Starlink

jeepinmatt said:
They will not offer it at my address. In the house, I’m seeing one to two bars out of four, and outside anywhere from 2 to 4 bars with just a standard iPhone antenna, which I’m sure would be good enough with the proper antenna. But Verizon does not give the option for my address, nor my parents about a mile down the road, nor any of my neighbors. I did some Reddit research, and that either means the strength is not good enough,OR they already have too many people signed up for it given the availability of towers.
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Just checked and my next door neighbor doesn't qualify now so I think its saturation problems on Verizon tower or network.
 
Scott86MJ said:
Just checked and my next door neighbor doesn't qualify now so I think its saturation problems on Verizon tower or network.
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Yup, the carriers will only take so many customers on each of the towers, to try and limit over-saturation.

VZ & Tmobile arent available here. Starlink is, and have some local friends that like it. I have Spectrum now, it is as fast as we need, for alot cheaper than Starlink, but it goes down almost every afternoon, esp in the summer time.

On a similar topic. I am looking for a hotspot to use a handful of times per year. Data usage isnt high, just need to create a network, that is connected to the internet. I have seen the VZ/Tmobile "backup" plans, but prefer something that I can just pay for when I need it, vs a monthly charge.
 
Spectrum at our current house in Creedmoor with the fastest package they offer for our area. The standard whatever they set us on when we moved in was too slow when we both started working from home. Used the starlink app to test a bunch of options there but tree canopy is too thick off the back of the house so we would have a lot of dead spots. Spectrum has been fine, it goes down every now and then in big storms, but has been relatively reliable.

On the new house, despite having a cell tower on the property next door, service sucked for hotspot/5g. DullSpeed was the only option hardlined. Starlink was the choice. It has been flawless and the fastest we have ever had in that area of the county. I did learn on the install of it on my MIL's house that clear view of the sky is pretty damn important. I'll be moving hers to the other side of the house and up higher on a gable end. It will allow for better alignment and visibility than where it is at now. They just finished marking and surveying for fiber along the main drag where the main farm/shop is. That will be an option hopefully by the time we build our permanent home over there.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
On a similar topic. I am looking for a hotspot to use a handful of times per year. Data usage isnt high, just need to create a network, that is connected to the internet. I have seen the VZ/Tmobile "backup" plans, but prefer something that I can just pay for when I need it, vs a monthly charge.
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shawn said:
You can always use your phone.
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this is what i do. Just create a hotspot. Its a standard feature in Android and IOS. it isn't as fast as a dedicated hotspot but good enough. If you have a data limit, most carriers have an option to just pay more for 1 billing cycle.
 
Ordered a T-Mobile Home Internet thingamajig today. Will advise. Current performance with DSL (this must be a good night, it’s usually closer to 15 down)
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Anyone know of a 5g based deal that is particularly good for nonprofits? We need something for our robotics program.
Starlink treats them like any other business and way out of scope for our budget.
If it matters the usage is only in the evenings for a few ours, and varies wildly across the year wit ha few moths that are heavy then a few Gb/month for like 7 months.

I'm thinking that Calyx Institute deal that @kaiser715 posted may be the ticket
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
Yup, the carriers will only take so many customers on each of the towers, to try and limit over-saturation.

VZ & Tmobile arent available here. Starlink is, and have some local friends that like it. I have Spectrum now, it is as fast as we need, for alot cheaper than Starlink, but it goes down almost every afternoon, esp in the summer time.

On a similar topic. I am looking for a hotspot to use a handful of times per year. Data usage isnt high, just need to create a network, that is connected to the internet. I have seen the VZ/Tmobile "backup" plans, but prefer something that I can just pay for when I need it, vs a monthly charge.
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My visible plan includes free hot spot for things like you are saying.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Ordered a T-Mobile Home Internet thingamajig today. Will advise. Current performance with DSL (this must be a good night, it’s usually closer to 15 down)
View attachment 442760
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We used a TMO thingamabob for a week during Helene outage.
We were able to send drawing files and proposals fine. It wasnt fiber fast but good enough
 
Andy J. said:
FWIW, T-mobile is a MVNO that operates on Verizon’s network. I think Verizon has their own subsidiary MVNO now (like AT&T has had for years with Cricket). If your Verizon service is only 1-2 bars or is slow in your area, I would imagine the T-mobile service could be worse.
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Im not saying your wrong, but I (tmo) consistently have good service where several others (V) have nothing.


