Starlink - pre-order available in NZ

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13963 posts

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#2676548 18-Mar-2021 15:57

manaia36:

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

They can't force you off fibre if copper is not going to be available in your area. The fact you say that it's going to cost you to get it installed indicates to me that you're not part of the rollout.

Where is this? Waitati? Karitane?

manaia36

28 posts

Geek

#2676553 18-Mar-2021 16:07

quickymart:

manaia36:

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

They can't force you off fibre if copper is not going to be available in your area. The fact you say that it's going to cost you to get it installed indicates to me that you're not part of the rollout.

Where is this? Waitati? Karitane?

Just outside of Palmerston Otago. I would guess we're about 200 meters outside of the planned Fibre coverage if going on the chorus map. I would not want to even think of what a custom install would cost for fibre !

pih

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#2676600 18-Mar-2021 16:18

manaia36:
Just outside of Palmerston Otago. I would guess we're about 200 meters outside of the planned Fibre coverage if going on the chorus map. I would not want to even think of what a custom install would cost for fibre !

If you're interested, a few earlier posts in this thread have indicative costs. My quote for around 200-300m was $300k 😳

CYaBro

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#2676602 18-Mar-2021 16:21

manaia36:

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

They can't do that can they unless the fibre is going to be a free install?

Or they provide you with a mobile router, and antenna if needed.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

CYaBro

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#2676603 18-Mar-2021 16:24

pih:
manaia36:

Just outside of Palmerston Otago. I would guess we're about 200 meters outside of the planned Fibre coverage if going on the chorus map. I would not want to even think of what a custom install would cost for fibre !

If you're interested, a few earlier posts in this thread have indicative costs. My quote for around 200-300m was $300k 😳

Can't recall if I posted in this thread about my fibre but I paid just under $14k to get connected and that's with fibre running right past our gate.
I'm rural about 20 mins inland from Oamaru.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

manaia36

28 posts

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#2676614 18-Mar-2021 17:11

Awesome you were able to get fibre in for that price that's great. I bet you're loving those speeds !The fibre here runs past the gate but on the OTHER side of the road. ( Main road ) Supposedly the town is getting Fibre around Sep 2021. Lucky buggers!

So may look into it further then. Spark on no uncertain terms will not do an NGA on application for residential. The lady muttered something about "Each house in your area would cost us 15,000$ to connect and we won't be doing that" Not sure how she knew that or why we were told that. Then went on to offer us a 160gb capped Wifi plan. Yeah no thanks!

In the meantime going to keep an eye on Starlink. I read on reddit someone in Dunedin got theirs shipped today. Real keen to see what speeds and performance kiwis get with the service. I know downtime is definitely to be expected since the service is very much in beta. looks real promising though. And doesn't seem bad for $159 per month . Currently unlimited data but who knows if it will get capped at a later date

CYaBro

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#2676616 18-Mar-2021 17:26

manaia36:

Awesome you were able to get fibre in for that price that's great. I bet you're loving those speeds !The fibre here runs past the gate but on the OTHER side of the road. ( Main road ) Supposedly the town is getting Fibre around Sep 2021. Lucky buggers!

So may look into it further then. Spark on no uncertain terms will not do an NGA on application for residential. The lady muttered something about "Each house in your area would cost us 15,000$ to connect and we won't be doing that" Not sure how she knew that or why we were told that. Then went on to offer us a 160gb capped Wifi plan. Yeah no thanks!

In the meantime going to keep an eye on Starlink. I read on reddit someone in Dunedin got theirs shipped today. Real keen to see what speeds and performance kiwis get with the service. I know downtime is definitely to be expected since the service is very much in beta. looks real promising though. And doesn't seem bad for $159 per month . Currently unlimited data but who knows if it will get capped at a later date

I got my fibre NGA through Full Flavour so if you haven't already you could get them to give an estimate for you.
To get a full build quote from Chorus I had to pay Full Flavour $115.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

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Trade NZ and US shares and funds with Sharesies (affiliate link).

Zander

75 posts

Master Geek

#2677159 19-Mar-2021 12:29

Was just looking at NZ Ground Stations. Currently there's a big gap between Christchurch and Auckland - a bit to my surprise. I'd have thought at least some ground stations around Wellington and maybe Nelson already.

Based on them having a station around every 1-degree latitude on their current stations, that means they need around 7 stations to fill in the gaps currently - probably a few more.

This could be a 'blocker' in getting Starlink to more of New Zealand sooner. Based on the current situation, coverage may jump up to Auckland before the rest of the country. Auckland at 37-degrees is 'just' about at the range covered by the USA Beta test. The Puwera station is significantly outside, but possibly a good location for internal testing right now.

Hopefully a half-dozen new ground stations will appear in the licensee database soon :)

Location Latitude
Awarua -46.4923
Cromwell -45.0459
Hinds -44.0021
Clevedon -36.9914
Te Hana -36.2556
Puwera -35.7962

https://rrf.rsm.govt.nz/smart-web/smart/page/-smart/domain/licence/SelectLicencePage.wdk - enter 'starlink' as licensee.

quickymart

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#2677165 19-Mar-2021 12:44

I think Starlink will be great for people in rural areas who can't get fibre or decent DSL. Having said that, I find it quite amusing the (uninformed?) people posting on any Herald article about Starlink and they think it will be better/faster/cheaper than fibre, and it will drive LFC's into the ground as everyone will migrate away from fibre (I wouldn't in a million years). Wait until uptake for Starlink really takes off and they may just be eating their words.

manaia36

28 posts

Geek

#2677190 19-Mar-2021 13:06

quickymart:

I think Starlink will be great for people in rural areas who can't get fibre or decent DSL. Having said that, I find it quite amusing the (uninformed?) people posting on any Herald article about Starlink and they think it will be better/faster/cheaper than fibre, and it will drive LFC's into the ground as everyone will migrate away from fibre (I wouldn't in a million years). Wait until uptake for Starlink really takes off and they may just be eating their words.

