Starlink satellite internet beta, now available in Ontario

[ssfc72]

https://www.iphoneincanada.ca/tesla/canadians-can-now-sign-up-for-starlink-internet-beta-without-an-invite-if-eligible/

Apparently the Starlink website is now taking sign ups from eligible addresses (rural?) in Ontario.  Cost of the service is $650 for the Dish and $130/ month for the internet service ( some report download speeds of 150Mbps.).

[Jason]

That's pretty neat. For rural customers, especially in the Far North, this could be a godsend. But if you have fibre, Bell is a better alternative at that price with 1.5 Gbps at that price. Although many of us hate Bell and with good reason. I tried the website to see if it's available here just for fun and they said they'd notify me when it was (via email) 

[Jason]

I just received an email about this. They're saying speeds of 50 to 150 Mbps and latency of between 20 and 40 ms and brief periods of non-connectivity!

The site says it's available for my area, kind of. They said it can take 6 months to fulfill the order " on a first-come, first-served basis.". They want that $129 upfront while you wait. At least the $129 is refundable. I guess if you have nothing else available in, say, a rural area, it might be the best you can do and will be fast although the periods of non-connectivity are concerning - what exactly is "brief"? Minutes, hours?

The attached screengrab shows what you'd be paying in taxes and shipping as well as the dish and monthly cost that Bill mentioned.

[ssfc72]

A friend of mine lives just outside of Bethany, in the country side and his internet service speeds are terribly slow and erratic.  At his particular location he does not have good line of sight to the towers, to get good wireless internet speeds.

The costs for the hardware and service and the shipping costs, seem reasonable for his situation and I think he might be interested in the service.

As with the satellite TV service, there may be brief times when rain/snow and the position of the sun, will interfere with the satellite signal.

[gmiller1977]

I just recently had Bell wireless internet installed because I was having horrible performance with my Cable company's network (packet loss, corrupted packets, ping spikes, etc).  I have to admit, it's pretty good (LTE based).  Starlink will certainly keep the heat on the big telco's to make sure their service is good and pricing is inline.

[ssfc72]

Your neighbour and fellow PLUG member, Tom M., has also been having issues with his cable internet and phone

[gmiller1977]

If he's on Cable Cable, that's why.  At the end of November, something horrible has happened to it.  They are blaming RF interference, but, I'm not buying it.

I was on the fastest plan they had, and was a long time subscriber (over 10 years).  I NEVER called for support, it just always worked.  At the end of November, my IP phone stopped working properly.  Games my daughter would play online wouldn't work.  I got out my testing software and it showed insane amounts of packet loss (upwards of 30% at times).  This was also if I was connected directly to the back of the modem.

I spoke with some other neighbours in the area, and we found the same problems with them.

I gave them 2 months to try and fix it, but I kept getting the run around.  I finally cancelled.  I'm not a huge fan of Bell, but I need working internet.  Almost half of the people on my street have cancelled and moved to Bell as well (as can be seen by the Bell antenna's on their houses).