Starlink RV installation and use

[mike625]

Originally Posted by ekim

I wanted to know if I can still deploy the dish to get software updates every so often even if service is paused for many months at a time.

It will get updated firmware when it is paused. You can still access the dish and check the status even with it paused.

[ekim]

Originally Posted by mike625

It will get updated firmware when it is paused. You can still access the dish and check the status even with it paused.

Great to know - thank you!

Now I can wait a few weeks for Starlink to respond to the same question in the ticket I created:

[ekim]

I consider myself a power user in that I work full time and do daily zoom video calls and typically work many hours per day (8am to 11pm is pretty typical).

We also watch TV in the evening. I have real data as both a full time user and part time user. I've attached my internet usage (all usage - Starlink, Verizon, T-Mobile, Tagged onto other wifi services). Note that in the past I have not paused Starlink in order to keep it as a hot backup even when using cellular. I won't be doing that anymore.

Basically we pay more and get the same level of service as a residential user that's using more that 1TB per month. I get "demand pricing" but I contend that it's not implemented correctly if you pay the high demand price even if you're not in a high demand area. It sounds more like "monopoly pricing" vs "demand pricing".

It seems to me, that since Starlink has already established 1TB/month as the upper limit for a regular user that they should somehow use that as part of their RV pricing scheme vs some penalty based on where someone might travel to. I have hard proof that I'm not anywhere near 1TB / month and I suspect most RVers are not.

When in an area with good cell coverage I'll often use cellular instead of going through the effort of hooking up the Starlink, but this new "demand pricing scheme" does not give me any credit for doing that.

It just feels like Starlink has suddenly decided that RV users are not a demographic they want to serve and this is the "shot over the bow" to turn us away. Given that we now see their RV pricing model - raise prices ~11% per year, we can make longer term estimates as to whether it makes sense to invest in the service over the long term. Attached is a pricing projection based on what we now know with respect to annual cost increases.

BTW - I'm looking at all this from the perspective of a full timer who was prepared to pay for 12 months of service to utilized StarLink as my primary service. If I traveled a few months out of the year then it would be a much smaller deal.

[CWSWine]

Originally Posted by mike625

instead of me using it as primary and paying monthly / using the leftover bandwidth. It will be paused and only used when we have no cell service.

I have a unlimited Verizon and T-Mobile that I put between 400 and 800GB per month and I got Starlink because at the current campgrounds either one of those has enough bandwidth to support even one TV or one computer. Starlink will not be activated unless nothing else works.

[n2zon]

We got Starlink because of its residential with portability option. They have removed that option entirely, which feels a lot like a "bait and switch" operation to us. Their capacity argument is entirely fallacious. We are not going to use any more, or less, capacity with portability than we would with a residential account and an RV account. We'd just use whatever we used for less cost and with less equipment,

I've been enthusiastic up to now but I won't be recommending Starlink to anyone any more.

[Isaac-1]

I feel the exact same way, but also am willing to admit the current generation of unit is not the most conductive for portable operation, and I am hopeful they will restore the portability feature at some point in the future when capacity is no longer and issue, people stop trying to game the system to get service in oversubscribed areas.

[RedneckExpress]

Originally Posted by ekim

RV is now $150 per month, $15 increase, because an RV might travel to a location with limited capacity. I disagree with this and intend to pause my service much more than I otherwise would have before they jacked up the price. The funny thing is for that $150 RV users are still prioritized BELOW residential users. Pay more get less. Wonderfull business strategy.

My hardware had a problem starting Jan 28 and it took until Feb 20 for them to resolve it. Having prices jacked up like this after receiving such poor service feels like a slap in the face.

I wonder if the real reason for jacking up the price for RV users is to discourage use so they don't have to ship as many replacement dishes to RV users?

I can't want for competition to come in.

Your one other low orbit competitor at this point is Amazon, I wouldn't put too much hope that they won't play the exact same games in the field.

Your other competition options are HughesNet. They have/had a mobile option, it just cost several thousand for the hardware and barely did dialup speeds.

5G is also a neat option, but if you go too far from a major metro or highway your coverage drops to none and you're on 4G or 3G, and most of the unlimited still have a very low datacap on hotspot mode (25Gb is pretty common).