Edit: others beat me to the punch.
 
shawn said:
You can always use your phone.
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RatLabGuy said:
this is what i do. Just create a hotspot. Its a standard feature in Android and IOS. it isn't as fast as a dedicated hotspot but good enough. If you have a data limit, most carriers have an option to just pay more for 1 billing cycle.
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I use my phone often for hot spots. Challenge here is, I am wanting to create a WAP to run a few devices on, including a POS system, but I will not be there, or will need to use my phone in other locations. The whole family will be there, so my current plan is to hotspot my sons phone for the network, but not sure how much data will be used. Ideally would like some dedicated. Will likely research prepaid hotspot devices.
 
awheelterd said:
How is it setup? Are there outdoor and indoor parts? Can you connect it to a mesh system?
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The one we have at the office is just a box you plug in the wall.
Then it creates a wifi network AND has an RJ45 jack on the back that you can plug into your router.

We run a server in the office that has a built in router and has dual input feeds.
 
awheelterd said:
How is it setup? Are there outdoor and indoor parts? Can you connect it to a mesh system?
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I plug it into the wall for power, and then download their stupid app to set it up and we're off to the races. It is its on wifi access point (generates it's own wifi network that you can connect to) and it has a few ethernet (RJ45) ports on the back, so you can connect it to another switch or repeater, and then you can do whatever you want from there. If your mesh system is feeding off of an ethernet cable from your existing router, then it should pretty much be as simple as just plugging it in to the T-mobile box.
 
jeepinmatt said:
I plug it into the wall for power, and then download their stupid app to set it up and we're off to the races. It is its on wifi access point (generates it's own wifi network that you can connect to) and it has a few ethernet (RJ45) ports on the back, so you can connect it to another switch or repeater, and then you can do whatever you want from there. If your mesh system is feeding off of an ethernet cable from your existing router, then it should pretty much be as simple as just plugging it in to the T-mobile box.
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Cool. I have an att unit in the office I haven't opened yet that our salesman dropped off for us to try. Need to grab it on the way home today.
 
jeepinmatt said:
Basically. Router and AP. But when you go from 1up/25down to 40up/400down for the same price per month and nobody even digs a trench in your front yard, it’s a magic wonderbox. We will see how it fares once we get some stormy weather. Tower is about 1.6 miles away.
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I’ve had good luck with mine. When close enough to a tower to get at least three bars streaming works great. Sometimes see some lag on computer apps like Google Maps but otherwise is effectively as fast as my 2G fiber at the house. Not literally as it’s just me but I just didn’t need that bandwidth.
 
StretchASU said:
On the new house, despite having a cell tower on the property next door, service sucked for hotspot/5g. DullSpeed was the only option hardlined. Starlink was the choice.
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Same county, same issues... 3.5 years ago ditched CenturyStink/Dullspeed DSL (outages last for *weeks*) for Starlink. Has been flawless (except for the 2 annual outages) since... consistently supports 2 WFH IT users + a single HD stream simultaneously!
StretchASU said:
They just finished marking and surveying for fiber along the main drag where the main farm/shop is. That will be an option hopefully by the time we build our permanent home over there.
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One day, somebody's gonna follow-up on the $MIL$ granted for "last mile" connectivity and start bitch slappin'... until then the 3-4 "carriers" with fiber exactly 1/2 mile from my house will not drag it up the road without:
a) 10 customers per mile (I'm the only 1 in 1/2 mile)
b) OR was quoted $35K "guesstimate"... told them I just wanted to rent the shitte, not marry it 🤣

Oddly, the same T-Mo "Home Internet" (LTE/5G) that has nada signal at the house, works well at the shop (1/4 mile away + 100' elevation change)
 
Oh yea. On my phone even. This is practically under the tower with 5 bars. Never thought cellular could be this fast. If Starlink ever gets this good I’d switch. I’m traveling about 6 mo of the year, or that’s the plan, so cell signal won’t be this good everywhere.

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We use Starling on our mobile disaster hospital. First disaster test was Helene. It worked like a charm. We did have a beautiful view of the sky, so there was no issues there. IIRC we had 2 Starlinks going, one for the hospital operations and 1 for my staff.....
 
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