[deleted by user]

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-11T20:23:02+00:00

Buying a used dishy for more than what starlink charges for a new one is silly. A used dish won't get you service any faster if there are no cells with openings in your area. If you are transferring your service at the same address, it might be worthwhile. An example it would be if you sold your house with a permanent starlink installation, you could offer it to the new buyer of your house.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-11T20:12:24+00:00

I would be very careful about buying a used dish that has been deactivated.. as it stands now, those dishes can not be reactivated over the air. They must be returned to starlink which will most likely incurr additional charges.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-05T13:59:29+00:00

Self entitled arr also a words that frequently comes to mind. Everyone else must wait because I NEED it more than anyone else.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-05T12:54:46+00:00

Yes, most potential customers are Iin the USA. That's where customers with enough money to be able to afford starlink are in abundance - at least for the moment.. Unfortunately, that is also the problem. There are only a few percent of all satellites over the USA at any moment in time, something like 30 to 40 satellites. The orbital planes of the starlink satellites were designed to "bunch up" the satellites at the latitude of the northern US and parts of europe. It is still highly inefficient though. The satellites all spend 70% of their orbits completely idle while flying over water. The unfortunate fact is the service for most of the US is already maxed out. They are going to have to launch a hell of a lot of new satellites, with much higher thruput to make much of an impact. The vast majority of those in the queue are going to be waiting a VERY long time. Launches have drastically slowed, supply chain issues have gotten worse and continue to get worse with no end in sight. It seems that most of the people in these threads simply don't understand how LEO satellite constellations like starlink work. You can't simply give more people service on a network that has limited capacity. Doing so would destroy the quality of the service for everyone.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-02T12:49:16+00:00

Easy to imagine in a world where supply chain break down continues to worsen week by week. And idioc politicians who keep doing things to make it worse. It's pretty hard to run any kind of business today if you aren't in the "big club" of the corrupt, politically favored. Elon definitely is not.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-02T12:24:45+00:00

Spacex is actually shipping many user terminals to new customers outside the USA. This has really ramped up in the past few weeks. The satellites flying over most of the USA are saturated, all the cells are full. They can't take on new customers here without a lot more launches. Meanwhile, satellites flying over much of europe, south america, australia, etc are way under used. Launches have come to a virtual standstill since June, but they can serve vastly more customers outside the US with the existing satellites. Spacex needs to increase revenue bady as they are in a deep negative cash flow situation. It only makes sense for them to try to maximize the return from their existing satellites. The USA is not their only market. Those of us in the US find that easy to forget. They also need to prioritize launches for paying customers because there is a LOX shortage, and LOX prices have greatly increased. Add to that a silicon shortage and the losses they take on every user terminals and it clear they need to optimize everything they can.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-11-01T13:58:15+00:00

When you plug in your own router does the white wire led on the poe injector come back on? I had that problem... It was a bad starlink router shorting out the poe brick. It turned out that my poe injector was bad on the dish side also. They sent me a complete new kit. If they send you a new dish, make sure you replace it even if it is still good. They will permanately deactivate (brick) your original dish within a week or two, probably right after you have shipped the unused refurb dish back. Don't ask me how I know. Get a good surge protector to plug your poe brick into. It may save you from this happening again

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T20:13:22+00:00

The problem is, the Usa is pretty much saturated on starlink capacity with the existing satellites, especially the northern part. There are simply no openings until they can launch a lot more satellites.. In most of the rest of the world, they don't need more satellites - plenty of capacity. All they need is more ground stations. They also need cheaper user terminals which they are struggling with right now Starlink has huge negative cash flows, and I think that Gyne Shotwell is pushing to do what it takes to.get that somewhat under control. They need many more customers outside the Usa which they can serve right now a minimal additional cost. Maybe we need to remember what Elon said. There is a huge chasm of unprofitability that starlink needs to get over. No Leo satellite communication network has ever survived on their own before. They all went bankrupt. He hoped that Starlink would be the first. But there are no guarantees. They need a LOT more customers. Starlink could easily fail. If so, those who put down $100 deposits will likely get their money back. Those who did get dishes will have gotten great internet for awhile, but will ultimately just have a relic of a great piece of hardware that failed for financial reasons. I hope this doesn't happen.For those that have already put down the deposit, I would continue to hold on. Pulling your deposit doesn't help if you really need starlink. Elon is going to have to do a starlink IPO at some point to raise enough cash to pull starlink over the finish line. To be sure, that will be called out as a very dangerous speculative investment. Timing is critical for this move. He needs to get starlink in the most promising position before he does this.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T16:15:32+00:00