Long and short is, if you want high speed internet and the ability to take it with you, its a take it in the shorts situation or a "Do without" situation.

You're about 5-10 years out or more before the playing has a possible chance of leveling and that's only if the Telecoms don't deliberately short the system to crank up the prices

I'll still recommend Starlink to anyone who lives where there isn't other realistic options.

Side note, even at $150/month, you're still less than the gold tier on non-mobile Viasat for far worse service.

[R.E.D.]

Originally Posted by RedneckExpress

Your one other low orbit competitor at this point is Amazon, I wouldn't put too much hope that they won't play the exact same games in the field.

Your other competition options are HughesNet. They have/had a mobile option, it just cost several thousand for the hardware and barely did dialup speeds.

5G is also a neat option, but if you go too far from a major metro or highway your coverage drops to none and you're on 4G or 3G, and most of the unlimited still have a very low datacap on hotspot mode (25Gb is pretty common).


Long and short is, if you want high speed internet and the ability to take it with you, its a take it in the shorts situation or a "Do without" situation.

You're about 5-10 years out or more before the playing has a possible chance of leveling and that's only if the Telecoms don't deliberately short the system to crank up the prices

I'll still recommend Starlink to anyone who lives where there isn't other realistic options.

Side note, even at $150/month, you're still less than the gold tier on non-mobile Viasat for far worse service.

Redneck, well said. It's what I was thinking plus quite frankly I still think the price is inexpensive given the advantages. Both DW and I work from our RV and without Starlink we wouldn't have the certainty for internet when, as you said, "straying" from metropolitan areas. For us that's what its all about, staying away from the crazies in densely populated areas. We go around any major population area, just not worth the potholes, road rage, traffic laden journey to go through to save a little time. Also, being and Astronautical Engineer I fully recognize the amazing achievement Starlink is and believe me, it isn't inexpensive. For what we get it still feels like a bargain.

[CWSWine]

We use cellular plans 90 plus percent of the time because it is easy and usually faster than Starlink. If you couldn't pause Starlink it would not be worth it to me. I regularly get above 200 on speed tests and at times get between 400 and 700 on my T-Mobile 5G plan. I have the grandfathered Verizon 5G plan and T-Mobile 5G plan that I regularly put between 400 and 800 gigs per month on and one month with several RVs using my T-Mobile we put 1700 gigs in one month on it.

I can think of two cell plans that you can get today that are truly unlimited and they are the FMCA AT&T plan ($65) and the Calyx T-Mobile ($44) plan both of those would cost me 109.00 a month. I believe the FMCA plan can be paused but the Calyx plan can't be pause. I think another key to success with the cell is having a router that can band lock to lock down to some of the longer distance bands like T-Mobile band 71 5G and AT&T band 41 (?)

I purchase Starlink for those 10% or less that I don't can't get a good cell signal and hopefully there are no trees.

On the equipment side, I would purchase a Peplink Balance 20X ($579.00) that has a CAT 7 built-in modem or USB to tether a hotspot/modems and accessory slot if you want to upgrade to 5G or whatever is in the future. It also will handle Starlink ethernet or WIFI WAN and do hot fall over and band smoothing. Of coarse it has band locking.

[2cyber71]

Starlink is worse than DirecTV when it started in 1995.
1995 I paid $1000 for my DirecTV dish and the initial monthly fee was $40/month, by the time I quit it was $220/month back in 2014. For almost 100 junk channels and a few good ones. We counted what channels we watched in a week, it was 6.
I was paying $220/ month to watch 6 channels.
I switched to OTA, I get 24 channels all free, I watch about 6.
Starlink will be much more expensive as it gets better. I think it will weed out the light users and keep the ones that really need it. Just like the satellite TV.
Almost no one I know has satellite TV As they they had 15 yrs ago.
Just in my circle of friends about 10% have satellite TV, the rest stream or have cable back at a lower cost.
As campgrounds learn to add good internet to for Rvers, the need for Starlink will go away.
Every campground should learn from the Buffalo Wyoming KOA.
They have blazing fast WiFi, no cable TV. I was told it was worth it to them to drop the cable TV and add blazing fast WiFi.
When we stayed there, they said “stream away” we have the planet's fastest WiFi. It was amazing.

