should protect my network in this case.

When you need extra stability you can use Speedify to bond Starlink and Viasat (or mobile tethering if you have cell signal). It's a multipath VPN that uses both connections at the same time. Failover is instant and unlike traditional load balancing your external IP won't change so connections aren't reset, you aren't booted from video calls or games. The only drawback is it adds a little latency because it's a VPN.

They only send a notice if a copyright troll company logs your IP downloading your linux ISO. If you haven't received a notice your private tracker is probably fine, but I still usually recommend a VPN depending on how much you're downloading.

Windscribe and Mullvad are the best VPNs right now.

If you can, I would exercise another month or two of patience. I have an almost entirely unobstructed field of view except for the 60-90 degree range. Whether it was Starlink planned outages, loss of satellites, or my obstructions, I was getting 60-80 outages per hour. Made it unusable for live work, although bonding a Speedify connection got me through a number of calls.

But in the last 24 hours, I'm running at 2-4 outages an hour and going 1-3 hours at a time uninterrupted. Only another 30 satellites operational from before, from what I can tell. Which leads me to what I think is the obvious about the beta- we need to be patient. We look to be a few months away from something completely amazing.

I am south of Madison and have been using Starlink for work from home for a few months. The bandwidth is great and works really well. Speeds for me are in the advertised 50-150MB range. The only issue I’m having is with drops from Teams calls once or twice an hour. For non-critical calls, it’s annoying but manageable. For critical calls, I am either switching to my mobile hotspot or using Speedify to combine Starlink and hotspot.

The number of drops is really affected by obstructions. You can use the Starlink app to check obstructions. As more satellites are launched, I expect the drop frequency to decrease.

It works great for streaming. No issues. I haven’t tried gaming, so can’t help you there.

I'm using Speedify to switch over to my cell phone hot spot to cover these frequent, and short interruptions to handle zoom calls. Hoping that in 3-6 months, I can move off of this backup plan. All is good with this beta test, with the exception of the connection drops. I have zero obstructions and 100 disconnects in the last 12 hours (2 minutes beta downtime and 1 minute no sats). This is the one part of the Starlink beta that every user should have a plan for.

I agree with this, but have been able to get around the challenges you mentioned for video conferencing using Speedify. With Speedify the dropouts change from 5-10 seconds of complete loss to 1-2 seconds. On super important meetings I have three connections - Starlink (primary), LTE-hub (secondary) and iphone (backup).

Is it 15 miles to the edge of an active cell to your house? That might be pushing it a little. I'm about 10 miles to the edge of my active cell and I get about 2 hrs obstructions during the day and a lot less at night. This results in drops during the day about every 3 to 5 minutes when it connects to the next satellite. It's like it connects to a satellite and then drops it for a few seconds as it's getting farther away before it locks on to the next satellite. Most of the time the drops are very short and you don't notice it while streaming movies and tv shows but you will notice it web browsing because it will pause when loading pages. Speedify is a way around it if you have an lte or another internet connection to fail over to.

I am on an grandfathered no data cap LTE plan, until recently it has been 2-7 mbps most of the time, but I guess the tower has been upgraded as for the last few weeks I have routinely been getting 20-30 mbps (I just ran a speed test with fast.com and got 25 mbps at about 1 pm). So I am doing ok without Starlink at the moment, though this no longer available grandfathered plan, may be cancelled at any time, as so many other such plans have been.

it's in Tabarnak! :)

​

I had fast.com report 600+ Mbps but I'm pretty sure it must have been a glitch.

Max throughput reported by dishy since setup is 388 Mbps.

Estrie, QC

Could you imagine if this was true, lol. Biggest rule of running speedtests never fully trust fast.com lol i have seen 1.2gb on my starlink. fast.com always has issues.

Really? Most big ISPs optimize their routes for speedtest to inflate their numbers. Fast.com is hosted on netflix's servers, so if the ISP does that, it also optimizes the traffic for netflix. They started it years ago when some ISPs were trying to throttle connections to them.

That said, I often use a combo of fast and google's mlab speed test. If you just do a search for 'speed test' it brings it up as the first result, but it's not a website link.

I’m really hoping they can fix the lag spikes, even if it means new hardware that can link to two satellites at a time. I’m into simracing and the lag spikes could easily cause a crash in those few short seconds. The main issue is that this crash would likely not just involve my car, but also collect several others and ruin those peoples’ race too. I’m still using Speedify with my phone as backup, but I hope I can stop that eventually.