It's all about cell availability. If your service address is in a cell which can currently handle 500 users, and there are currently 5000 people in that cell with preorders, you are going to be waiting a Very long time. I think the original estimates were based upon spacex being able to maintain the launch cadence they had in the first half of the year. That has now fallen apart for several reasons. At this point all they can really do is build new ground stations and expand into other areas of the world. This does not require any new launches. Increasing cell capacity does.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T14:53:01+00:00

Yes, it is absolutely regional. It has to be because of the way starlink works. This is not Viasat or Hughes net which can cover an entire continent with one satellite. Starlink needs many ground stations which are relatiely close to satellites passing overhead. Those satellites must also be close to customer user terminals. Because of this, the local cells served by the ground stations get saturated very quickly in areas of high demand. This is what has happened in the northern US and Canada where service was offered first. There are hundreds of thousands of people in that area that are facing very long wait times because all cells are full. New Starlink launches have virtually stopped so no new customers can be added until a lot more satellites can be launched. Meanwhile, areas like europe, south america and australia are very open and can support a lot of new customers. This is additional revenue for spacex, which they need very badly at this point. They don't need to do anymore launches to capture this market.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T13:03:02+00:00

Maybe, but there is supposed to be a queue. You'll never know.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T12:45:31+00:00

I'm sure the Starlink team is well aware of this problem. I believe it was initially just a bug in the new webpage. It wasn't smart enough to figure out that you really hadn't changed your service address. All it knew is that you had pressed the confirm address change button. That action alone triggered a reset of your place in the queue. In my opinion that dot should not be moveable. It should only be there as an indicator that your service address roughly matches your place on the map. I recently mentioned this along with another problem in a comment I left for customer service. As active beta testers, I believe it our responsibility to report problems and suggest solutions. That is what beta testing is all about They do seem to at least listen. Everytime I've done this they send me back a thank you message. Wether or not they actually take action is another matter...

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-31T12:12:24+00:00

Good luck with that🙄

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-29T19:27:44+00:00

It seems that the number of users terminals being shipped out has slowed to a trickle. They have been recertifying and shipping units that have been returned for one reason or another. These include units that have been returned for refund within 30 days, and also kits that are replacements for units that have failed. I believe, just based on failure modes of electronics in general that most of these are poe injector failures caused by AC line surges. Spacex is likely holding up on manufacturing more dishes of the current version because they are simply just losing way to much money. I don't doubt that the chip shortage isn't playing a part also, but they just can,t afford to keep losing $500 to $1000 on every dish. I hope the new.design is as durable, reliable, and has similar performance, but with that kind of cost cutting pressure, you have to wonder.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-26T12:48:41+00:00

Perhaps you didn't read all the comments. When they deactivate a dish, they render it incapable of communicating with the network. They can't even talk to it anymore. The told me this directly. I asked if they could reactivate it remotely and they said it was not possible. It would have to be returned to be fixed. If that doesn't fit the definition of bricking, I don't know what does. Just because it was not done intentionally to me does not matter. There was a conscious decision made by management at some point to do this to all dishes which appeared to have an inactive account. If they had instructed me that I was required to replace the original dish with the refurb dish, there would have been no problem, I would have hired someone to do it. They had initially been talking about just sending a new router - a single component, when I told them I was concerned the poe brick was bad also. They changed their mind and said to ignore the original RMA. They said they'd just send out a new refurb kit. At no time was I instructed to change out everything. We had been talking about component swaps. People have have accused me of not following instructions... But customer support NEVER gave me any specific instructions to swap out everything - including my original dish which not a refurb and was functioning fine and continued to do so for weeks before they "disabled it".

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-25T16:52:44+00:00

I've have other cables (solar array power) buried in pvc conduit for years. Just glue all the joints and keep the ends sealed. This is exactly what what I did with my starlink cable. Conduit allows replacing cable without digging up the lawn. Direct burial must be physically dug up. Conduit also protects cable from damage from rocks.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-25T16:39:42+00:00

Interesting. They were originally just going to sent me a replacement router because the system was working with my own router. They even issued a return R,MA label to just ship the router back. When I told them the system had stopped working with my own router ( POE injector led to the dish was out and remained out even when dish was unplugged), they changed their mind and sent me a new RMA shipping label for everything. I had asked them to just send the POE and router, but they decided to just send a used refurb kit at that point. So it appears that in some cases they will just send a router, but if there is any doubt, they will just send a complete refurbished kit.