[vyndance]

Originally Posted by n2zon

We got Starlink because of its residential with portability option. They have removed that option entirely, which feels a lot like a "bait and switch" operation to us. Their capacity argument is entirely fallacious. We are not going to use any more, or less, capacity with portability than we would with a residential account and an RV account. We'd just use whatever we used for less cost and with less equipment,

I've been enthusiastic up to now but I won't be recommending Starlink to anyone any more.

If you currently have residential with portability you are grandfathered in. Do not turn it off, you will not be able to turn it back on. Your new bill in a congested area is $145 for now.

If you are fulltime it's still the deal of the century.

[n2zon]

Originally Posted by vyndance

If you currently have residential with portability you are grandfathered in. Do not turn it off, you will not be able to turn it back on. Your new bill in a congested area is $145 for now.

If you are fulltime it's still the deal of the century.

Unfortunately, I turned it off in the fall, intending to turn it back on about a month from now.

[AZstavman]

Originally Posted by 2cyber71

Starlink is worse than DirecTV when it started in 1995.
1995 I paid $1000 for my DirecTV dish and the initial monthly fee was $40/month, by the time I quit it was $220/month back in 2014. For almost 100 junk channels and a few good ones. We counted what channels we watched in a week, it was 6.
I was paying $220/ month to watch 6 channels.
I switched to OTA, I get 24 channels all free, I watch about 6.
Starlink will be much more expensive as it gets better. I think it will weed out the light users and keep the ones that really need it. Just like the satellite TV.
Almost no one I know has satellite TV As they they had 15 yrs ago.
Just in my circle of friends about 10% have satellite TV, the rest stream or have cable back at a lower cost.
As campgrounds learn to add good internet to for Rvers, the need for Starlink will go away.
Every campground should learn from the Buffalo Wyoming KOA.
They have blazing fast WiFi, no cable TV. I was told it was worth it to them to drop the cable TV and add blazing fast WiFi.
When we stayed there, they said “stream away” we have the planet's fastest WiFi. It was amazing.

Ive had DirecTV since it was primestar 135 yrs ago.
As a football junkie there was no better way to enjoy it traveling, have portable dish, life is amazing. Currently my bill is $317 not including NFL Sunday Ticket

Now in 2023 NFL Sunday Ticket goes to YouTube, so my preferences will change dramatically in the next few months

Starlink has ben incredible for me since I got it. Never had an issue besides a few trees but still could stream TV

I don't go to campgrounds much except on my 6+ week trips to the gulf and Texas and Louisiana, then I do a bit but always use Starlink

Changes are a coming

[gsgriffin]

So today, as I prepare to head back north for the summer in a month, it appears that Starlink has only one option for me....change to "ROAM" (Previously known at Starlink for RV) plan for $150/month with a note that says I will not be allowed to go back to residential.

So we keep our current terms straight. ROAM is instead of Residential and gives priority service at home and while traveling. This also has in-motion use by default if you have the new Flat High-Performance Starlink.

This is the support note on the difference between ROAM and PORTABILITY:

"Starlink Roam provides immediate access to high-speed, low-latency internet on an as-needed basis at any destination where Starlink provides active coverage and does not require a fixed residential address. Starlink Roam provides Best Effort service – there is no priority access included in the plan. Starlink Roam can be paused at any time via your Starlink account.

Portability provides deprioritized service if the Starlink is installed away from the fixed residential address listed on the account. Portability is an add on service, that can be removed at any time. Portability is not currently supported for in motion use. "

It could be because I went from Portability to Residential last fall that my account no longer shows that even as an option. Not sure about other users. They now give me the opportunity to move to ROAM and never go back to Residential or nothing....at least I can't find Portability anywhere on my account services.

With the new Dishy only $600 and the ROAM costing $40/month more than Residential, I might buy a second account for ROAM so I can use Residential at reduced rates when home and turn on ROAM when not. We'll see how this pans out.

Just found this footnote:
"Note: Portability is not available for Residential service in the US. You may change your service address or change your service plan to Roam through your Starlink account for portable use of Starlink away from a registered service address."

Has anyone recently moved Residential to ROAM?