If you're going to run new cable down walls, you might consider getting a Wire Noodler or something similar. It's inexpensive and saved me a huge amount of work running Ethernet cable throughout the house I bought.

If it's an outside wall, then you'll likely have to contend with insulation too. Getting that big choke at the end of Dishy's cable through insulation will be a chore no matter what.

I use Speedify. Bonded Starlink with VZW LTE. Using Windows 10 as the router. Been solid for a few months now. Speedify does increase your latency a little bit and also slows the connection down, but for video conferencing it's a must.

You want speedify/connectify. It is cheap and fairly effective for time being. The VPN service like speedify makes all the connection look like 1 connection to the outside network. So you won't drop connection and have to wait for failiver to kick in.

I set it up last night. I use my ethernet for dsl. I connect to starlink with pc wifi. Then I share my speedify connection using connectivity hotspot.

So all devices that connect to my hotspot will use the dsl/starlink bonded connection.

If this all sounds confusing and tricky then that is because it is. There are different ways to do it with different benefits and reasons for doing it. Speedify and connectify should help.

Here is your ultimate tool less fix it shielded connectors:

https://www.amazon.com/Listed-Cable-Matters-Shielded-Keystone/dp/B00CLVAJCK/ref=sr_1_18?dchild=1&keywords=cable+matters+cat6+toolless+plug&qid=1626144889&sr=8-18

https://www.amazon.com/Cable-Matters-Tool-Free-Termination-Connector/dp/B074HG7SQN/ref=sr_1_27?dchild=1&keywords=cable+matters+cat6+toolless+plug&qid=1626144916&sr=8-27

Maybe I can help?

Pardon my random typing/advice, it is coming up on my bedtime. I got off work 4 hours ago and live in Wisconsin so it is well into beer 30.

Me-

Have dishy about 20' off the ground mounted on a metal shed - only place to have a good view.

Power brick in shed (has AC power) - starlink router in shed hooked up to brick like you would without any other gear involved.

From the starlink router AUX port I have a 200' cat 6 cable that runs to my point of use.

Cable I used/trenched a few inches below ground was - UbiGear 200' FT Heavy Duty CAT6 Waterproof Outdoor Direct Burial

I feed into a tp-link ER7206(TL-ER7206) router - yes I know double NAT - but it works well.

I think the problem you are facing is that the starlink router is POE powered. Even with good cat/Ethernet cable you can only do about 100' between POE injection and POE device.

In my case - dishy with its 100' cord > power brick > supplied cord to the router > 200" cat 6 to use point.

You should be able to go from the power brick over 200' of cat 6 cable to a router no problem. - But not the starlink router.

If you have a POE injector that is 56V you could put that after the 200' run and the starlink router should work ?

Good luck and hello from Wisconsin.

I’m in a small uncovered area between 2 active cells, my service address is 5 miles to the east as that was the only place it would let me order, yet I have a friend less than a mile to the west that got an invite to his address, but then that area said it was full. It’s very confusing and you’ll get lots of clonflicting answers here, you’ll just have to try it, I get outages at least every 10 mins for 30 seconds or so. I ended up binding the connection with Speedify so I could get some use out of it because I was running out of data on my Viasat and AT&T plans. So in spite of the intermittent nature of the connection I’m able to get about 50% of my data usage on The Starlink. And yes I had my email on e list since day one and I had a pre order placed within the first hour they started accepting any pre-orders, before it even hit redit, so I just got tired of waiting and secured my dish. I would recommend you do the same if you can afford it.

I got this kit. Works for everything I'm doing. I'm not doing any 100mile links or anything. Mostly inter-building/cross building 500m to 2km links. Get everything else from fs.com

>I'm thinking it went through the Ethernet cord maybe?

Yes. Everything from outside has to be surge protected. That includes Ethernet.

This is a typical solution: https://amazon.com/dp/B00R20OIAY/. I combine this with RJ-45 surge protection in my APC UPS.

Surge still got through between the Ubiquiti protector and the APC UPS between cables and knocked down my printer that's located where my cables enter the home.

When you need extra stability you can use Speedify to bond Starlink and a second ISP (i.e. mobile tethering). It's a multipath VPN that uses both connections at the same time. Failover is instant and your external IP won't change so connections aren't reset, you aren't booted from video calls or games. The only drawback is it adds a little latency because it's a VPN.

