Is Starlink As Fast As Fiber?

Launched in 2021, Starlink satellite internet has been able to deliver broadband internet to people in areas where no other options exist. Fiber infrastructure has also been expanding in recent years, thanks to federal funding initiatives. Starlink is satellite internet, which works by sending signals from a dish on your home to satellites in low earth orbit. The satellites communicate with ground stations, which are hardwired into the internet. Fiber is the more traditional connection method, where fiber optic cable is run from your home to a local ISP. With Starlink, the connection from your home is wireless. With fiber, …

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Tutorial: Starlink Long Wall Mount Installation

The Starlink Long Wall Mount is a great option for mounting your dish to an exterior wall or fascia board. In this tutorial, I am going to show you the process of installing the Long Wall Mount. You can follow along with the text and images in this article, or check out the video below. Video Tutorial Pre-installation requirements Before you being, make sure the location you selected for the Long Wall Mount is free of obstructions. You can use the Starlink app obstruction tool to make sure you won’t have any obstructions. It’s also a good idea to temporarily …

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Starlink Donation System Is Now Live

Starlink quietly rolled out a new page on their website that allows anyone to donate Starlink service to communities or organizations in need. The page, Donate A Starlink, allows you to give money to Starlink to use on your behalf. Your donation will be applied to the areas of greatest need, as determined by Starlink. The categories of need are: education, telehealth, emergency response and humanitarian efforts. This new donation feature was highly requested. When the war in Ukraine broke out, Starlink stepped in to provide communication services. Many people were wondering how they could donate Starlink units to those …

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Median Starlink Latency And Ping Times

When most people think of internet performance, they think of download and upload speeds. Those are both important, but latency and ping are critical for modern online activities. If you have ever tried to game online or work remotely on an internet connection with high ping, you know what I mean. Ping is the unit of measurement for latency. Latency and ping are often used interchangeably, although technically incorrect. Latency is the amount of time it takes for a message to reach the destination from the origin. If a message took 70 milliseconds (ms) to reach the destination, you would …

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Can A USB-C Cable Be Extended?

USB-C is becoming increasingly popular across all types of devices. Phones, tablets, PC’s, and even electronic accessories are using the USB-C port to transfer power and data. In the past you may have had half a dozen charging cables in your junk drawer. With USB-C becoming a widely adopted standard, you can use one cable for multiple devices. One area of confusion is the multiple USB standards, and how they relate to the USB-C connector. Can USB-C cables be extended using cable extensions? And if you do extend it, will it have the same performance capabilities? In this article, I’ll …

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Starlink Launches Flat High Performance RV Dish For In-Motion Use

A new “Flat High Performance” dish is now available to order from Starlink. The new dish is designed for in-motion use, enabling high speed, low latency internet virtually anywhere on the road. The Flat High Performance dish joins the Standard dish as the two hardware options for Starlink RV orders. The Flat High Performance hardware costs $2,500, compared to $599 for the Standard hardware. The price for Starlink RV is $135/month no matter which hardware option you select. Starlink is accepting orders for the new dish now, and expects to start delivering the kits near the end of 2022. Flat …

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You Can Now Activate Starlink RV Directly From The Dish

Starlink RV has been incredibly popular with recreational users since launching in May of 2022. The ability to pause service for seasonal use is one of the major advantages over the Residential plan with the Portability add on. One of the challenges facing many RV users who pause their service is the fact that an internet connection is needed to un-pause Starlink RV. I’ve heard from many users who only use their Starlink RV dish when cell phone coverage isn’t available. They drive out to their campsite, find out cell service isn’t available, and then want to un-pause service right …

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Starlink Roam vs Starlink Residential

Starlink Roam (formerly Starlink RV) and Starlink Residential are two of the several plans offered by the satellite internet company. The names are pretty self explanatory – Roam is designed for recreational travelers, while Residential is for home internet. But the two service plans offer different performance, features, and costs. In this comparison guide, I will break down the differences between Starlink Roam and Residential. I will cover the hardware, costs, performance, and features. I will also detail the important ordering and billing differences. Finally, I’ll recommend which service you should get based on your needs. Hardware The hardware is …

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Starlink Launches Aviation Service

Starlink Aviation is the latest service offering from Starlink, aimed at the business and private jet market. Select aircraft will now have the option to provide high-speed, low latency internet to passengers for the first time. Service won’t be cheap. The hardware costs $150,000, and monthly service starts at $12,500 per month. There are no contracts, and the hardware is covered under warranty as long as service is active. Interested customers can reserve their hardware now with a $5,000 deposit. Starlink expects to start shipping hardware sometime in 2023. Starlink Aviation Specs Starlink says the Aviation service can deliver up …

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Starlink Cable Lengths

The Starlink cable connects the antenna (dish) to the router/power supply. This cable carries both power and data for the dish. The connectors are proprietary to Starlink. The length of the cable between the router and Starlink antenna varies, depending on which type of Starlink dish you have. In this article, I’ll go over the cable lengths for each type of dish. Starlink Cable Type The Starlink cable is shielded CAT5e, also known as STP CAT5e. It contains 4 twisted pairs, for a total of 8 wires. The dish is powered with Starlink’s unique PoE (power over Ethernet) version, so …

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