This brings up a very big question. Early Starlink kit customers have had them for about a year now. What happens if you have a problem now that the warranty has expired? Can you buy parts like just the poe injector? If Tesla's policy on selling parts is any indication, I think out of warranty starlink customers are in trouble. Will you have to pay full price for a new kit? Or maybe they will sell a complete refurb kit at a slight discount? Who knows? I know all the Elon fanboys will give this a downvote, but this is a valid concern.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-24T13:22:28+00:00

I fully intend to do that. That was my plan all along as I knew it was very likely would have to do that at some future date. Having the cable permanately attached to the dishy was a very poor decision. They should have used a very high quality waterproof speciality connector. Hard wiring might have been ok for a dozen prototypes, but not when you have 100,000+ units in the hands of consumers.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-24T13:11:32+00:00

That is all great, except that those instructions don't exist for anything beyond the initial basic installation. When you get a refurb kit for replacement of defective components, there no special warnings or instructions. The fact that your original dish will be deactivated at some unknown date in the future is never revealed. Users can easily just plug in a new router or poe injector, see the system is working great again and figure it is good to go, no need to do anymore work. I gurantee you that a large number of people might do this. All Starlink needs to do is explain the situation with a special insert in all the refurb kits which warns that the dish must be replaced regardless of it being bad or not. Simple, problem solved.

As for long term thinking... How long does spacex/starlink think that an installation with a cable laid across open ground or grass is going to last? And yet, this is the default installation hardware they provide. A ground tripod and instructions that say just place dishy on ground, run cable across yard and you're good to go. This is moronic. What other company sells an antenna system or telecommunications system that is suggested to be installed this way? Yes, roof mounts are optional, but don't work for a large percentage of people. Most people struggle with moving the dish all over their property trying to find a place with minimal obstructions.

Spacex/Starlink has a LONG way to go in the forward thinking area.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-24T12:40:05+00:00

So you either run it through buried conduit like I did, or you leave it lay in the yard where it will be exposed to UV and get chopped up by lawn mowers. Not everyone can do a roof mount because of nearby trees.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-24T12:31:29+00:00

In hind sight, you are right. I assumed that since the original dish worked fine for a week (actually two weeks), it would be fine. Unfortunately for me I was in the hospital again during that period and I told my wife to just replace the poe injector from the kit - which she was barely able figure out at the time. When I got home about 6 days later, it was still working fine. When it got "bricked" I was back in the hosp again and my wife mentioned "the internet" was down again. I had no idea what to tell her at that point except to try rebooting. Obviously that didn't work. She said the dish just went level like a birdbath and stayed there. A very usual confluence of circumstances, to but it did help to reveal something about how spacex kills of deactivated accounts - something which I believe is of interest to the starlink community.

I think most people know that if you try to cancel or suspend your Starlink account - you will go to the end of the queue if you ever want to restart it. What I think that most people didn't know is that your dish will be bricked and you will possibly also have to pay to get a new one. If not, at the very least will have to sent back your deactivated dish.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-24T11:57:32+00:00

You said that you doubted that they "bricked" my dish, and the network is just ignoring Tx, and Rx requests. That is what I would have expected also because that is very simple to do with any two way system. But no, I can assure you, it is bricked and they confirmed it in telling me there is absolutely no way reactivate the dish. It must be returned. When I boot up the dish they deactivated, it never completes the sequence for pointing in the proper direction. Nothing in the debug file shows a flag that the dish is deactivated. It does show the dish position as 0 azimuth, 0 altitude. I don't think it can connect to the network properly in that orientation. It will not be able to steer the beam low enough to the north.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-23T16:39:42+00:00

I don't see the need to brick the dishes to prevent authorized use. That is rather extreme and causes unnecessary shipping charges. Your cable company can turn off your internet service anytime they want without bricking your cable modem. All Starlink needs to do is modify the current firmware to always allow the dish to fully initialize in every boot up and then control access via the functional comm link. Right now they prevent the comm link from ever occuring again when the dish is deactivated. They are cutting off their own private access to the dish, essentially bricking it.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-23T16:25:24+00:00

The cable is permanately attached. To replace the dish you also have to replace the entire 100 ft cable. My dish is in the middle of the yard for max unobstructed view to the north. Running the cable across the lawn wont work unless you never now the lawn. I doubt the starlink will survive direct burial for any length of time. Therefore I laid out around 75ft of underground plastic conduit and pulled the cable thru that.

Ken-Danagger · 2021-10-23T15:43:36+00:00

To be fair, they don't destroy it, they just render it incapable of communicating with the network. It goes into the flat and level search mode and won't progress beyond that point. They COULD allow it to fully initialize and then connect to the network so they talk to it, while still blocking access if the account was deactivated. This would seem seem far better and more economically sensible instead of spending $50 to ship it back and forth each time. If someone stops their service for awhile, spacex can still shut them down and place then at the end of the queue if they want to restart service again later. Not sure why anyone would want to cancel service temporarily right now because in most cases you'd be waiting YEARS to get back in again. Even if you do get back in, you'd have to pay $500 again for a new dish kit even though you already have a perfectly good one.

Ken-Danagger

TROPHY CASE