Okay everything about all of this is wrong. Return it all and get this;

50ft outdoor 23awg shielded LAN cable

Cat 8? No need. 26awg? WAY too small! Needs to be 23awg.

Also the cable is not likely the bottleneck, at least not directly. Like any digital link it either is or is not. It either hits 1gbps or it falls back to 100. However, I do not know how dishy responds to severe brownout low voltage conditions, or if it falls back on radio power to compensate for it. That might make it run slower between the dish and the satellites. However, the cable itself is not limiting data rate unless it fell back to 100mbps.

Get the cable I linked, return the tiny cat8. Get these too while you're at it;

Waterproof couplers

These are the correct combo for this dish. The cable linked here has the same capacity as the original SpaceX cable.

​

*edit

Felt I should also point out that "abetterlink" is literally just reselling these exact items for profit. Buying them here on Amazon saves you a few bucks. Unless you feel warm and fuzzy supporting the guy, then go right ahead. Either way they ARE the right items.

I used a cable that no one would recommend because I already had it from another project. It was an unshielded Cat 6a outdoor cable. Several people more knowledgeable than me have suggested that a shielded cable is necessary because Dishy needs PoE beyond spec and uses higher speeds. I haven't experienced any issues, but it might be because I'm right on the line of signal tolerance. Here's the one I used: https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00MJH7IM0

I doubt it, since Speedify itself is a VPN. You might be able to make it work with some elbow grease and networking knowledge, but I wouldn't go in expecting success. That said, I think there's a free trial.

I use the PIA VPN and I notice that if I have that connection up and then start speedify, the connection stays up. But no traffic goes through it, and if you disconnect PIA you cannot reconnect as long as speedify is running. I don't need them to work together so that's as far as I've investigated.

Get one of these and install it outside at the entry point and run another cable inside the house, you can also ground it, doesn’t hurt. This will make your life easier if you ever need to replace the dish. Use bushings wherever you enter, there are plenty of options you can get on Amazon to make it neat inside. Tupavco TP303 Ethernet Surge Protector Outdoor for PoE+ Gigabit 1000Mbs - LAN Network Thunder Lightning Surge Protection Suppressor/Arrester https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008060BU0/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Y5YDQ9TQD7DD54YKA0FV?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

Calculator, Standard Function Desktop Calculator, Solar Battery Dual Power Basic Office Calculators, Black https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0892GJD3Q/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_EKD6575P08CRNYMASSZK July 2 is the middle of the year, mathlete.

Winegard DS-2000 Universal 22-inch Tower Mount for Off-Air TV Antennas (1.5in Diameter Mount Pipe) - Includes 2 U-Bolts, Fit 1in to 2in Pipe/Towers GRAY https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00068YUN4/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_S54PQ0KMZXHTRME4W90D?psc=1 this one fits.

This + this = working perfect.

No downtime, dropouts or reboots. I was originally going to house my power brick outside in a weatherproof box, but since testing this there is no need - I'll be bringing the extended Cat6 into the house!

The OP’s question and my answer was clearly about their specific cell... Painless Reading Comprehension (Barron's Painless) https://www.amazon.com/dp/1438007698/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_Y8604YEMG2ASCWZK3PMS

Just a thought but you might paint the pole orange and put some solas reflective tape above the snow line. More help for snowmobiles at night with blowing snow. Cool install.

https://www.amazon.com/Reflective-SOLAS-Marine-Tape-Roll/dp/B01N9QVHX2/ref=asc_df_B01N9QVHX2/?tag=hyprod-20&linkCode=df0&hvadid=216767879473&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=14644555337859984556&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvd...

This post, while well meaning, is the equivalent of saying "it doesn't rain where I live, so I guess I don't understand why it is raining in other places". Many users who don't get these outages simply answer back that it must be obstructions since they aren't in the same position. I believe geography has a lot to do with your outage experience.

I've struggled for 3 months with multiple micro outages in a one-hour period. Averaged between 20-80 an hour. Speedify keeps me connected, but the video freezes and audio drop out are frustrating on both sides. I finally went to using just my cellular connection and my phone, which works better. Also taking audio from a phone call alongside really helps as that is the part of the call you really need in many cases.

