Anyone in the US still on the Starlink wait list?

[robby]

You can see starlink in realtime from anywhere on the earth if you put in your coordinates at www.heavens-above.com
It will also give predictions of other satellites along with the ISS plus many other things above our heads.
This is quite impressive: Thank you Elon, thank you.

Starlink - dynamic 3D orbit display

Satellite predictions and other astronomical data customised for your location.

www.heavens-above.com

This one IMHO is a lot better to use.
https://starlink.sx/

 

[RussNM]

Not phone or tablet friendly. Caused a system crash! WTH? And it said it was a 'simulation'. Heavens above is REAL TIME of whats goin overhead at YOUR coordinates. Sorry Robby two thumbs down bro!

This one IMHO is a lot better to use.
https://starlink.sx/

 

[stienman]

I was unaware of the two t-tier cost system. I was informed of one of the previous price increases. So much for being (and paying a deposit) to be on a pre-order wait list and having multiple price increases before even getting service.

Yes, they didn't send an email for that change, and since they never promised us a certain service cost when we pre-ordered then there's no legal requirement for them to do so. They did quote the cost of the dish and initial costs, so they had to send an email for that, which they did, and offered a refund for cancellations as well as a slight discount compared to new signups after this price change.

 

[Texas-Mark]

and since they never promised us a certain service cost when we pre-ordered

Well, one can debate the term "promise" when one signs up with a specific price laid out in the pre-order agreement. But like everything else these days. there is always the "subject to change at our whim" clause everyone uses always tucked in the fine print. Sort of like the Amazon 2-day "guarantee" that has gone by the wayside for the most part.

 

[G00SE]

So I don’t know if my info will be of any help, but I had starlink RV and I had a separate email with a residential waitlist for 18 months.
About 2-3 months ago starlink was making some changes to the plans offered and I noticed at that time that the “waitlist” color for my address was gone and the map showed currently available.
My email on the waitlist never got notified
I then saw the app updated and I was able to relatively easily convert my rv to residential and keep my existing equipment.
The downside, is I lost portability. At the same time a change was made to remove portability from residential.
So now I have more consistent download speed and even latency, but I can’t take the dish when I camp anymore.

If your only option truly is best effort, then I’d be tempted to go that route (I used it for a year for a family of 4) and then simply convert your account once the spot opens

 

[Texas-Mark]

I noticed at that time that the “waitlist” color for my address was gone and the map showed currently available.

I just looked and the map still says "expanding in 2023" Of course it also said it would be available last year too, so not holding my breath.

If your only option truly is best effort, then I’d be tempted to go that route (I used it for a year for a family of 4) and then simply convert your account once the spot opens

I probably "should" just cancel it. The WISP I have is ok and they did put up a cell tower nearby (needed a landline up until about a year ago). But I will probably just wait it out and see what happens. I mainly just wanted to see what the current process was for those who have been waiting for years.

 

[schmism]

I'm in central IL and I put my $100 down like 2? years ago? (whenever they said they would start takeing pre-orders) Couple of months ago I finally got the go-ahead to place my order for hardware. I let it pass and they claim to have sent my $100 back.

Ive since had fiber put in. I would have liked to have test drove Starlink for a bit but im locked in to the fiber for several years now. Well see how it looks after my contract is up.

 

[G00SE]

I just looked and the map still says "expanding in 2023" Of course it also said it would be available last year too, so not holding my breath.


I probably "should" just cancel it. The WISP I have is ok and they did put up a cell tower nearby (needed a landline up until about a year ago). But I will probably just wait it out and see what happens. I mainly just wanted to see what the current process was for those who have been waiting for years.

Their website and customer service leaves much to be desired. I grew very frustrated in my process as well.
Waiting for 18 months and never hearing about it being waitlist free until after my neighbor got his

 

[jberger]

If you can live with the best effort plans, you can have the equipment in less than 2 weeks.
If you want the dedicated residential service, then you sign up and wait for openings in the cell that services your home address. They are launching new sats about every 3 days so the waitlist backlog has really decreased this year, but that doesn't mean you won't wait given your address.
I ordered one for our RV and had it delivered in 7 days. Works extremely well, and setup is a snap.

