Starlink RV is now Starlink Roam

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that is not good use for boaters.
 
And I just ordered Starlink RV ! Arrived 3 weeks ago, works perfect, but when I signed up the price was slightly different.
Hope that the geo fencing will not work. We are close to the shore each night, but if they would be accurate within 10 meters they could figure out I am actually lying in the water. In that case Starlink will be sold again.
 
Changing the name from RV to Roam actually suggests off land use as well as land. The word land is used to define the roam area, such as North America for Canada, USA and Mexico. The word vessel & boats is still used in terms of service.
 
SteveK said:
Changing the name from RV to Roam actually suggests off land use as well as land. The word land is used to define the roam area, such as North America for Canada, USA and Mexico. The word vessel & boats is still used in terms of service.
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Except they said they are geofencing it to land only.
 
They still have starlink maritime. Lil’ more, at $5000/mo.
 

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It sounds like there gearing up for the maritime industry. Tankers, cargo ships and alike.

The little guy like me is going to left out. I was thinking when my wife retires going with Starlink. Now at 5K a month, no way! If they enforce the land use only policy. They will loose a small market that may make them charge their minds.

For what its worth, I was thinking of trying T-Mobile's home internet for the boat this May. No equipment cost, no contract and you can open it up and attach a external antenna. Yes, its cellular so it has it limitations. At $40 per month being phone customer sounds inviting. Beats 5K a month and no data restrictions.

The antenna will only cost me $400 and if it does work out I could use it for my Peplink.

For the next few years I just want to stay coastal. When my wife retires, than we will see whats out there for internet service.
 
Iggy said:
It sounds like there gearing up for the maritime industry. Tankers, cargo ships and alike.

The little guy like me is going to left out. I was thinking when my wife retires going with Starlink. Now at 5K a month, no way! If they enforce the land use only policy. They will loose a small market that may make them charge their minds.

For what its worth, I was thinking of trying T-Mobile's home internet for the boat this May. No equipment cost, no contract and you can open it up and attach a external antenna. Yes, its cellular so it has it limitations. At $40 per month being phone customer sounds inviting. Beats 5K a month and no data restrictions.

The antenna will only cost me $400 and if it does work out I could use it for my Peplink.

For the next few years I just want to stay coastal. When my wife retires, than we will see whats out there for internet service.
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My biggest concern with the T-mobile home internet is that you have to use their router device with that service, you can't put the SIM card in anything else. And that router doesn't support external antennas from what I know.
 
The biggest quandary for those of us still on the sidelines isn't what it is now. And not what it was. Its the open question of what it all becomes, and no one can have that answer.
 
rslifkin said:
My biggest concern with the T-mobile home internet is that you have to use their router device with that service, you can't put the SIM card in anything else. And that router doesn't support external antennas from what I know.
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There are You Tube videos on installing external antennas. https://www.waveform.com/a/b/guides/hotspots/t-mobile-5g-gateway-arcadyan

If you don't want to use there router. You just turn off WiFi and use a ethernet cable to the Wan port of your own router. From there go ethernet and/or WiFi.

If I do get T-mobile , that is my plan to use my Pepwave router. More so for roll over making T-mobile 1st in the list.
 
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FWT said:
The biggest quandary for those of us still on the sidelines isn't what it is now. And not what it was. Its the open question of what it all becomes, and no one can have that answer.
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perfectly said
 
FWT said:
The biggest quandary for those of us still on the sidelines isn't what it is now. And not what it was. Its the open question of what it all becomes, and no one can have that answer.
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I'm in this situation. I was going to install Starlink this spring, but decided to wait until next winter just in case. Looks like "just in case" has arrived.

I guess we will continue with our AT&A hotspot.
 
Alaskan Sea-Duction said:
I'm in this situation. I was going to install Starlink this spring, but decided to wait until next winter just in case. Looks like "just in case" has arrived.

I guess we will continue with our AT&A hotspot.
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The big evolution has already happend - Starlink became viable and affordable much, much quicker than I ever expected. In relative terms, advances will now be 'evolutionary.' Trouble with that is there is always a reason to wait until tomorrow.

Until there's a viable competitor, pricing and/or use restrictions will only go up. But it has to remain viable for mass usage. Adding users is an incredibly important metric in tech these days.

In short, biggest risk is antenna becomes obsolete or something like that, not that boaters are effectively cut-off. But hey, a career mentor used to say 'Corporations do not always act rationally.' And that was before Elon Musk came along....

Peter
 
Well I have been using my RV system in the Bahamas for 2.5 months for $135/mo. It it going to be $150/mo next month and we will see how far from land they geofence. But if it ends up being a $200/mo system it is still worth having compared to $100/mo cell phone internet on the boat.

Do people not remember how it worked with the cable and cell phone companies and their hook and raise you prices? I never expected Starlink would not follow the method.
 
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Iggy said:
It sounds like there gearing up for the maritime industry. Tankers, cargo ships and alike.

The little guy like me is going to left out. I was thinking when my wife retires going with Starlink. Now at 5K a month, no way! If they enforce the land use only policy. They will loose a small market that may make them charge their minds.

