Might be of interest for the rural folk out there.
For a limited time, get your Starlink kit for over 75% off in select areas of rural Australia + New Zealand.
RURAL LIMITED TIME OFFER
$199 FOR HARDWARE ($924 RRP)
No contracts, 30-day trial.
Shipping times are currently estimated to be 1-2 weeks.
$139/mo for service and $199 for hardware (rural) or $599 for hardware in the rest of Australia, and possibly $30 delivery fee.
The referrer and referee receives bonus credit for a month of standard service, 30 days after the referee activates and keeps their Starlink. Referrals will only issue credits to Standard Plan (Residential) and Mobile Regional (Roam) subscriptions. Kits purchased from a retailer or reseller are not eligible for the referral program. No credit will be given even if a referral link was used during activation.
About 100/15 has been the average across a few systems I have installed.
Latency is about 20-40ms
Thanks!
Can you check if it's the same for US servers?
So just go to speed test and select a location in the US somewhere and see if the results are the same…
Thanks so much for this
I personally don't have one at home, but have done some installs and doing more of them. Next time I am at a location with one, I can definitely do a speed test on a US server.
There is no way it will have the same latency to US servers. The minimum latency is over 100ms simply because that is how long a round trip is for light to go that far. Nothing will change that.
Likely realistic ping would be ~250ms.
@fantombloo: Wait till you hear his next innovative ISP company installing cables under ground in state of the art advanced hyperloop tunnels that bend gravity, space and time.
@xuqi: Starlink communicates using electromagnetic radiation. The speed of light is how fast all electromagnetic radiation travels therefore it is the maximum speed a Starlink signal can travel.
What does speed of light have to do with Sat communications?
Didn't pay attention is school huh?
240ms to LA, 290ms to NYC just now. Not sure if that is representive.
This is relative to your location, congestion, and a number of other factors though.
I've had it for over 12 months now and rarely see anything too different to 300/20.
In short, YMMV
I'm near Newcastle and i get up to 230Mbps during the day. Worst is about 120Mbps. Upload is just poos around 5-10Mbps, so I use my NBN for uploads.
@nfusion easy to install?
It's a matter of plugging in cables and setting up the dish somewhere outside.
The only difficult could potentially be mounting it on the roof and routing the cable through the wall. But you could also just have it on the ground in the backyard.
@MrTweek: He is not wrong there. Proper install depends on your situation.
I paid $450 for a guy to install on my roof (2stories and a whole lot of ladder!) , properly run the cable in the wall cavity and provide the gutter mount, same as whats used for Foxtel dishes. Gutter mount was less risk for my tile roof
@nfusion: Yeah. If it was mounted where the roof tiles are. It could be a source of leaks on the roof if not properly sealed back up.
Uploading is against earth's gravity. Hence better download.
You're welcome.
This is true. Downstairs gets a higher download speed then upstairs because of the stronger gravitational pull.
gravity would matter if there is a mass from my understanding
It proves that light has weight.
Gold!
Sound like something Gerrard Rennick would say (slaps forehead).
The interesting thing is why do you have NBN and starlink?
Ahh….Because they can.
I work from home most days and NBN here is only 35Mbps down which is too slow for me downloading GB size files for work. I upload alot to share content with others and Starlink is too slow and I have practically no 4G/5G where I am so have to resort to NBN for uploads.
NBN has done fibre upgrade recently, if that increases my BW up to at least 100Mbps then I'd propably kill the Starlink and just use NBN primary and 4G secondary for the dual links (SDWAN)
Why do you have Starlink no if you also have NBN? Serious question as Starlink latency is terrible in comparison to a fixed wire NBN service.
If you aren't on FttP can you upgrade if you're currently on copper at your address?
**Edit. Ignore, as I see you've explained this above :)
Just outside Perth here, I usually get about 175/15, sometimes up to 230/20. Latency is around 75ms, so on the high side, but not a showstopper.
Likewise. Speeds are great but I'd love to see the above 20ms, the reality is my average is constantly 60-80ms with a clear unobstructed view of the sky. We're only using it until NBN finish our FTTP install as our FTTN connection is the equivalent of running dialup in this day and age.
When it comes to playing games like Fall Guys I constantly see the flashing wifi symbol. Connecting to US servers is basically unplayable but does ok on the FTTN connection.
