Review - Starlink Home Internet opens a whole new world to rural areas - Android

Starlink Home Internet: What's good

I've said many times before that I haven't had "real internet" since I was in college, which is a lot longer ago than I'd care to admit. To an extent, this issue is my own fault since I like to live in rural areas. However, it's sad that it's largely impossible to have high-speed, reliable internet unless you live in urban areas.

It doesn't matter if you have the best Wi-Fi router or an excellent Chromebook if you don't have internet service to feed them. As someone who loves technology, this has been the biggest drawback of living in the country — Starlink is here to fix that, I hope.

If you go to the Starlink website, enter your address, and happen to be in an area where the service is available, one tough pill you'll have to swallow is the cost to get started. To get onto the list for equipment to be sent out, you will have to pay $499 for the hardware itself and then another $99 for the service.

If your address doesn't qualify for service yet, but it's close, you'll pay $99 to let Starlink know that you are serious.

When you place your order for the equipment, there are options to pay for additional hardware like a masonry routing kit and a pipe adapter. I didn't need anything extra with my order, so I forked over the $598, and after about a month's wait, I had my Starlink shipment on at my door. Aside from the hardware, the other part of the Starlink system that's needed is the companion app.

The companion app will let you view your account and see statistics of the service — more on that later — but it also has an AR tool to help you check for obstructions. When deciding where to place your dish, or as SpaceX refers to it — Dishy McFlatface — you need to make sure that it has a clear view of the sky. When powered on, the dish will move around as it finds and follows satellites above.

In the big grey box are the dish, router, power supply, cables, and a tripod. In terms of instructions for setup, there really aren't any. This isn't because Starlink is letting you just fend for yourself and figure it out; it's because, for the most part, the setup is mostly done. Depending on where you plan to install the dish and locate your router in your home, you may not have much work to do.

Starlink has the cables already plugged into the router and power supply, and all that's left is to put the dish onto the tripod. You will likely have to drill a hole into the side of your home to run the 100-foot cable from the dish to the router, but again, this will depend on how you want to set it all up.

I already had a roof-mounted tripod on my home, so I could use that to ensure my dish was clear of any obstructions. I also used the pre-existing hole from previous internet attempts to run the cables through for my Starlink. After running the cables and plugging everything back together, I powered the system up and watched my dish move around to position itself.

After locating the satellites flying around in space to best communicate with, I was ready to go after the app processed a system update. There is a button to run a speed test from the app that links out to Fast.com, so of course, I did. My first test netted me download speeds over 100Mbs and an upload rate of around 25Mb, all with a ping rate of under 50ms — I almost cried — I was so happy.

Part of why Starlink can produce speeds like this via satellites is two-fold — the number of satellites and where they are placed in space. Traditional satellite internet providers like HughesNet only have about 20 satellites in space orbiting at around 22,000 miles above the Earth. I paid nearly $180 a month for HughesNet when I had it for the biggest package option available — 50GB of anytime data and 50GB of data to be used from 3 AM and 6 AM. This all at a blazing speed of about 12Mbs and a ping rate over 180ms.

On the other hand, Starlink has its satellites at around 340 miles above Earth and, as of today, is operating over 1,400 satellites. This current satellite network is producing speeds eclipsing anything HughesNet can imagine, no data cap — though that may change, and all for $99 a month.

Screenshots from unofficial Starlink satellite tracking app showing density change a month apart

The number of satellites means that Starlink will have a higher customer capacity and fewer service outages due to no satellite overhead. The orbiting distance is the main contributor to the low latency. Now, when I say low latency, this is compared to traditional satellite internet companies as well as many of the other rural broadband options. Once Starlink is out of beta, the company plans to provide consistent speeds between 50 and 150Mbs and latency around 20 to 40ms.

Starlink will never beat out what fiber internet can provide, but it's not meant to.

Starlink's included router looks like it was modeled after the Cybertruck with its minimalist, angular design. You'll only find two ports on the back of the router — the power over ethernet and aux. That's really about it for the router. There's no settings page for it to use any advanced options like port forwarding, static IP, or other things like that. That may come in the future, but as of now, it's all plug and play.

After testing the service using the included router, I plugged my Nest Wifi into the aux port. Initially, I had some issues with this setup, but my network was working great after letting everything rest overnight.

Setting up your network this way has a few drawbacks from a technical standpoint that won't be a deal-breaker for most people but can cause connectivity issues with some devices. One of the problems will be that if you are connected to your personal network rather than the Starlink router, you won't be able to view any of the network info provided by the Starlink app.

In the end, I have decided to disregard the Starlink router entirely and just plug directly into my Nest Wifi router from the power supply. This solved many of my connectivity issues and let me log in to the Starlink app to see network statistics. It is worth noting that you will want to power up the Starlink router from time to time so that it can check for any necessary updates.

In the nearly two months of using the service, my speeds and latency have continued to improve as SpaceX launches more satellites into orbit. Since I have started my service with Starlink, there have been five launches containing 60 satellites each. I have noticed a steady overall improvement in my service thanks to these launches. However, there are also some downsides that I'll get into later.

This service has been such a win for rural areas that are grossly underserved by reliable high-speed internet. I personally know of five different families in my area of rural Kansas that have installed Starlink in their homes. For the most part, all of the experiences have mirrored my own — minimal downtime and speeds consistently staying in the 70 - 100Mbs down and 10 - 25MBs up with ping rates in the 30 - 60ms.

The dish generates enough of its own heat through its normal operations that it melts snow and ice to keep the unit operating as it should.

Something that has been surprising is how well the service handles bad weather. This can also be attributed to the number of satellites and the orbiting distance. Living in Kansas, I get plenty of opportunities to do weather tests, and in the time I've had Starlink — it's seen it all. From 50mph winds, to heavy rain, to thunderstorms, and even a few inches of snow, "Dishy" has done great.

As this is a beta service, it is expected to have some downtime periodically. The Starlink app shows beneficial data as to the status of the network. There is a live status line showing the Ping Success over 12 hours. You'll see dips in the connection when there's an interruption with a key and colors indicating the reason. That could be no satellites in view, obstructions, Beta Downtime, or "other", all with a length of time for that particular cause.

The app will also show you statistics for overall latency, download and upload usage, SNR, which is the strength of the signal to the current satellite, and latency to specific popular websites. You can find a support tab with some FAQs to help with some issues, but you can also contact Starlink with questions. I reached out with a question and had an answer back in less than 12 hours.