Yeah just need to look on reddit etc to see what users are experiencing. Alot of Downtime and speed issues and disconnects. Starlink is FAR from being stable this time and for $159 NZD a month + $799 for the hardware that definitely isn't cheaper than fibre. I've since cancelled my pre order for Starlink and got the $159 refund

pih

649 posts

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Lifetime subscriber

#2677191 19-Mar-2021 13:06

Zander:
This could be a 'blocker' in getting Starlink to more of New Zealand sooner. Based on the current situation, coverage may jump up to Auckland before the rest of the country. Auckland at 37-degrees is 'just' about at the range covered by the USA Beta test. The Puwera station is significantly outside, but possibly a good location for internal testing right now.

I don't think so. Having more base stations will help throughput and latency, but it's the satellite coverage that is the limiting factor. The satellites (I understand, but I'm open to being corrected here) work like a mesh network, so if there's no base station in sight it will still be able to connect clients via one or more hops through other nearby satellites. The more satellites, the more resilient the network and the more routing options it has: I'm guessing that ultimately you may be able to go direct from Dishy to Dishy around the world without touching a base station.

Zander

75 posts

Master Geek

#2677198 19-Mar-2021 13:17

pih:

I don't think so. Having more base stations will help throughput and latency, but it's the satellite coverage that is the limiting factor. The satellites (I understand, but I'm open to being corrected here) work like a mesh network, so if there's no base station in sight it will still be able to connect clients via one or more hops through other nearby satellites. The more satellites, the more resilient the network and the more routing options it has: I'm guessing that ultimately you may be able to go direct from Dishy to Dishy around the world without touching a base station.

Currently Starlinks do not have laser-links so they can only 'bounce' signal from Dishy-to-Starlink-to-Ground and back. To work, a Starlink satellite needs to have both the Dishy and Ground Station in view - which is typically up to 100-to-150-miles or less. Its possible it could stretch further, but that's the kind of spacing the Ground Stations are at in the USA (I just measured on Google Maps).

Yes, on top of that, more ground stations helps handle more bandwidth and customer density etc.

The USA beta has been available down to 36.9-degrees north - which is equivalent to Auckland in the southern hemisphere. You can see the starlink coverage on this map. Turn 'rings' on in settings to get a very rough idea of coverage - https://satellitemap.space/

PS - actually a few Starlinks do have lasers, but they are in a different polar orbit, intended to transmit from the Arctic / Antarctic over laser links etc. Future versions of the Starlink satellites will eventually have laser links too.

quickymart

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#2677212 19-Mar-2021 13:46

manaia36:

quickymart:

I think Starlink will be great for people in rural areas who can't get fibre or decent DSL. Having said that, I find it quite amusing the (uninformed?) people posting on any Herald article about Starlink and they think it will be better/faster/cheaper than fibre, and it will drive LFC's into the ground as everyone will migrate away from fibre (I wouldn't in a million years). Wait until uptake for Starlink really takes off and they may just be eating their words.

Yeah just need to look on reddit etc to see what users are experiencing. Alot of Downtime and speed issues and disconnects. Starlink is FAR from being stable this time and for $159 NZD a month + $799 for the hardware that definitely isn't cheaper than fibre. I've since cancelled my pre order for Starlink and got the $159 refund

Maybe in a year or so when they've ironed out the bugs? I imagine WISPS and the RBI etc might start panicking a bit by that point. But until then I don't think they'll exactly be shaking in their shoes.

acjh58

43 posts

Geek

#2677233 19-Mar-2021 14:40

Is Starlink a retail ISP service? If so, I assume it will have a NZ specific presence and be governed by things like the new filtering rules/proposals? Are they talking to ComCom re spectrum & interference issues with other users?

I had a look at O3b a couple of years ago and can see how complicated it might be to set the Starlink service up - particularly spanning national and international regulatory regimes (not to mention how they might manage China).

Alan

Zander

75 posts

Master Geek

#2677238 19-Mar-2021 14:45

acjh58:

Is Starlink a retail ISP service? If so, I assume it will have a NZ specific presence and be governed by things like the new filtering rules/proposals? Are they talking to ComCom re spectrum & interference issues with other users?

I had a look at O3b a couple of years ago and can see how complicated it might be to set the Starlink service up - particularly spanning national and international regulatory regimes (not to mention how they might manage China).

Alan

It is retail, but you buy it direct from starlink.com. The ground stations are in NZ, so the traffic is still under NZ control. I imagine that will stay the case, even with eventual laser links. They have valid radio license and ground station licenses so its all been done above board. Even charging in NZD and including GST.

Main 'downside' for NZ is the cash goes pretty much straight off-shore to the USA, whereas local telcos would recycle the cash back into the NZ economy.

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