I got Starlink during the Public beta, a little over a year ago.
I set up Dishy on my roof, I set up some advanced monitoring, and tested it as a backup Internet
connection, but ultimately passed it along to my cousin, who's using it on her farm.
-I'm skeptical. Very skeptical.
-I've burned her like twice on this.
-This might--this might just be the next thing that we start our cousin family feud about.
When I first got Starlink, I was getting speeds above a hundred megabits down
and fifteen or so up.
It was pretty consistent, too.
But now?
My cousin's consistently getting lower speeds, about half what I got last year.
It's not bad at all compared to her old DSL.
That had upload speeds in the kilobits and cost about the same as Starlink.
But it is less.
And that seems to be a universal issue for Starlink's early adopters, at least in the
US.
Pretty much across the board, people have experienced slower speeds as the satellites
and ground stations get more saturated.
But that's to be expected.
I mean they have 500,000 customers now, and SpaceX is currently making 20,000 new terminals
per week.
The day after I posted my last Starlink video, SpaceX announced official roaming support—users
could officially move their Starlink Terminal to locations away from their service address.
And just this month, the FCC approved dishes in motion.
The privilege of roaming comes with a fee—$25 a month.
But this created a bit of a loophole for people who live in places where Starlink isn't currently
available, but has coverage.
People are buying Starlink at one address, turning on roaming, then using it at a different
address in a cell that's already full.
And what problem does that create?
Oversubscription.
Capacity is SpaceX's number one challenge, and it'll still be a challenge with tens of
thousands of satellites up in the air.
Because despite laser links, more ground stations, and better software, physics just can't be
beat—at least not in any short term time-scale.
There are tons of reports of Starlink users who aren't roaming, but they're getting lower
speeds and higher latency.
And sure, SpaceX has some toggles to deprioritize traffic for roaming users, but all networking
equipment has capacity limits.
Once you reach a certain number of connected devices, performance drops off for everyone.
Elon Musk even acknowledged the problem: He said "The Bay Area is already saturated with
user terminals" and there would be a "giant improvement with V2 sats"—we'll get to V2
sats later.
My best guess is in really popular areas, or travel destinations where lots of RV users
congregate, Starlink performance might be a lot less than the hundred-plus megabits
I was originally getting—at least for now.
Even with slower speeds, for many customers, it's such an improvement over what they had
before, they don't care.
Heck, this Reddit user is perfectly happy getting 30 megabits.
And for every rant over on Reddit, there are probably a dozen more happy customers like
this one from Western Colorado, who don't see performance issues at all.
Outside speeds, I'm a little disappointed with a couple other things.
People who preordered years ago are often still waiting, while people who buy with roaming
at a different address can cut in line.
Sadly, outside of disabling roaming, there's not a whole lot Starlink can do here.
The saying is cheaters never prosper... but in the case of getting Starlink sooner, they
do.
Also, remember how the new Starlink router doesn't have Ethernet built-in, so you have
to buy a separate accessory just to get a LAN port?
I didn't notice at first, but it's also missing a visible status light!
Unless you pick the thing up, the only thing you'll see on it is a picture of the Earth
to Mars transfer orbit.
To even see if it has power, you have to pick the thing up and look at the status LED on
the bottom!
Status LEDs are like step 1 in diagnosing any problem.
Heck, those posts on Reddit are proof you shouldn't take away literally the only indication
if something is working or not.
I mean, at least it's not a blinding blue LED like the one on my network switch, but
still.
Wow.
I mean, even though the old router fell over if you looked at it wrong, at least it had
a status LED.
And a network jack!
While we're on the topic: some users are building their own PoE boards for the router.
Kudos to them, but if Starlink used more standard connections, you wouldn't have to do that at
all.
Another fun 'feature' I was reading about recently is Starlink's inability to run local
firmware updates.
So like, if you stow your dish too long, there's a chance it'll never connect again.
And Starlink support will tell you there's nothing you can do about it!
Like...
there's a wired router.