All that said, Starlink appears to be turning a huge corner in my neighborhood. Went from over 800 outages a day to just 41 in the last 24 hours. Now getting 1-4 an hour. Could be the new firmware switching satellites, or improvements over our cell. But to the folks like me who have struggled with all these outages, I think the answer is coming soon.

I have multiple Teams meetings every day (usually just audio, but sometimes video too). I do not have any significant drops (sometimes, I might miss a bit of audio for a second or so). My stats have been hovering around 30s to 1 minute of obstructions / 12 hours, and ~1-2 minutes of 'Other Outages'. (I'm at 23 seconds and 25 seconds respectively right now today.)

I do have a DSL connection as a backup (~5Mbs), and use Speedify to combine the two streams. However, I'm not sure Speedify is effective for these short drops: if I physically disconnect my laptop from Starlink, it seems to take a relatively significant amount of time for my connection to work to come back up (I have not done any real testing to confirm this: I just tried it once and it seemed to take a long time to re-connect).

I'm hoping with the next batch of satellites coming online, my obstructions will get down to zero. Once I hit that point, I'll disable Speedify and my DSL connection and see what happens.

Definitely deal with the obstructions.

Service is not all the way there yet, but I have been able to move to just Dishy within the past month for both work and occasional gaming. I am only getting a drop every 2-3 hours.

Speedify is a great solution if you need the connectivity more consistent. If I have a lot of meetings and can’t afford a drop I tether for that time and end up using next to no hotspot data (mostly just there to bridge any disconnects).

How To: Terminate a Shielded Cat6/6A External Ground Pass Through RJ45 Connector

And something like this if it's going outside: waterproof RJ45 coupler

Yes Black will hold up much better to UV. Stainless steel zip ties are also a thing.

​

Also flush cut your zipties! I have had too many slashed hands and wrists from non flush cut zip ties.

Get a proper set of side cutters for zip ties that will leave them flush cut. I use these and they are fantastic:

https://www.amazon.com/Xcelite-MS54V-Semi-flush-Diagonal-Cushion/dp/B0002BBZ4M

My husband has the same issue with PokerStars. We are located in Montana but Pokerstars thinks we are in Seattle. Online poker tournaments are not allowed in the state of Washington so I have to set up a VPN (I use NordVPN) for him on Poker Night so he can login to PokerStars. It is a SMALL price to pay to not be on a Jetpack for internet any longer :)

That surge protector isn't designed to handle the amount of power Dishy requires. You'll end up frying the surge protector and possibly damaging your Dishy or its power supply.

I've seen this protector mentioned in another post and it supports up to 100W POE++.

As mentioned by another poster this isn't recommended due to how much power is being sent through the cable. I've looked for premade cables that would handle the amount of power being sent to the Dishy, but there's nothing I'm comfortable recommending.

The only way I would consider doing this would be with shielded, solid-core, heavy-gauge ethernet cable. None of the premade cables on Amazon came anywhere close to meeting these requirements. I could make one myself, but I keep a 1000ft spool of carrier-grade ethernet cable in stock for outdoor POE camera installs. That spool alone costs $180. In addition to that you would need a high-quality crimp tool ($80-100) and shielded ethernet connectors ($60-70 for a 50 pack). I would also want to test it with a high-quality meter to make sure the crimps on both ends are good, and those meters can run several hundred dollars. Needless to say even I wouldn't do this due to the amount of power involved.

As much as I recommend surge protectors for outdoor antennas and always install one whenever possible, Dishy's power requirements make it really hard to do correctly. My advice would be to only plug the power supply for the Dishy into the outlet and keep any high-value items such as appliances and electronics on another circuit if possible. If your house is wired correctly you should have nothing to worry about, but unfortunately that's not always the case.

The J mount I bought sucks 😕 Once Dishy is secured after modifying dishy pole the J pipe slowly hangs even at max tightness.

I do not recommend https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001DFS49U/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_fabc_A9YNW0FMX7CHNFTYYR2Z?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

I was able to cancel my Roger Rocket hub that was costing me 300-600$ a month.

To do this, I use Speedify to create a bonded VPN connection with my Starlink + Videotron LTE phone connection.

I never drop and I use very little date during fail overs. Gaming + Video calls are flawless now.

100% worth it.. be sure to get a coupon if you register for it.

