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Rikkitic
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  #2671705 11-Mar-2021 15:18
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Also interesting piece on this in The Herald. It is premium, not that that matters.

 

 





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zenourn
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  #2671959 11-Mar-2021 21:18
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Interestingly, I think Starlink could potentially be having an effect on other rural BB offerings.

 

My 4G RBI connection unlimited use period has just been extended to be from 00:00 to 17:00 so now covers most of the day. I agree with not extending unlimited during peak: right now (9pm) 4G is giving 15/12 Mbps compared to the 200/50 Mbps that I can get during the mornings.

 

It will be interesting to see how Starlink compares to this. Each satellite has a capacity ~ 20 Gbps so there is potential for congestion to happen, especially given the area a satellite can cover.

 

 


  #2672005 11-Mar-2021 21:25
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Another impressive launch , Landing of first stage was successful. 





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scottjpalmer
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  #2672111 12-Mar-2021 06:58
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Email received this morning

 


danfaulknor
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  #2672123 12-Mar-2021 07:09
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I got an email this morning saying they are preparing the shipment and I'll be charged in 3 days.




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zenourn
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  #2672136 12-Mar-2021 08:02
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danielfaulknor: I got an email this morning saying they are preparing the shipment and I'll be charged in 3 days.

 

Cool. I assume you are in Otago/Southland?


pih

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  #2672155 12-Mar-2021 08:59
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zenourn:

Interestingly, I think Starlink could potentially be having an effect on other rural BB offerings.



There's no question it will change things. You and others have shared your stories, here mine:

I can get ADSL, but it's a very flakey 1-4Mbps and will often be out for up to half an hour at a time for no apparent reason. In spite of the fact that we're on a hill and get reasonably good mobile coverage (3-4 bars with all providers), only once I've been able to get good speeds with a Vodafone SIM: 65Mbps down. Later that day it dropped to 2Mbps. Cost with any provider is prohibitive if you want anything approaching "fast" and "unlimited", and there are precisely zero options that give us both.

Many ISPs are starting to push some great "home wireless" deals over mobile but strangely they're not available to rural customers. Other options like Wireless Nation are costly and as you say capped during peak times.

I have a fibre trunk running down the highway not even 300m away and Chorus quoted an eye-watering $300k to get us connected. Yeah, nah.

$159/month is a no-brainer for fast, (hopefully) unlimited internet. In fact I could share it with a few neighbours and still be better off than I am now.

I suspect the smaller players will drop their prices or drop out completely, while bigger players will have to start pushing 5G options to rural areas to compete. It's a game changer and I can't wait to get my confirmation.

 
 
 
 

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Gurezaemon
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  #2672177 12-Mar-2021 10:16
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I can see a lot of small, remote, and poor rural communities such as what we have up here in Northland benefiting greatly from this option.

 

I think we will see quite a few instances of people setting up a Starlink dish and getting the rest of the community wired up either on an informal basis by having people set up short-range Wi-Fi bridges and the like, or in a formal way, depending on what Starlink determines is acceptable. Plenty of people already share fibre connections with financially strapped neighbors on an informal "payment in beer, crayfish, or lawnmowing" basis.

 

Someone with a bit of networking skill could set up a router so that no one in their network can fully hog the bandwidth at any one time, and give unlimited access to a decent number of people, even if it is capped to a quite usable 10-20 Mbps down per user, and for $20-30 per month. That is still way better than a lot of the alternatives out there now.

 

I can see quite a few geeky teenagers making a nice bit of extra income by setting up this sort of thing.





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iwilson
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  #2672179 12-Mar-2021 10:16
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I'm in the same position. ADSL is not terrible 12Mbps on a good day, but frequent dropouts as we are right at the limit range wise. Very frustrating sitting down with the family to watch a movie and halfway through it falls over or we all take a trip to Youtube and 160p circa 2005! Fibre runs past our gate to a school a few hundred metres up the road but with a 300m long driveway and zero indication from any roadmap we'll ever be connected we've just had to suck it up and accept an unlimited dodgy ADSL connection is better than a laggy limited RBI connection. We're also in a bad mobile coverage spot and struggle to make a phone call let alone get a 4G signal. 5G with its shorter range won't help. As we get through around 1.5TB per month unlimited is the only option!

 

So the kids and I watched the latest Starlink launch live last night cheering it on in the knowledge every successful launch brings Starlink a little closer to becoming a reality for us. But looking at the live StarLink map I still often see gaps over the North Island or just one or two satellites (but that's why it's still in beta). If the satellites can handle approx. 20Gbps each that's around 200 concurrent users per satellite with the current configuration (without the laser interconnection). I signed up on the 10th and are hoping I might have been early enough to get a slot.

 

Exciting times!


Zander
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  #2672224 12-Mar-2021 11:52
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danielfaulknor: I got an email this morning saying they are preparing the shipment and I'll be charged in 3 days.

 

Awesome!  Be great to hear how you get on.

 

It sounds like quite a few other people getting full orders now. https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/m2vs3d/nz_getting_ready_for_shipment/

 

Reaching up to central Otago and North Canterbury already.  I'm guessing staying south of Christchurch (to limit test volume) so available up 44-degrees south.

 

https://osm4wiki.toolforge.org/cgi-bin/wiki/wiki-osm.pl?project=en&article=44th_parallel_south

 

Based on USA availability to 36.9 degrees, that could reach Auckland quite soon.

 

PS - thanks for hosting https://horsetrekn.co.nz/ at https://prodigi.nz/ Dan - its working better than ever :)


Chrisclarke

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  #2672363 12-Mar-2021 16:41
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Not sure how they've drawn the line - but Fairlie, Albury, Cave and Geraldine addresses are pre-order, Temuka and Pleasant Point are good to go. 

 

Given I'm located rurally near one of the former locations, it's frustrating! But was expecting mid-late 2021 so can't complain...

 

Grrr!


Jordanh
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  #2676371 18-Mar-2021 10:00
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My kit should arrive early next week, what I'm most excited about is the increase in upload speed. from 0.7mbs on rural ADSL to around 30 will be a game changer.


Oblivian
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  #2676413 18-Mar-2021 11:00
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We got a shout-out on the last launch. Basically a sales pitch for being available

There it was brandished 'the south Island of new Zealand'

Can't believe they called it dishy mcflatface.

manaia36
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  #2676463 18-Mar-2021 12:35
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Hey everyone.

 

Great to see Starlink launching in parts of the South Island. Does anyone know what areas exactly? I am just north of Dunedin in East Otago. It doesn't appear to be available here yet. I Entered an address in Dunedin City and it does appear that you can order it there ( non pre order but a full order)

 

 

 

Ah the wait continues. Pretty keen to try starlink this as my ISP Spark informs me they may force us to go off the VDSL once Fibre is avail in my area. Even though the cost of getting fibre to this address would be something in the realm of 10's of thousands

 

 

 

To those of you that order would it be alright once you get it up and running to let us know what kinda speeds and performance you get from it. I do realize the service is still in beta though


Zander
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  #2676501 18-Mar-2021 14:20
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It seems there was a firmware update for Dishy, and people are now seeing higher bandwidths - even up to 400Mbps!

 

https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/m7597k/consistently_averaging_between_250400_mbps_today/ 


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