Ping for me (according to the starlink app) averages around 40ms with lows of 20 and highs of 80. Reality when gaming is around 60-80ms - which for satellite internet anywhere on the content is pretty amazing.
I downloaded Diablo 4 at 300mbit, and normal download speeds are usually in excess of 100mbit. My upload is kinda sucky though 10-12mbit.
I have access to wireless NBN with 1-2 bars (out of 3). That works OK but I needed higher speed as I deal with large media files often for work, and we often have a few 4k streams going on in the house. I keep both and only once twice have had it failover to it due to starlink reliability issues (one global outage, and one big storm). We have no phone reception and so we use wifi calling on our mobiles which works OK, not great sometimes.
I'm getting 200 down and 20-40ms latency in SE suburbs of Melbourne.
What's their definition of rural?
I can get the offer in Warragul VIC. Wouldn't say it is entirely Rural.
I dunno Warragul is pretty remote for Victorians
Ah yes, some definitely go "You live where!?" But it honestly isn't that far. 1 hour 20 mins from Melbourne CBD.
I can get the offer too and I'm in Sale. Looks like I'm getting Starlink
If you need assistance with install, PM me.
Put in an address and find out
I have, various far nth NSW and mountains in SE Qld, none of these rural areas are rural apparently.
Outside kyiv
I get rural just outside of Geelong (Melbourne side)
kingston tasmania is rural :D
I guess you can order one for a rural address (can be a friend) and once activated, move the equipment to Sydney or any other city.
Starlink knows where you are, even without the GPS they can triangulate the location based on passing satellites.
They are selling more expensive (but also a bit more flexible) Roam service for those changing locations.
I don't know whether they would enforce location lock for Rural, the trick might work initially (until too many people start abusing the Rural offer).
Based on experience of 3 acquaintances who purchased rural, then moved to cities & others states they don't care.
There's a bunch of people on cheap sailing boats using the RV version instead of the sea version because for some reason they charge a whole lot more as soon as it's for something on water, haven't seen anyone report their accounts cancelled yet and it'd be pretty easy to tell someone was in the middle of an ocean heh.
The bigger question is, if you're in sydney with access to cheaper NBN, why would you keep using starlink?
No
can get the offer in Northern Victoria but also have to add in $30 delivery costs
Northern Victoria here. $30.00 shipping added, but it's still great value.
I have the service and we are averaging 200 down and 13 up.
Kids actively game online and don't have issues.
Very minimal drop outs. Service did drop completely 2 days ago for 15 minutes I'd say. That's super rare for us.
Just did a test then. Cloudy here with no blue sky at all…
https://www.speedtest.net/result/14596473308.png
Have a great day!
Thanks for this. Ping is 400 ms, not good for gaming :(
Poo ping……sorry i couldn't resist
It's only 40ms here
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/comment/13612037/redir
The cloudy sky could be a reason for the higher ping.
Looks like the ping under load was 50-70ms so that 430ms must have been a fluke. Could be router related
35-40ms just now to Telstra servers in Sydney from Byron Bay
Just in reply to the ping…
I really should have said that the number was the only stat that is not truly representative of how it is most of the time. I am sorry.
The eldest sons who are serious gamers, are saying that ping is good for the most part and they very rarely have issues.
Here's a screenshot now, while it is drizzling rain in Northern Vic.
I should also say that we have zero obstructions.
Starlink user here since it was released in beta, got the original Gen-1 circle dish. I've also relocated the service one time, which was easy.
Pings are always reasonable with the spike here and there. I will say the ping is noticeably poor in games where a quick reaction speed is required (FPS / CS:GO for example). My ping is always around 60-80ms whereas I'm playing people anywhere from 5-40ms.
Other online games are fine for the most part, download speeds are over 30mbps so it's real nice for downloading stuff. Streaming works fine most parts of the day. You'll find, like fixed wireless NBN, the service varies from on-peak to off-peak.
Can starlink be setup to run over a mesh network?
Looks like South Gippsland Victoria is counted as rural so deal is accessible for me.
Yes. Get the Ethernet adaptor and then you can setup additional network devices.
I have mine hooked up to a Ubiquity Edge Router X and then to a Ubiquity POE switch with several Ubiquity Wifi Access Points throughout the house. It works great.
got a mate with 2x Starlink, he aggregates the connections with Speedify
Don't see how that works when it is software based?