 

[Texas-Mark]

If you want the dedicated residential service, then you sign up and wait for openings in the cell that services your home address.

That is what I did.... two years ago. Not going to pay full price for "best effort".

What cheeses me off the most is that I probably would have already had it by now if they had not opened it up to RVers. As soon as they did that, the ETA moved way out. Now they don't even list an ETA anymore (on my pre-order page). I just feel like they screwed over the early adopters (that put down deposits) to make a quick buck with degraded service.

As I noted earlier, I live pretty rural, but fiber is coming (probably in the next two years) and cell towers are sprouting everywhere. Starlink may have been a good concept, and may still be good for some people, but I think it will eventually become mostly obsolete, possibly sooner than many think. I never thought satellite TV would go away for me and others out here (after having it for 22 years), but even with my less than stellar WISP, I can stream multiple shows at the same time, have the same channel lineup I had with sat, for half the price I was paying. If Starlink can't remain competitive with the alternatives, they won't be around long. There are only so many "rural" people and RVers. Not sure how those will be enough to pay for the 30K sats they still want to put up without raising the price even more.

 

[Texas-Mark]

Well, today I finally received my "order in the next 7 days or you go back to the bottom of the wait list" e-mail. I went ahead and ordered it. Guess we shall see. Supposed to ship around the 15th.

 

[Madcodger]

Congrats! FWIW, we've had ours for over two years now (the original dish - yours will be better) and it's been a real game changer. My wife and I both work from home in rural Maine, and Starlink makes that possible. Has been very reliable.

 

[Nan_wpg]

So I don’t know if my info will be of any help, but I had starlink RV and I had a separate email with a residential waitlist for 18 months.
About 2-3 months ago starlink was making some changes to the plans offered and I noticed at that time that the “waitlist” color for my address was gone and the map showed currently available.
My email on the waitlist never got notified
I then saw the app updated and I was able to relatively easily convert my rv to residential and keep my existing equipment.
The downside, is I lost portability. At the same time a change was made to remove portability from residential.
So now I have more consistent download speed and even latency, but I can’t take the dish when I camp anymore.

If your only option truly is best effort, then I’d be tempted to go that route (I used it for a year for a family of 4) and then simply convert your account once the spot opens

RV changed to “roam”, and is now “mobile”. Residential is now “standard”.

did you notice any improvement going from mobile to standard?

we have mobile at our cabin (we’re only there for 5 months) because we pause service. even with the higher monthly fee it’s cheaper.

our cabin neighbor has “standard” (roam wasnt a thing when they signed up)

they are considering switching to mobile as they are also using for 5 months out of the year.

they asked us if we noticed a difference (they thought we had standard service) switching to mobile.

to be honest our mobile service has been excellent. We can email, surf, stream Netflix/YouTube, and cellular over wifi. No problems at all. If our service is de priorized, or best effort we haven’t noticed.

 

[G00SE]

RV changed to “roam”, and is now “mobile”. Residential is now “standard”.

did you notice any improvement going from mobile to standard?

we have mobile at our cabin (we’re only there for 5 months) because we pause service. even with the higher monthly fee it’s cheaper.

our cabin neighbor has “standard” (roam wasnt a thing when they signed up)

they are considering switching to mobile as they are also using for 5 months out of the year.

they asked us if we noticed a difference (they thought we had standard service) switching to mobile.

to be honest our mobile service has been excellent. We can email, surf, stream Netflix/YouTube, and cellular over wifi. No problems at all. If our service is de priorized, or best effort we haven’t noticed.

For day to day streaming and phone usage, no difference
For my son when he’s playing video games. All I can say is it seems more “stable”
The latency by statistic hasn’t really changed. We still average around 75 ping. But it is more consistent
The ONLY other change I’ve noticed is on weekends when the out of towners invade, I maintain 80-120 download speed. On rv/roam/mobile it would throttle down to 20 during peak usage
My uncle is down the road and has rv still and loves it
I’d still be on rv if the gaming issue never happened.

