A year after he first heard about Starlink and put a down payment for the service, Stu Bell has finally got his satellite dish.
“I first heard about Starlink accepting down-payments for our area last February,” says Bell. “I heard about it through a friend, and in turn I told a few friends. The down payment was $130. The hardware was $670, but I wasn’t charged for that until it shipped, in mid-January of this year.”
He was hoping it would arrive a few months back, but, he says, “In the fall of 2021 I received an email from Starlink apologizing that my service wasn’t ready yet and I should expect it early 2022.”
That $670 bought Bell a satellite dish—about the same size as a TV dish, though far easier to set up (more on that later)—a mount, a cable to bring the signal into the house, and a router and modem. “I mounted the dish to my roof and ran the cable down the side of my house. That was the last time I needed to be on my roof for the set up.”
Chris Norbury also got his dish recently. His set-up was even easier. “You set up the dish in a place with little to no obstructions,” he says. “So I put mine on a table on my deck.”
Norbury says he got the service because it’s new and shiny. “Technology really interests me so, when I’m able, I try to stay current. Satellite internet isn’t new, but Starlink’s take on it is: launching thousands of table sized satellites to create a high speed internet network. Seemed pretty new and interesting.”
Once the dishes were set up, Bell says all he had to do was run the cable into his office, and plug it into the power adapter. “I then plugged the modem into the power adapter as well, via Ethernet cable,” says Bell.
Bell says compared to a TV dish, setting up satellite internet was remarkably easy. “This was plug into power and it found its own signal. I have memories of helping my Dad set up our Bell Satellite when I was a teenager, and it took forever. Lots of finding the right angle, and shouting back and forth about what I saw on the screen. This had none of that. I just plopped it in place and plugged it in.”
It also looks sleeker than a TV dish—it’s all white with a black trim, says Bell—and isn’t as concaved as your classic TV dish. But it is in the ballpark.
Having plugged everything in, Bell had to download the app to his phone, then connect his phone to the modem to get everything working. “It took about 45 minutes before any internet came in, I’m assuming the dish was just doing its thing and locking in the signal.”
A quick test shows that his internet was topping out at speeds of 247 mb/s. (Norbury’s top speeds haven’t been quite as good, but has hit 170 mb/s.)
Bell says the promise was for speeds between 50 mb/s and 150 mb/s, but that speeds would vary as they rolled out the service. “I wasn’t concerned about any of that, I was just so incredibly tired of dealing with the terrible service from Telus,” he says. “My Telus home internet was Telus15, but I never once saw 15 mb/s. At most it was 12 mb/s, but on average it was about 8. That cost $120 a month after taxes. The internet was so bad that I actually bought an internet hub so we could watch more than show at a time, as you might expect a family of 5 to do. The internet hub was $90 a month after taxes and promised a speed of 25mb/s, but just like the Telus 15, we could never actually get 25mb/s; on average it was 17. So I was paying a total of $210 a month for a top speed of 25 (though again, I never actually saw that). The promise of even 50 mb/s for $150 a month felt like a pretty good deal. After 14 months my savings in monthly bills will cover the price of the hardware, and from there on I’ll be saving $60 a month.”
Bell says that he’s been doing a speed test once or twice a day since getting the dish. “On the high end I’ll reach 250mb/s, the lowest I’ve seen is 110mb/s. On average its 175. It seemed Starlink’s plan for delivered speeds was the opposite of Telus. Telus promised 15, but when I called to complain that I wasn’t getting that speed I was told that 12 is what they consider acceptable to meeting that agreement. They over promised and under delivered, as a business model. Starlink promised speeds of 50–150, but in reality I’m getting 100 – 250, they under promised and over delivered, which is a technique I’m a fan of.”
Of course, satellite TV is notoriously poor when the weather gets bad. Bell says he hasn’t noticed any issues with speeds because of the weather as of yet, though he points out it’s only been a week since getting it. “Time will tell on that front.”
Still, he says, it would have to get pretty bad to run as slow as my previous internet, “I think even on a bad day, Starlink would have them beat.”
Norbury agrees. “The speed and consistency of Starlink is well above Telus. Speeds are up to ten times faster with very little drop in service. The Telus hub was faster than wired internet, but inconsistent with speeds and regular drops in service.”
Trent is the publisher of Tumbler RidgeLines.