Surely Starlink could build in a local firmware update mechanism, right?
Oh, wait, they took away the LAN jack, so you'd probably have to buy another dongle
just to do that...
But seriously!
Firmware updates are like electronics design 101.
It's just ridiculous that the answer to someone storing their dish for too long is "Throw
it away!", especially when the hardware costs thousands of bucks to make!
But that's all assuming you get a response from Starlink support in the first place!
Now, let me be clear: every support rep I've worked with has been awesome, but there are
just ... not enough of them.
Users have reported delays up to a month before they get a response!
That's just not acceptable.
He'll never see this, but Elon, man.
Seriously.
Spend a little less time choreographing dancing robots, and focus on your users.
They still love Starlink, but it's like you're trying to make them hate it!
This next thing, I can't verify 100%, but it looks like some users are getting refurbished
or used Starlink terminals.
Now, first, let me be frank: it would be good for SpaceX to sell refurbished gear.
That's less e-waste, it's good for users since existing gear can be reused... but if you're
gonna do it, you have to tell the customer.
Heck, a lotta customers would probably be perfectly fine getting a used terminal instead of a
brand new one.
But if it's refurbished, you just gotta be upfront about it.
Starlink also launched Starlink for Business recently.
You pay about five times as much for a better dish and about double the performance.
But I can't really judge the business plan yet.
As far as I've seen, this video from tabGeeks is one of the first installs with the actual
square dish, and that video didn't really have any performance data, so I'm waiting
to see how Starlink Business actually pans out.
And how about those fabled Gen 2 satellites, that are supposed to solve many of the performance
problems with Starlink?
Well, they're about five times heavier than the original sats.
Because of that, they can't be launched on a Falcon 9.
SpaceX is betting Starlink's future on a Gen 2 satellite that hasn't been tested in orbit,
and it requires a rocket—the Starship—that hasn't even launched yet.
I do think Starship will launch—but there are definite concerns over the Gen 2 satellites.
Like SpaceX's original goal was to launch tens of thousands of V1 sats.
People rightly worried about short-term effects of a satellite collision or deorbits.
I think some of those concerns were overblown, but that was with a five-hundred-pound satellite.
What happens if a few of these 1.2-ton satellites break up?
The orbit will decay, but can SpaceX guarantee it'll still burn up before it hits the ground?
A lotta Starlink's future rides on the combined success of both Starship and the V2 satellite.
A lot has to go right to get both of those in orbit quickly.
Otherwise, Starlink's going to suffer from performance problems all the time, not just
during 'rush-hours'.
Starlink is NOT in beta anymore.
Even if it feels like it for many customers.
SpaceX doesn't have an excuse, they have to figure out how to provide a decent level of
service for existing customers AND help the thousands of people waiting in the preorder
queue.
And Musk fans need to realize that just because Starlink is better than the DSL or dial-up
rural customers had before, that doesn't give SpaceX any right to slack off on customer
service, or provide worse latency and bandwidth than they originally promised.
But in the end, like I said before—and I'm sure some people already went to the comments
to lambast me before hearing this: I want Starlink to succeed.
If nothing else, I want it to spur competition again, so our Internet infrastructure can
improve in the US and around the world.
Even for people who are far from cities.
After the last three Starlink videos I posted, the next day there was some major announcement
from SpaceX...
so maybe I'll make it four for four.
Hey, it's me in the edit here.
And what do you know, Starlink DID have a major announcement the day after I recorded
that script.
They just announced Starlink Maritime, a service that costs ten thousand bucks upfront, and
five thousand bucks a month.
They'll send two terminals for sea vessels, with download speeds at around 350 megabits,
and uploads capped at 40.
This isn't for your average houseboat, it's meant for people who have 'marine vessels'
and need high-speed on the high seas.
The best thing is, if they can figure out laser links so they can get Starlink beyond just the coastlines,
landlubbers probably won't affect speeds way out in the ocean.
At least as long as you don't get waves crashing over your dish!
Until next time, I'm Jeff Geerling.