I've used something provided by PepLink where it bonds multiple connections together and then combines the speed performance. As per https://www.peplink.com/technology/speedfusion-bonding-techn…
Used it with Starlink + 2 x 4G/5G sims on Optus + Telstra.
Starlink has been a game changer for many rural people in my area. The fact that they can get very fast unlimited wifi now is so much better than the crappy nbn satellite they had previously.
Even regional areas like Rockhampton. Was paying $75 for 4.6mbs on a good day. Now paying just shy of double for 5x the speed at minimum. Steam sometimes achieves 10x the speed of my NBN.
We have staff at my work who get consistently between 50-160MBps downstream in rural locations. Outages are usually a few minutes to fifteen every couple of months at mostly in the evening. It is also used for some of our client businesses as part of their backup service.
Other staff who use satellite NBN get +800-1000ms latency on a good day and sub ADSL 1 speeds - okay for limited usage for one person only.
I currently pay a third of their subscription cost with Exetel wireless (Telstra) and get around 15-25Mbps and a lot slower upstream.
This is a sweet discount over the usual cost. For those looking at Starlink and I suggest taking a look at these videos:
Intro: https://youtu.be/LLFN-n5dUyI
Starlink 2 months later: https://youtu.be/uS4eAyOLllM
Good for warming cats
IDK why you're getting the downvotes, this is a legitimate feature.
Got one from Auckland, noel leeming price is same and no rural addy req.
I would be willing to pay full price hardware for a lower monthly cost…say $80pm
Apparently the northern suburbs of Adelaide are "rural".
All of Adelaide should be rural.
12kms from Perth cbd and I'm eligible…
Sounds about right.
WA is rural.
I'd guess 90% of Australia is rural.
Is $199 the cost for purchasing the hardware outright? I am in rural and eligible for this offer but wondering if Starlink allows to pause/resume service like other service providers? I might be out of town for 2 months and not using my Starlink service. Currently I have a 4G service which I take around but I'd like to keep the Starlink hardware at home and have the service paused.
Looks like they do offer it - https://support.starlink.com/topic?category=1&category=32 but can't confirm as I don't use them
Thanks! Bit confusing - "Your Starlink subscription can only be cancelled, not paused or delayed. If you have a residential account, you are able to add and remove Portability at anytime." I'll try reaching out to them for confirmation/clarification.
It's a no lock-in contract, you an cancel any time and re-contract at any point after that. The price you're paying is for the hardware, it's yours to keep (with that said, it can only be used with Starlink, or warming cats, unless there's some other use I'm unaware of)
@lulzenberg: I tried using it as a small drinks table on the veranda but the damn thing won't stay level.
🤪
Yeah they ket you cancel then re-up, but you are warned you may not be able to sign back up if demand in your area is too high.
You can take Starlink service on the road, however additional fees may apply.
That requires a "Starlink Roam" plan.
You can pause with a roam account byt you pay more per month
I'm near Byron Bay and it allowed my location as rural.
What’s the difference between the old round shape one to this square shaped one?
The shape :-)
Read somewhere said the old round shape was better with reception or Sth, can’t remember where exactly tho. But yeah doesn’t make any difference to me since nbn is much cheaper in metro areas.
Round is the older version and I have this.
I did see something about the newer version frustrating people as it needs and ethernet adapter.
I'm sure there's lots of info and complaints online if that's the case.
You're correct. The new square dish requires the ethernet adapter (sold separately from their online store) if you want to use your own router instead of the Starlink provided router. If you use your own router there's a couple of steps required for the configuration. You also cannot see your stats (afaik) when you connect to the dish using the ip or web url when using your own router.
Cyber truck version of Starlink.
It's not the hardware cost that is the issue, it's the monthly cost for me. $60 more per month than what I'm paying now for Fixed Wireless.
Same here, I pay $74 less for fixed wireless and it's enough for my household and I even share with the neighbour! It would be nice to have the extra speed sometimes but hard to justify paying more than double
In the same boat. Fixed Wireless, while not that fast, works reasonably for our household.
and I even share with the neighbour
Wouldn't say that too loudly.
Loads of people do this, RSP's don't care
What speeds/latency would you get with this? Asking people that are using it to reply to this message!