 

[Nan_wpg]

For day to day streaming and phone usage, no difference
For my son when he’s playing video games. All I can say is it seems more “stable”
The latency by statistic hasn’t really changed. We still average around 75 ping. But it is more consistent
The ONLY other change I’ve noticed is on weekends when the out of towners invade, I maintain 80-120 download speed. On rv/roam/mobile it would throttle down to 20 during peak usage
My uncle is down the road and has rv still and loves it
I’d still be on rv if the gaming issue never happened.

For perspective, what numbers are we talking when “out of towners” invade?

I had considered this when choosing mobile service, but there are 60 cabins maximum in a 12km radius. Even if everyone signed up for service in our area starlink would not have to throttle.

*this was based on a quick google search for spotbeams, starlink capacity, etc. I’m not anywhere close to being an expert on how starlink broadcasts, or its capacities.

most of the issues of deprioritize seemed to be in areas of “lots of people”

 

[G00SE]

For perspective, what numbers are we talking when “out of towners” invade?

I had considered this when choosing mobile service, but there are 60 cabins maximum in a 12km radius. Even if everyone signed up for service in our area starlink would not have to throttle.

*this was based on a quick google search for spotbeams, starlink capacity, etc. I’m not anywhere close to being an expert on how starlink broadcasts, or its capacities.

most of the issues of deprioritize seemed to be in areas of “lots of people”

My area has known poor internet providers. It’s a “micropolitan” area of about 100k people. If I had to guess I’d say our normal starlink density is higher than most.
Out of Towners? Anywhere from 5k to 25k additional people.
There is a single fiber line routed to our town. On weekends such as Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day it’s not uncommon for Verizon to go down completely. It is a significant addition of data volume
Even on roam our starlink still worked beautifully. It was just at those times that gaming was nearly impossible
Watching a movie? No hiccup

 

[Tulex]

As far as visibility of the satellites, my understanding is that we are only likely to see the older ones. Supposedly there was so much uproar from the star gazing community about light pollution that they had to go to less reflective materials.

 

[Nan_wpg]

My area has known poor internet providers. It’s a “micropolitan” area of about 100k people. If I had to guess I’d say our normal starlink density is higher than most.
Out of Towners? Anywhere from 5k to 25k additional people.
There is a single fiber line routed to our town. On weekends such as Memorial Day, 4th of July, and Labor Day it’s not uncommon for Verizon to go down completely. It is a significant addition of data volume
Even on roam our starlink still worked beautifully. It was just at those times that gaming was nearly impossible
Watching a movie? No hiccup

We used to use a cell booster for lte internet. At best it was very spotty. Peak times? Forget it. Completely useless.

our mobile starlink has been a god send. Now I’m curious. I’m going to bring our box to our neighbor (with residential) and see if there is any noticeably difference

 

[Texas-Mark]

Well, after FedEx lost my package for a few days, I finally got it today. So far am a bit underwhelmed. I have no obstructions (per the app's location finder and my eyes), and yet it keeps disconnecting and speeds are all over the map (15Mbps to once in a while 120Mbps). It says it's still gathering obstruction data, so I guess I will wait for that to complete, but I thought once they said I could get "regular service", that it would be more constant, and certainly faster than 15Mbps. As is, it is acting like that "best effort" crap.

 

[Aridom82]

Well, after FedEx lost my package for a few days, I finally got it today. So far am a bit underwhelmed. I have no obstructions (per the app's location finder and my eyes), and yet it keeps disconnecting and speeds are all over the map (15Mbps to once in a while 120Mbps). It says it's still gathering obstruction data, so I guess I will wait for that to complete, but I thought once they said I could get "regular service", that it would be more constant, and certainly faster than 15Mbps. As is, it is acting like that "best effort" crap.

Wow is incredible that in the Usa you have to wait years and in Italy i had to wait two months or so. I also had frequent interruptions and irregular speeds at the beginning, but it gets better and better with time. Right now mine works flawlessly.