Experience using Starlink for Internet
At Bigert Mire in the Duddon Valley, Cumbria we have struggled with “rural broadband” for some time. This has meant speeds of 1.5 Mbps and multiple long outages every year.
Last month I was able to install a Starlink satellite system. Although 50% more expensive to run than a BT system the change has been amazing with reliable speeds of between 100 and 200 Mbps. The reliability should also be much better. Interestingly the BBC also posted a story about Starlink being trialed in Wasdale this week.
It is a straightforward thing to do so I just wanted to share some notes on what I did.
This description was just by trial and error, others will have better advice and may offer professional services. My needs were probably more complicated than most users.
What is Starlink ?
Starlink is one of Elon Musk’s companies. They have 3,000 very small “Low Earth Orbit” satellites which are used to beam the internet to users with a small dish. The satellites are much closer than traditional satellites and are constantly moving across the sky so the dish is smaller and automatically tracks the satellites. There are many more satellites planned and it would be fair to say that there is quite a bit of concern about these satellites from a space pollution point of view.
What is the internet signal like ?
The signal is fast, typically between 100 and 200 Mbps. The latency, the electronic echo, is around twice that of traditional broadband signal but it is not something that you will notice. Realistically you do not really need speeds much over 30 Mbps.
The signal is reliable, the system typically logs two or three 10s outages per day
How much does it cost ?
There is an upfront costs of £460 and then a monthly costs of £75, so about 50% more than our old BT package that delivered rubbish internet and failed several times a year, often due to lightening strikes.
The volume of data is currently unlimited but there was a recent announcement that speeds may be capped after a certain volume is reached at some unspecified point in the future.
I also stopped our traditional phone line and replaced the phone with a “VOIP” phone. This costs about £5 per month for a local number.
What equipment is needed ?
There are two answers to this – the first is what do you need for the ( very effective ) basic system and the 2nd answer is what I actually used.
The basic “Out of the Box” Starlink system will met all of your basic needs for good internet surfing. In the box you get a small rectangular dish ( 50cm x 30cm ) with a tripod mount, a cable and a control box / Wi-Fi base station. The Wi-Fi dish could sit in your garden and, as a rule of thumb, needs a 100o clear view of the sky. There is a very good phone app that you can use to check your planned location. I was still a bit nervous about visual obstructions from the adjacent buildings but it was OK in operation.
Our dish in Cumbria tends to point slightly southwards. The cable to the control box / Wi-Fi hub is 75 foot long and it is surprisingly stiff and, because of a large plug on the end, needs a 22mm hole to go through walls. You can get a longer 150 foot cable and there are lots of articles on how to cut and re-splice the cable but I was not brave enough.
The supplied control box / Wi-Fi hub is pretty good.
I used this “out of the box” system for a few weeks and it was very good but, a bit like Apple devices, the functionality is deliberately simple to keep it reliable for most users. I needed some extra functionality so added more bits.
What did I do ?
>The Mast
The first thing that I did was to mount the dish in a mast attached to the house. In the Lake district it had to be away from public view so I mounted it at the back of the house. I may have been over cautious but being a dry stone wall opted to use two brackets spaced about 1m apart. I also wanted to use a “dogleg” style mast to be able to position the dish over the roof. As it worked out a straight mast with two longer brackets to clear the guttering would have worked just as well and would have been cheaper.
The parts were sourced from ATV in sheffield who were very helpful. The mast is actually mounted upside down to give the 1m spacing between brackets ( 1m happened to be some larger stones )
The Starlink cable exited at the joint above the mast meaning that amalgamating tape was need to ensure a tight fit between the mast and dish bracket.
>External Wi-Fi
I needed to transmit the Wi-Fi signal externally down to the garden which is separated from the house by a lane. To do this I used an external TP-Link EAP225 Access Point which I also mounted on the mast. These access points are omnidirectional ( the signal goes out in all directions ) but are still pretty powerful. As a rule of thumb they work best “line of site” and with a modern phone I was able to use the Wi-Fi 300m away although on an older tablet it was too far. This scheme also needed a Starlink Ethernet Adapter.
If you are not comfortable with technology and only need the Wi-Fi extending internally then Starlink do some rather pricy Mesh Wi-Fi extenders. These are additional Wi-Fi stations that repeat the original Wi-Fi signal making it reach further. There are other alternatives discussed below.
