SpaceX Is Now Taking Requests For Starlink Beta Testers

Pikoro shares a report from Futurism: With over 500 Starlink broadband-beaming satellites already in orbit, SpaceX is looking to move ahead with rolling out its internet service. The Elon Musk-led company is now seeking beta users to test it out. The service's website now invites users to apply to become early adopters of the service. "Get updates on Starlink news and service availability in your area," it reads. Once signed up, users get an email: "Starlink is designed to deliver high-speed broadband internet to locations where access has been unreliable, expensive, or completely unavailable. Private beta testing is expected to begin later this summer, followed by public beta testing, starting with higher latitudes."

you are happy when you realise that

[mister.woody]

we can still watch porn while going for a hike

Re:

[Kokuyo]

If you carry a power source and the network equipment necessary then yes.

Or did you think starlink was transmitting wifi signals?

Re:

[Bearhouse]

Indeed. "pizza box" receiver, maybe $300 then $80-100 per month sub.

"The system is expected to use a dish to connect. This, Musk explained in January, would use an object that âoelooks like a thin, flat, round UFO on a stick.â This stick is also fitted with âoemotors to self-adjust optimal angle to view sky.â

https://www.reviews.org/intern... [reviews.org]

https://www.inverse.com/innova... [inverse.com]

Re:you are happy when you realise that

[Rei]

To be specific, your article's argument is:

How much will Starlink internet cost?
We mentioned earlier that Musk previously said the cost of user terminals will be $100–$300—and we have reason to believe Starlink satellite internet will cost somewhere around $80 a month.11, 4

How’d we get those numbers? The $100–$300 cost for the user terminal comes from a speech Musk gave back in 2015, and the $80 per month cost comes from a comment SpaceX president Shotwell made during a CNN interview: “Is anybody paying less than 80 bucks a month for crappy service? Nope. That’s why we’re gonna be successful.”2

To compare, a satellite internet plan from Viasat ranges from $30 to $150 a month for download speeds of 12 Mbps up to 100 Mbps, and HughesNet plans range from about $60 to $150 a month for download speeds of 25 Mbps.

So probably "$100-300" for a terminal, and "under $80" per month - although it's not clear under by how much, and this is fairly old info (the average US broadband package is $60/mo after any promotional periods). Exact bandwidth, monthly limits, etc are yet to be seen (although they apparently demonstrated 600 Mbps for the Air Force).

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[Rei]

ED: The terminal pricing info is fairly old; Shotwell's comments aren't.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

How good value that is depends on if there are any usage limits/fair use policy, how bad the latency and contention is, and how reliable it is.

Also where am I supposed to put this dish? Needs to be somewhere I can get power to it, get ethernet out of it and where it can see the sky, not ideal for a house or flat.

Re:

[swillden]

How good value that is depends on if there are any usage limits/fair use policy, how bad the latency and contention is, and how reliable it is.

Also where am I supposed to put this dish? Needs to be somewhere I can get power to it, get ethernet out of it and where it can see the sky, not ideal for a house or flat.

Seems fine for a house. Put it on the roof. Power is typically available in the attic, and it's generally pretty easy to drop Ethernet through walls... or you could just put Wifi APs up there.

Re:

[Dunbal]

Since this is primarily directed at rural users, "where to put the antenna" is not expected to be a problem. There's no shortage of land out in the boonies and no town council to forbid you from putting satellite dishes on your property.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Yeah, looks like it probably won't help create competition. Most of the people signing up won't be worth competing for or will be in areas that are oversubscribed.

Re:

[WillRobinson]

I have two locations out in the country which I use two different companies providing internet via PTMP. One location I get 50/5 for 65$ a month, it is about 45 miles from Dallas, and 1/2 mile from tower, costs 70$ a month.

The second is about 45 miles from Austin, there I get 25/5 and have a public IP for vpn. There it is 15 miles from the tower, It cost 117$ a month .