Or you can use power line Ethernet adaptor like these, these work too

Yes. As long as its a CAT 6 cable, should be no problem. Try something like this: https://www.amazon.com/ConnectZone-IP67-CAT6-Waterproof-Coupler/dp/B07TJK91PS/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1

You shouldnt even have to cut the connection off with this one. Just use it to connect two cables together. Power will go over ethernet.

If you want to have automatic failover between the two isp get a router or switch w multiple wans and failover support. Then, you can use both routers you already have as access points. The advantage is you won't have to switch to the other router if one of your connections goes down.

Maybe something like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/TP-Link-TL-R470T-Broadband-Changeable-Ethernet/dp/B005SYQBN8/ref=mp_s_a_1_12?dchild=1&keywords=dual+wan+switch&qid=1605458026&sr=8-12

Both routers would use this as the same gateway. Set it and forget it.

Yeah it's not searchable for some reason.

Starlink App: <strong>Android</strong> and <strong>iOS</strong>

For further reference, Zoom's architecture uses UDP for meeting voice and video, with built-in codec support for error correction and concealment. A fallback technology called HT tunneling is available for more hostile network environments where UDP is blocked.

You can learn more here: https://zoom.us/docs/doc/Zoom%20Connection%20Process%20Whitepaper.pdf

The cool thing is that I'm seeing a nice consistent ping time under 50ms even when I queue up a bunch of big torrent transfers (like using http://distrowatch.com) for sustained download and upload throughput for testing (for sustained average up over 70Mbps down and 2Mbps up). Min ping is around 32ms, I think Elon and SpaceX/Starlink have great priorities and awareness of the importance of low latency, and Elon even mentioned in the importance of low jitter along with latency in that recent keynote talk and the comms conference in Barcelona -- He gets it. I'm in northern Utah.

OpenWRT, an open source firmware that works on a large number of consumer routers and access points supports this for free using the mwan3 package.

If you already own a firewall/router combination, you may be able to reuse it and reassign another LAN port to act as the "WAN2" device. You can check for support here.

I get 420-450mbps pretty consistently on the good Speedtest.net servers. I find their test the best because it has so many different locations to test to which give you a realistic test to that location wherever it is, and you can tell what places your ISP has good peering and where perhaps it is lacking.

Fast.com on the other hand always gives me about 50% of my rated speed and is only good IMNSHO for telling what your Netflix CDN speed is. In my case, why would I ever need more than 220mbps to Netflix? So I test elsewhere...

I'm in Polson. Ping could be better, but I noticed that on Starlink's App they use "fast.com" and that lists a loaded and unloaded ping: Unloaded ping was 42 ms vs 306 ms loaded. I used "speedtest.net". Keeping my current provider also until reliability verified.

Well that is up to the individual content provider and how they set up their geoblocking.

While those subnets are registered to Canada, currently the geolocation of each individual IP still refers to the US. For example if you take the 143.131.2.0/24 network, it's country code is CA, but if you run geolocation on any of the IPs it still tells you it's located in Seatlle (as the subnet name is "STARLINK-CANADA-MC-SEA1).

So I sadly don't really know how a geoblock would react to that as I haven't seen or heard of situation like this yet. Though I am pretty sure Starlinks network engineers are testing stuff like this before they start in Canada.

Check out Speedify.com. They support bonding and automatic failover and get mentioned frequently here. I haven't tried it myself but am considering and they support Starlink as a connection.

You basically get a software/VPN client that aggregates your connections and provides seamless bonding/failover. You will need multiple connections to the computer but they can be Ethernet, WiFi, LTE, etc. and it will mix & match between them.

It's a paid service, of course, but their plans are quite reasonable.

I still have some obstructions so can't Zoom on my Starlink yet, but I would set this up on my work machine to failover to my LTE connection when SL dropped. That way I would hopefully not lose the video call for the few seconds it's obstructed each time.

The primary source of North American IP geolocation data is ARIN. For example 206.214.225.105 is registered to SpaceX Canada Corp. The IP address is in fact being used right now.

Besides that Starlink gateway stations do not assign IP addresses to users, Starlink POPs do. Starlink POP (Point of Presence, a bunch of servers & routers) doesn't need to be located in the same country as a gateway site. It can even be located across the world. Here is a case of a New Zealand Starlink user getting a European IP and traffic routed via Frankfurt, Germany POP. Canadian traffic can be already routed via Canadian POPs.