>Ethernet Adaptor
The Starlink Wiki bases station is very simple and does not have any ethernet ports. I needed ethernet for the external Wi-Fi and to connect some gadgets to the internet. I had to buy an adapter from Starlink for £35. This ethernet port is located at the Wi-Fi end of the cable and not at the dish end. It only allows one ethernet connection so a hub may be needed, see below.
>Alternate Wi-Fi Base Station
Although the Starlink Wi-Fi is pretty good I needed something with better functionality, mostly to help with my work. I do think that this new Wi-Fi is a bit better but I have not carried out any structured tests. I fitted a TP-Link Archer 55 Wi-Fi Router ( base station ). The Starlink Wi-Fi Base Station is Wi-Fi 5 whereas the Archer 55 is the newer Wi-Fi 6 standard. When using an alternate router the Starlink Wi-Fi is generally disabled.
>POE Hub
In order to connect all of these things I used a TP-Link 5-Port Gigabit Desktop PoE Switch. POE stands for Power over Ethernet. This means that the data cable also transmits 48 volts of power. This means that you do not need to run separate power and data cables to the external Wi-Fi Access point and the VOIP phone.
>VOIP Phone
One of the few advantages of the pandemic has been that there are lots of cheap 2nd hand VOIP office phones for sale. I picked up a SNOM 710 for £10 on ebay. Just be careful as the separate power supplies are often not included and you wlll need a POE device as described above. With one of these phones you can have a local number for £5 per month via Yay.com or similar. I get my number through work.
>Wi-Fi Repeaters / Extenders
I have a friend who set up a community fibre network in rural Scotland. He swears by a brand called Ubiquiti These are the gold standard, and industrial grade, but for home stuff I tend to opt for cheaper brands like TP-Link – which makes him despair 😊 He is correct that if you want a really good experience then ubiquity is hard to beat. The costs are more and you may need to start paying an unclear annual subscription fee after the first 3 years.
Ubiquiti ( and other more expensive systems including TP-Link ) are Mesh systems. This means that you have one extended Wi-Fi that your devices navigate seamlessly. With cheaper non mesh “range extender” systems you end up with multiple different Wi-Fi zones and devices will sometimes stay connected to a weak Wi-Fi signal when there is a stronger signal available nearby.
There are three types of cheaper repeaters :
Homeplug units.
Homeplugs are both very clever and relatively cheap but may limit your speed a bit. They use your houses electrical system to transmit data. Typically one of these is plugged into both the power and your Wi-Fi base station. You can then have one or more other units around your house to create small Wi-Fi zones. You will need the Ethernet Adapter ( and possibly network hub ) described above to use these.
Wall Mounted Range Extenders
Range Extenders are similar to the above except that they amplify an extending Wi-Fi signal rather than passing the data signal through wires. If your Wi-Fi will reach the top of the stairs but not the bedrooms then a range extender will project that signal further.
WISP Routers ( what I used )
Most of the range extenders plug directly into sockets so may be shielded by the wall. Where this has been an issue I have used the TP-Link Archer C50 router which unusually has a “repeater mode”. This is sometimes known as a Wisp Mode . The benefit of this unit is that you can position it next to a window to improve the signal and it also has ethernet ports that you can plug gadgets into.
The garden was a bit borderline for range ( @100m ) and this device. If you needed to create a longer Wi-Fi link, even up to 3km and line of sight, then you would use a directional Wi-Fi Access Point like the TP-Link CPE210. I think that the downside to these might be that although they are WISP type devices the Wi-Fi beam is quite narrow. This may mean that the local Wi-Fi range for general home users at the receiving end will be poor. You may need to connect these devices to an omnidirectional unit like the Archer55, the EAP110 or the Archer C50 devices mentioned earlier.
If you are after the best experience go for a Mesh system. For external use you will need to go Ubiquiti or similar.
Conclusion
This is the final system
So has it been worth it and what would I do differently next time ?
Yes, it has absolutely been worthwhile in giving both the family and guests more flexibility, internet access is a utility these days and the government needs to recognise this if people are to work and study efficiently.
If it was doing it again I would simplify the ariel mast by using longer brackets to allow a straight mast to miss the guttering. I might still go for the dog-leg mast to swing the dish over the roof.
The Starlink cable was difficult to run because of its stiffness and large end plugs. One of the advantages of using an alternative router is that the link from the Starlink controller to that unit can use more flexible, and cheaper, Cat 6 internet cable. This means that you can position this router more centrally in the house.
If you would like to ask any questions please use this facebook post or get me on twitter at @seancull