Neither location has any option other than PTMP. Pings are good, usually 8~12 ms at both locations using speedtest, and both locations are n

Re:

[adonoman]

Yeah - I have a couple of acres in the boonies. I have a 50' TV antenna tower beside my place. Right now it also has a directional 4G booster up there. When this thing become available, I'm so jumping on that bandwagon if it lives up to half the hype.

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

I was unaware that most houses didn't have roofs, many of which also feature metal pipes that are part of the plumbing system to allow airflow so drains work properly, and are very convenient for mounting low-mass objects to, such as antennas.

Re:

[Rhipf]

POE of something similar is all that is needed to power the dish so there would only need to be one cable (i.e. you won't be limited by the location of your power source). There will also be several thousand satellites (eventually) so almost any location that can see the sky should do. This isn't intended for city users (or any densely populated areas) so if you are in a rural area and cannot see the sky I think you may have bigger problems than getting Internet access.

Re:

[Miamicanes]

You don't even NEED "proper" PoE for this, as long as 100mbps ethernet will do. Just wire the cat5 cable with a power injector (basically, using two pairs for ethernet, and the remaining two pairs to directly carry ground and 12-48v).

Incidentally, if you ever find yourself in a pinch and can't run proper wiring, know this: gigabit switches can hide a LOT of wiring sins. Back when I bought my house, I needed to get 100mbps ethernet working quickly, and I didn't want to run cable along the baseboards until I

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[DontBeAMoran]

Or did you think starlink was transmitting wifi signals?

Nobody could be that stupid. But not everyone knows they plan on hanging two dozen ethernet cables from each satellite.

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[earl pottinger]

Pleas e do not read the websites Darwin Awards, Sucky Customers or Not Always Right if you want hang onto that belief. There are plenty of complains of people traveling and then complaining they can;t connect to their WiFi at home.

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[DontBeAMoran]

Wow really? I knew people were stupid, but not that stupid. I guess technology really is "magic" to most people.

Re: I have symmetrical gigabit fiber

[gsdfa]

Is it a really long fiber?

Re:

[MachineShedFred]

Thanks for this very useful information. You know there are roughly 7 billion people that aren't you on this planet, right?

Also for outside USA?

[xonen]

Can also sign up for newsletter if you're outside the USA with foreign country and zip code. They mention higher latitudes, not any other geographical restriction in general. That's very promising.

If they make that true on the beta test chances are they plan to roll out globally. Last i heard was they wanted to focus on USA only initially. Its interesting developments.

Re:Also for outside USA?

[AmiMoJo]

That's all you can do for now though, sign up to be spammed. The summary is over-selling it, you aren't on some kind of waiting list or applying to be a beta tester at all.

I gave them a disposable email address anyway. I'll give it a go when it arrives, stuck on a crappy 70/20 connection here with gigabit several years away at best.

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[timeOday]

stuck on a crappy 70/20 connection here with gigabit several years away at best.

I wonder if Starlink will hasten fiber to remote locations by creating competition, or prevent fiber by sating the demand well enough despite not being as good.

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[AmiMoJo]

I'm not even in a remote location, this is a high population density city.

There are basically only two options for last-mile here, OpenReach (phone lines) and Virgin Media (cable). OpenReach don't seem to give a shit and even where they offer fibre it's laughably slow and expensive. Virgin Media do offer better download speeds but what I really need is upload. The best they offer is only 35mb and their service is awful.

There are a few startups trying to offer fibre but not here and it's also really slow due

Re:

[Dunbal]

I remember reading somewhere that Starlink will not work particularly well in high density areas because they're rather limited in terms of number of connections per cell.

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[sconeu]

I'd be upset with 35 millibits per second as well.

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[MachineShedFred]

I'd be thrilled if even the threat of it got the local telco moving on expanding their fiber service. Right now my only options are Spectrum whom I loathe, shitty 1.5Mbps DSL that is not even an option due to working remote and needed to video conference, and LTE with all the capping and bullshit that the wireless providers mix into that "solution".'

A genuine second option would sure be nice. It might even cause Spectrum to become less shitty due to having to maybe care a bit. But probably not.

