Star link

[Tompierce32]

BT is being a pain and keep making excuses to install our new fibre.

Am wondering if anybody has used Starlink to support a few class rooms.

[dhicks]

Am wondering if anybody has used Starlink to support a few class rooms.

 

I've thought about it as a backup connection - there was a thread a few days ago:

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/internet-related-filtering-firewall/230479-failover-line-cost.html

 

I've also thought about a 5G connection - I've used 5G broadband at home for several years with no problem, although availability is going to depend on where in the country you are. I've just had an advert through for the CAT Q10:

 

https://www.ballicom.co.uk/cat-cq10-sab-ron-nn-.p1552332.html

 

Might be a good option for the hardware to actually do the 5G connection, depending on what exactly you rekon the use is going to be and how many devices are going to need to connect.

[SchoolsBroadband]

Starlink is great. Works fine for some classrooms. We normally see around 250Mbps download and 30Mbps upload.

 

Dave

[Tompierce32]

Thanks guys going get a quote from Star link and look into 5g hopefully our area is covered. Just need to figure a cable route from outside to in.

[FN-GM]

I know someone who has it. The upload speed is quite poor and the latency is quite high. I guess it’s better than ADSL though.

[Norphy]

I know someone who has it. The upload speed is quite poor and the latency is quite high. I guess it’s better than ADSL though.

 

It’s all relative. A traditional satellite service has latency of 700ms at a minimum. I had the misfortune of using a satellite provider when I moved up to Scotland, I never saw latency less than 800ms and it wasn’t unusual to see 1.5s latency. Plus speeds fell off a cliff in the evenings. The 40ms Starlink claim is nothing, not far off cellular broadband.

[DalekSec]

Only down side, giving money to Elon Musk

[FN-GM]

It’s all relative. A traditional satellite service has latency of 700ms at a minimum. I had the misfortune of using a satellite provider when I moved up to Scotland, I never saw latency less than 800ms and it wasn’t unusual to see 1.5s latency. Plus speeds fell off a cliff in the evenings. The 40ms Starlink claim is nothing, not far off cellular broadband.

 

Unfortunately, It’s more than 40ms. 5G is around 35ms (from what I have seen).

[Norphy]

Unfortunately, It’s more than 40ms. 5G is around 35ms (from what I have seen).

 

That's not entirely unsurprising, but I'm willing to bet that it's still not 800-1500ms like it would be for a normal satellite connection.

 

I think it's fair to say, though, that Starlink's market isn't someone who can already get DSL/Cable/FTTP or even cellular. Someone who gets Starlink is most likely going to be someone who can't get any of those, or at least can't get them reliably.

 

Boring anecdote time: Until the Scottish government laid fibre where I live, Starlink would have been my best bet for a reasonably high bandwidth and relatively low latency connection. We're about 7 miles from the closest BT cabinet so FTTC wasn't viable as we're too far away for VDSL. ADSL was just about possible, but we only got an unreliable 1.5mbps connection from that. We're right on the edge of two of the major mobile network's coverage areas and not on the other twos at all so while we could get cellular broadband with an antenna the size of a toilet seat, it wasn't something we could use long term because it was flaky from being right on the edge. As already mentioned, there was a satellite connection here as well. This was installed by the previous tenant. The amount of bandwidth it provided was reasonable, but the latency was the aforementioned 800-1500ms. Can you imagine using VOIP on that, or even remote desktop? I don't need to, because I know what it's like and it ain't nice. Starlink would have been what I'm using right now, had fibre not been laid.

Edited November 30, 2022 by Norphy

[dhicks]

Unfortunately, It’s more than 40ms. 5G is around 35ms (from what I have seen).

 

A very quick test now (just Googled "internet speed test" and ran the built-in tool that pops up) suggests my home 5G connection is currently doing 180Mbps download and 20Mbps upload with 2ms latency. The school's fibre link is currently doing 770Mbps dwonload and 640Mbps upload with, again, 2ms latency. I'm surpirsed the 5G connection has such similar latency, I'd have thought it would be more. It's possible we are in a particularly good spot for 5G (we've been using 5G home internet since it was Relish, before it got taken over by Three), results may vary in other parts of the country / world.

[FN-GM]

A very quick test now (just Googled "internet speed test" and ran the built-in tool that pops up) suggests my home 5G connection is currently doing 180Mbps download and 20Mbps upload with 2ms latency. The school's fibre link is currently doing 770Mbps dwonload and 640Mbps upload with, again, 2ms latency. I'm surpirsed the 5G connection has such similar latency, I'd have thought it would be more. It's possible we are in a particularly good spot for 5G (we've been using 5G home internet since it was Relish, before it got taken over by Three), results may vary in other parts of the country / world.

 

Im impressed! Although the upload : download ratio isn't great. Not uncommon across all the different technology.

[PaddyNewman]

I think it's fair to say, though, that Starlink's market isn't someone who can already get DSL/Cable/FTTP or even cellular. Someone who gets Starlink is most likely going to be someone who can't get any of those, or at least can't get them reliably.

 

Indeed, I moved away from London and surrounding areas to Lincolnshire, the internet a few miles down the road is fibre, but it stops dead the second the town ends and the country road begins, so we have on a good day 17Mbps and about 1Mbps upload over copper. 4G, pah maybe H+ and 1 bar at that!

 

Starlink for me, has been a godsend. Looking at my usage, right now I am 28ms, loaded 133ms and my currently download is 235Mbps, actually using 22Mbps (house/IoT runs on it) and aside from last nights global outage, its never been down for more than 5 seconds and they are maybe once a week. I game on it, use VoIP, do everything you would typically do.

 

My view is that for a school, they are a fantastic way to keep you afloat should anything go wrong, but for the monthly cost/fact its going to sit there 99% of the time idle... you'd be better off getting a leased line, backup FTTC, diverse route line in. Only thing I have really noticed that is bad with Starlinks is its connections. Most firewall/home router appliances multithread internet connections. The Starlink 'may' do that, but from what I have experienced, it doesn't. Even if I throttle my game updates (say I can reliably get 200Mbps and I force 150Mbps) the rest of the house is suffering, seriously struggling and getting few hundred, even 1.x seconds of latency. It is very noticeable and the reason I run work and home separately, can't have my wife downloading updates for her phone and it kill my VPN, which it does if I load both machines and download something on my personal pc.

 

I value them as a short term solution for school/business but for rural folk, they are a game changer. Obviously just my view on it having lived with it for 6 months!

[Tompierce32]

Just an update, I eventually went with a 5g three sim card. Using a Comms 356 sim card router. Everybody is pleased with the results.

[LGfL_BEN]

I think it is a game changer, a school in the middle of nowhere looking at ££££'s in installations to run a line to the premises, now able to have great quality services beamed directly from space!