SpaceX Starlink Beta users are starting to share their experiences, assuring that the satellite service can provide fast broadband speeds and low latency in remote areas. A beta tester using the Reddit Wandering-coder username brought new Starlink equipment and a portable power supply to a national forest in Idaho, where it connected to the Internet with a download speed of 120 Mbps.

Starlink “works beautifully” Wrote yesterday. “I did a real-time video call and some tests. My power supply is at a maximum of 300 watts, and the drain for the entire system during activity was about 116 watts.” Starlink has succeeded in where the Wandering-coder couldn’t get any cellular service from Google Fi, which relies on T-Mobile and US Cellular networks. “There is no cell here with any carrier,” he wrote.

Use Wandering-coder Forest Starlink Connection to create this post on Reddit and upload a file A series of photos by Imgur. Wandering-coder told Ars that he is using Starlink at home in North Idaho and that he had his test run at the Hayden Creek Shooting Range in the Idaho Panhandle. Coeur d’Alene National Forest.

Here are some pictures from Wandering-coder’s testing in the woods and footage of the user’s station outside his home:

  • The Starlink satellite dish and equipment in the Coeur d’Alene National Forest in Idaho.

  • Another shot of the satellite dish and portable battery supply.

  • Starlink satellite dish in a wooded area.

  • Another shot in the same area of ​​trees.

  • Dish in the patio outside the Wandering-coder home.

  • Starlink applied to a car, with some nearby obstructions that partially obscure its view of the sky.

With a Starlink user station / satellite dish on the ground in a relatively open part of the woods, the Wandering-coder ran a speed test that measured downloads at 120 Mbps, uploads at 12 Mbps and latency of 37 milliseconds. He got worse results at a denser woodland site where he laid the plate Closer to trees Because Starlink needs a clear line of sight for the SpaceX satellites. Wandering-coder writes: “It didn’t work well with a heavy tree canopy / trees right in line of sight, as expected” “I’ll be online for only 5 seconds each time. Make sure you have as clear view of the sky as possible!”

Wandering-coder does not urge other Starlink testers to complete the same experiment, in the event that Beta Testers’ SpaceX objects are used outside of their registered location. All things considered, [it’s] Maybe it’s better to keep it [the user terminal] As it was recorded so that there would be official lighting on the subject. Wrote. “Just knowing mobility is a good thing.”

“It looks like it’s from the future.”

Wandering-coder also shared initial impressions in Another Reddit And a A series of pictures Of equipment in his home. Here are some screenshots of unpacking the device:

Wandering-coder writes: “Everything is of utmost build quality, and it works much better than I have ever imagined.” “It feels like it’s from the future. Given that a first-class cell phone costs in the $ 1,000 range, I am totally amazed that my hand on a setup like this for about $ 500, so I’m positively biased towards this service.”

Like Revealed last week, Starlink beta costs $ 99 per month plus $ 499 upfront for user terminal, tripod, and router.

At home, Wandering-coder says it got download speeds of 135Mbps, 25Mbps uploads, and 21ms latency when the plate was placed at ground level with a “limited obstacle” between the plate and the sky. He also tested the user’s station in a different location with a “big obstacle” in the form of “bad weather, tree heads, fences, [and] Homes. ”Even in this scenario, he reported download speeds of 46 Mbps, upload speeds of 15 Mbps, and response time of 41 ms. He had not yet placed the antenna on his rooftop when he ran the tests.

“Given all the obstacles to this connection at the moment, I am amazed at how successful it is,” he wrote. “Live broadcasts, low latency video conferencing, and games are all accessible through this service. Even for the beta, it looks as if they underestimated Starlink’s capabilities, so I’m excited to see it ripe.”

Although installing a user terminal on someone’s roof is complicated, Wandering-coder writes that everything else is very simple:

Bootup takes about 1 minute when plugged into power then takes anywhere from 1 minute to 15 minutes to steer properly mechanically. Positioning is done automatically, so it’s basically plugged in and running … there is one Ethernet cord that powers from the antenna array to the power supply, and one Ethernet wire that powers from the power supply to the router. The supplied antenna wire was clamped to the antenna, but over 100 inches (by estimation, I didn’t measure the length). There’s no setup involved besides the physical placement and setting a Wi-Fi name and password – all the tough things are done automatically.

Starlink is much faster than conventional satellites

The new speed test data were collected by Ookla and Published by PCMag Last week it found Starlink’s average download speeds of 79.5 Mbps and average download speeds of 13.8 Mbps in October, when the service was in a limited beta. The same data found average download speeds of 24.75 Mbps for Viasat’s Exede service and 19.84 Mbps for HughesNet, both of which provide service from geostationary satellites. The download speeds for Viasat and HughesNet were 3.25 Mbps and 2.64 Mbps, respectively.

Earth-orbiting satellites at Starlink have significantly outperformed higher-orbit satellites in latency, with Starlink deploying at a rate of 42 ms. Viasat and HughesNet came in at 643ms and 728ms, respectively, according to PCMag.

SpaceX’s calls for new users last week told them to expect “data speeds vary.”[ing] From 50Mbps to 150Mbps and latency from 20ms to 40ms over the next several months as we enhance the Starlink system … In terms of response time, we expect to achieve 16ms to 19ms by summer 2021. ”

A Montana resident posted a file Speed ​​test This results in a download speed of 174 Mbps, an upload speed of 33 Mbps, and a response time of 39ms. A beta tester wrote on Reddit yesterday: “Going out into rural Montana where our alternative is to push by party. Starlink will change the game forever.”

The Starlink Reddit community has many programs Resources To track the progress of a trial version, such as a List of user speed tests And a List of states At least some people have received calls for trial use. These states are Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and Wisconsin. You can also check 10-second video for 1 user For a quick look at the unboxing process.

SpaceX CEO Elon Musk He wrote on Twitter today That ‘many thousands of invitations to participate in the Starlink trial [are] Going out this week.

Image list by Programmed walkthrough