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[StormReaver]

The summary is over-selling it, you aren't on some kind of waiting list or applying to be a beta tester at all.

I just got the reply email from Starlink, and it's ALMOST a beta-testing list. The email says, "If you provided us with your zip code, you will be notified via email if beta testing opportunities become available in your area." So yes, slightly oversold. However, the email address will be used for beta testing availability notification, so the article was in the ballpark.

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[Dunbal]

It's not spam if you requested it.

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[AmiMoJo]

I requested to be notified about availability of Starlink to myself. Let's see if they use it for anything else.

I kinda hope they do actually, I've started enjoying sending GDPR complaints. My little bit to make the world a better place.

Re:

[Bearhouse]

Yes, selection of non-USA countries available; does not validate the zip code, just free text entry.

Re:

[lessSockMorePuppet]

Will it work in the CHAZ?

Re:

[Dunbal]

Sure but don't complain when your stuff gets stolen. You could call the cops but... oh wait

Re:

[Dunbal]

I've had stuff returned before. Sure the cops don't go looking for your things, but if/when they happen to bust the guy somewhere down the road and he has a house full of stolen stuff he hasn't fenced yet, it gets returned.

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[tlhIngan]

Probably USA only. Otherwise they'd have people who are just going to use to get a US IP address to bypass all the geoblocks without needing a VPN.

A US based IP from anywhere in the world!

I'm All Guinnea Pigged Up.

[zenlessyank]

Just awaiting for confirmation email that I don't qualify.

Navajo Nation Testing

[Thelasko]

Twitter [twitter.com] seems to indicate the Navajo Nation will be among the beta testers. They are some of the least connected [npr.org] population in the US.

How will weather impact service?

[TomGreenhaw]

I've heard from friends that their satellite TV cuts out during bad weather. I wonder if this technology will have the same issue. If so, its really only great for rural use where there is no other viable option. If it works reliably through bad weather - sign me up - I welcome our new space based Internet overlords.

Of course

[DontBeAMoran]

Private beta testing is expected to begin later this summer, followed by public beta testing, starting with higher latitudes.

As usual, Santa is getting everything first.

Backup internet service

[Miamicanes]

I really hope that once production of Starlink hardware ramps up & economies of scale start to kick in, they sell the hardware "at cost" & without commitments, and allow (not necessarily cheap) adhoc short-term use. That way, people in hurricane-prone areas (Florida, Gulf, and Atlantic coast, etc) could buy one & stash it away, then pull out a credit card & activate it the moment cable/vdsl/cellular goes out.

Starlink could subsidize the terminals by getting the FCC to set aside a few pairs of frequencies (possibly shared with wifi) for use by LTE microcells & mandating that future phones include them as supported bands, then build microcell capability into the Starlink hardware. In return for a discount on the hardware purchase, users would agree to eat the (minor) electricity cost (data used by it doesn't count against them, and their own data would have the highest priority above the minimum necessary to sustain a connection for LTE users), and Starlink would allow carriers to pay them to provide transparent LTE connectivity to their customers (and for customers of other carriers to pay them directly for roaming).

The big advantage to carriers is that they'd quickly get a semi-working cellular network after a storm, without the "boots on the ground" cost of maintaining generators, etc. Kind of an Uber-like temporary cellular network, set up & maintained by an unpaid army of Starlink customers.

Add in businesses using Starlink for backup connectivity (and providing cellular service to people shopping there), and that could itself become a major profit center for Starlink. After a hurricane, the Starlink trucks would roll into town selling starter kits for $250. If you bought one, they might also sell you a 1800/2200 watt inverter generator, or a 3600/4200 watt conventional one, for $300-400... 5-gal gas cans for $20 apiece... pre-charged deep-cycle batteries for $120... you get the idea. Hell, some people would buy a Starlink kit JUST to buy the generator, if they're desperate.

It would also be handy for camping trips in remote areas, internet connectivity near Cape Canaveral on launch days (when the local cellular network collapses, like it always does), etc.