If you already have a gigabit switch and your APs are new (802.11ac or 802.11ax), then it's likely either narrow channels, congested channels, or a failing link to an AP that's running at 100mb.

It's usually easy to test by setting up two machines and using a performance testing tool. iperf3 does a great job at this, and is available for every OS you can imagine, you just need to be able to run it from the command line. If you are running modern APs, have a gigabit switch and APs, use 5GHz WiFi with 40MHz channels or larger, you should get ~200-250Mb/s fairly easily. If you do, then look at your own router and ensure it's not traffic shaping and can support the higher speeds.

What about https://ngrok.com/ as something similar that doesn't require a server somewhere else? You still establish the tunnel from your network/host and they provide you with an external URL. The paid plans are needed to have URLs that don't change all the time.

I haven't tried using ngrok for this, but your post made me think that it might work.

My brother and I were able to get a Minecraft server running through ngrok. https://ngrok.com/

I don't know much about it nor have I set it up myself, but it's the only thing we've gotten to work through different efforts. We haven't tried any other games at the moment though.

You can use OpenDNS for parental controls. This is probably the cheapest and easiest option and does not require that you purchase additional hardware. This service requires that you make some changes to your Starlink router. Users on this sub can probably help once you're ready

https://www.opendns.com/home-internet-security/

That is a good idea for bypassing the cgnat. I have been toying with WireGuard recently - that may be a good option for the VPN on a VM. I could also host a MQTT server on that same VM so that I can access my external devices. Thanks for the good advice. I agree about the fragility/complexity of adding another step in my connections, but at least it would get me working again.

Regional blackouts are a bitch and antiquated! Use a vpn. I’m in Montana too and used ExpressVPN to watch Mariners on this past season. Just set your location to some location outside of the Seattle DMA (Denver or San Francisco always worked for me) and you should be good to go. If that doesn’t work for some reason, you can always go the unethical route and google “Seattle kraken streaming” and you should be able to find a stream on bilasports or some other “sketchy” site. Have pop-up and ad blocks armed.

I saw Root Sports NW was available on streaming package, but at $65 a month not worth it IMO.

I'm using a small x86 machine running OpenWRT, which supports failover and load balancing (but not bonding) via the mwan3 software package. The upside is that I don't rely on a third party bonding provider (e.g. Speedify) which can sometimes interfere with streaming services that block VPNs. The downside is failover requires a few seconds, so it can't catch Starlink hiccups.

My solution has been to route real-time traffic via my old WISP (who is typically reliable, but has frequent, sometimes days-long, outages), leaving browsing and streaming for Starlink when all systems are operational, and failing over real-time traffic to Starlink when the WISP is down.

I'm happy to share some of the setup if you wish to see more.

Don't have SL yet, but have looked at this a ton because I would need it for work. Read most of the posts here about this. Some of my findings (some of which have already been mentioned here):

• A lot of services get hiccup when the IP changes, which is why a fail over won't help you in that instance. Plus by the time you get a new IP from the backup service, SL may be back up anyway.
• Bonding solves this. But any of the three options I have seen all rely on the fact that your constant IP address is neither SL nor your backup, but one of a third party server. YOu have to pay monthly for that server.
  • Speedify has it's own servers it connects to
  • Peplink Speedfusion also has its own servers it connects to
  • OpenMPTCProuter requires you to get an AWS instance or something and run your own third party server
• Speedfusion and OpenMPTCProuter both rely on dedicated routers (Peplink box, or a homegrown router, respectively).
• Speedify technically requires installing the software on the computer you are using (and thus separate accounts for each computer) but they do allow you to install it on home grown router and then distribute it to your network. They have instructions on doing this on a raspberry pi, and there is a very good report/documentation of doing this in a post in this subreddit (do a search)
• Although everyone points to zoom as being one of the services that hiccups with a change in IP, there are plenty of reports saying this is actually not the case, that it handles failovers gracefully. I have no personal experience. And I wonder if that is still the case if you are the host of the zoom call.

When I get SL, may plan is to get a failover router (maybe an Ubiquiti edgerouter or USG) for the general house internet, but for my work computer where I do videoconferencing, set up a raspberry pi with speedify or OpenMPTCProuter running on it and just use its output for that machine.

I see, so with a service like Speedify you keep the same IP when switching between your WANs, while with load balancing and failover your IP changes whenever you switch to a different WAN.

Thanks, it's finally clear to me now what the real differences are.