Starlink Internet

[Paul Reading]

Yes there are loads of Starlink's fitted to boats but most of those were fitted and signed up to the RV contract which was in fact quite reasonable. The $250 contract will have very limited appeal. Lets face it most of the time we are near shore. If you cross the Atlantic you are at sea for 2-3 weeks, if you are crossing the Pacific you are at sea for 4+ weeks but then you are in costal waters again.

In the US you can sign up to a costal contract but in Europe some borders are very short so passing from one country to another happens a lot. I would love starlink but it does not make financial sense when I can buy 140GB DATA SIM for about $20.

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by Paul Reading

Yes there are loads of Starlink's fitted to boats but most of those were fitted and signed up to the RV contract which was in fact quite reasonable. The $250 contract will have very limited appeal. Lets face it most of the time we are near shore. If you cross the Atlantic you are at sea for 2-3 weeks, if you are crossing the Pacific you are at sea for 4+ weeks but then you are in costal waters again.

In the US you can sign up to a costal contract but in Europe some borders are very short so passing from one country to another happens a lot. I would love starlink but it does not make financial sense when I can buy 140GB DATA SIM for about $20.

The regional plan is regional not country specific. The $150 regional plan in Europe covers the entirety of Europe and provides unlimited coastal usage and you can opt in for $2/GB when offshore.

The $250 contract will have very limited appeal.

So ... don't use the $250 plan. It is pretty much a turd everywhere in the world under most usage scenarios. Still if LTE is cheaper and you never need LTE coverage and never need any offshore data then you should probably use LTE. The same is true in the US too.

[Jon Hacking]

Originally Posted by Ween

Thanks, but I'm worried the language about the other dish not being supported for mobile priority (ocean) will come around to bite me later.

not that I'm happy with the power consumption.

Ween, all cruisers are a bit concerned that the Terms of Service (ToS) say that the normal Dishy isn't supposed to be used "in-motion". And Starlink defines ANY use on a boat as "in-motion" even if you're just at a marina.

This is an area of the ToS that Starlink has chosen not to enforce, except to say that your Dishy is no longer under warrantee. MANY boats use the normal Dishy with no problems.

And yes, Dishy draws about 50W, or ~4A@12v, while the HP antenna draws about twice that much, & that's an issue for most cruising boats. FWIW, we've just invested in the normal Dishy, & will be putting it on our boat when we get back to it.

[jordanbigel]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

And Starlink defines ANY use on a boat as "in-motion" even if you're just at a marina.

I've heard of several boats using the standard dish in motion getting emails from SL complaining that they are using them in-motion.

I dont know any boats who have not used them in-motion who got that email, including me (so far, except once in February, I always turn off my SL when I am in motion).

Can you link to some official SL document/TOS which says use on a boat counts as in-motion, even if you are not, you know, in motion?

Thanks.

[Jon Hacking]

I can't, Jordan. It was from a support email over on the Starlink on Boats FB group, probably a month or so ago. Someone published a photo of the response they got back from Support, & this was their policy.

So perhaps I should say that this is Starlink SUPPORT that takes this view, but I assume they're doing so at the direction of Starlink policy makers.

[CarlF]

If you have a 5G cell signal then getting Starlink is a waste of money. Starlink would be foolish to try to compete because 5G will continue to drop in price and is a competitive commodity market.

Starlink is trying to own the market where there isn't 5G - and doing a pretty good job.

$2/GB for high speed offshore internet is an astonishinly cheap price compared to the alternatives. Hardly anyone seems bottered by the price. One Starlink dealer said he was installing 6-8 of the $5000/month systems on yachts and commercial ships - PER DAY.

Any boat/ship over 50ft will find the $2/GB easy to budget and a tiny percentage of their costs.

I continue to be amazed - and happy - that Starlink gave us the toggle to turn on an off priority data. No cell phone company would have done that.

[CarlF]

For "in-motion" - Emails don't matter. The TOS doesn't matter. Nor what support "says". Every company has polcies that they don't enforce to the letter. (look at an Apple TOS for a phone)

It's real when Starlink turns off your service for being "in-motion" AND tell you that's the reason.

They do this now if they interupt service because you are offshore and need priority data. Stands to reason they will tell you if they interupt service because you are in-motion.

I've seen no reports of that happening.

If you call the police and ask if it's OK to drive 5mph faster than the posted speed limit - what are they going to say?

[Statistical]

Originally Posted by CarlF

For "in-motion" - Emails don't matter. The TOS doesn't matter. Nor what support "says". Every company has polcies that they don't enforce to the letter. (look at an Apple TOS for a phone)

It's real when Starlink turns off your service for being "in-motion" AND tell you that's the reason.

They do this now if they interupt service because you are offshore and need priority data. Stands to reason they will tell you if they interupt service because you are in-motion.

I've seen no reports of that happening.

If you call the police and ask if it's OK to drive 5mph faster than the posted speed limit - what are they going to say?

This. Exactly. Also customer support reps are usually uninformed and underpaid. They have said all kind of nonsense. The only people get official alert in the app that their service is blocked for motion have been going 15+ mph (or so they claim) and service instantly returned once speed dropped.

Could SpaceX filter any speed even low speed drift? Sure and they would get tons of customer complaints about being blocked while stationary (i.e. a parked RV) because GPS especially at low speed is not that accurate. Rarely does gps show a speed of 0.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 mph when stationary. It shows some random noise false motion.

Of course people want to make things confusing with hypotheticals and somedays and whatnots.

[Sos]

If you have $2/GB when offshore, how long would that last if you were just getting weather a couple of times a day for say a crossing of the Atlantic?

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Sos

If you have $2/GB when offshore, how long would that last if you were just getting weather a couple of times a day for say a crossing of the Atlantic?

We used 1gb/ week
Checked weather messages over several sites and email several times a day.

Doesn't matter where the crossing is, black is black.

[Sos]

Originally Posted by Simi 60

We used 1gb/ week
Checked weather messages over several sites and email several times a day.

Doesn't matter where the crossing is, black is black.

So less than $10 when crossing the Atlantic - that is cheap communications

[Jon Hacking]

Yes it is. Talking to others, the tricky part is keeping your connected devices from updating, or from trying to store stuff in the cloud, or all the other ways to use bandwidth that we don't normally see when connected to sources that offer unlimited up/downloads.

[bstreep]

I’ll say it once again: on a 5 day crossing, we didn’t change our habits. 3 people, 6 devices. 26GB. $52. We made phone calls, browsed iPads, etc. Cheap.

[Simi 60]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

Yes it is. Talking to others, the tricky part is keeping your connected devices from updating, or from trying to store stuff in the cloud, or all the other ways to use bandwidth that we don't normally see when connected to sources that offer unlimited up/downloads.

Android - sorted.

[fxykty]

Originally Posted by Jon Hacking

Yes it is. Talking to others, the tricky part is keeping your connected devices from updating, or from trying to store stuff in the cloud, or all the other ways to use bandwidth that we don't normally see when connected to sources that offer unlimited up/downloads.

Got to your network settings and turn on “low data mode”, or whatever your OS calls it.

As for cost, one should also include the monthly cost of the service plan in addition to cost of the opt-in Mobile Priority data. Still cheaper than turning on the Iridium GO.