For what its worth, I was thinking of trying T-Mobile's home internet for the boat this May. No equipment cost, no contract and you can open it up and attach a external antenna. Yes, its cellular so it has it limitations. At $40 per month being phone customer sounds inviting. Beats 5K a month and no data restrictions.

The antenna will only cost me $400 and if it does work out I could use it for my Peplink.

For the next few years I just want to stay coastal. When my wife retires, than we will see whats out there for internet service.
Click to expand...

I don't think it's going to happen like that.

I'm sure Starlink wants to make the commercial guys with heavy usage pay. But the reality is that they would also like to collect $150 a month from millions of RV and boaters. I was looking at the Great Lakes coverage for my travels this summer. They show zero coverage away from the shore line. Really can't imagine they're going to waste the time geofencing the Great Lakes just to piss off some boaters to get them to cancel their service.

I think it’s more likely that Starlink doesn't want the liability of warranting the antennas on moving boats, or stationary ones for that matter. I think they're perfectly happy to collect my $150 per month and know that I'm not going to complain to them about warranting the antenna when it dies from saltwater intrusion. It's actually a pretty smart business move. Prohibit the use (knowing that people will do it anyway); collect the money for the service and antenna; have no liability as the use was prohibited.

Ted
 
Just a note about internet during my SE Alaska cruise last summer.
We have a Wave WiFi Rogue Pro Dual - Band System and router on board, which was spotty at best, even in marinas. Needed a strong signal to prevent dropouts.
The best performance and connectivity was with Weboost and iPhone hotspot. Even one bar was boosted sufficiently to be able to use my Laptop nav software. Both AT&T and T-Mobile work well with the Weboost.
If Starlink becomes totally unnecessarily expensive, then we will go without it on our next cruise to SE Alaska.
 
Don L said:
...

Do people not remember how it worked with the cable and cell phone companies and their hook and raise you prices? I never expected Starlink would not follow the method.
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Yep. We are on land and have had horrible Internet service. DSL was 1.5 mega BITS per second and we had reliability issues. We then spent hundreds of dollars for a cell phone router for a company that was charging $90-100 a month but it was unlimited and pretty reliable. Then there was an network configuration change and a price increase to around $120 a month. The network was unusable. Thankfully, the company refunded money and canceled the subscription easily.

We got lucky and our Starlink finally arrived after a year or more of waiting when the cell Internet provider was spiraling out of control. While the Starlink price has going up, they have large bandwidth limit we have never hit, and they seem to change the rules as time passes, the system does work.

We keep a different cell based Internet as a backup to Starlink, which knock on wood, we have not had to use. The cell Internet only gives us 10-20GB before we have to pay quite a bit more money for more data.:eek: But it is a backup.

I would love to see some competition, even with the huge government subsidies, we do not have any good options. Our neighbors are really screwed because they have tree cover that blocks Starlink usage. :eek:

Later,
Dan
 
So I asked Starlink support about the land based Roam, former RV system, about being a boater and installing on the boat.

Tongue in cheek reply came back that it is a land based system, then suggested I zoom into the map of land service areas near water. Link Here.

I did not cancel the order after zooming into their map.
 
I finished up the install of my HP/Flat last week. I have only tested at the dock and speeds were good (decreases at night as more people come on line and RV systems get deprioritized). No loss of signal in a light rain of 24 hours. As noted in another string, SL will likely allow it to be used for coastal but there are no guarantees and things change quickly in Elons world. With that said, there are no alternatives that come close so I think it’s worth the gamble. Overall, an amazing technology for an age group who grew up with rotary phones.
 

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That's potentially really good news! I really like Starlink, but Musk is a Wackadoddle, and I'd wish he'd leave Space X to people who are competent . . . .
 
Blue Yonder said:
You may be in luck... Amazon just previewed their antennas: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/14/amazon-first-look-project-kuiper-satellite-internet-antennas.html
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I believe in the free enterprise system and support it.
However I cannot see profitability for more than one set of satellites. A second set would at least have to be a different frequency so the two sets do not conflict. I think Elon has won the race and the others can sit down at the table and carve up the pie he set up. Elon needs the cash flow to fly tourists around the moon.
 
slowgoesit said:
That's potentially really good news! I really like Starlink, but Musk is a Wackadoddle, and I'd wish he'd leave Space X to people who are competent . . . .
Click to expand...
Except SpaceX wouldn’t be SpaceX without Musk. Wacky though he may be, he is the only common denominator between Tesla/Solar City, SpaceX, Starlink, Boring Co., Neuralink, Paypal and Twitter. The jury is still out on the Twitter adventure/debacle, but the others have or will change the industries they are in like no other group of companies in modern history. Seems like a pretty good legacy for a wacky guy still in his 50s.
 
SteveK said:
I believe in the free enterprise system and support it.

However I cannot see profitability for more than one set of satellites. A second set would at least have to be a different frequency so the two sets do not conflict. I think Elon has won the race and the others can sit down at the table and carve up the pie he set up. Elon needs the cash flow to fly tourists around the moon.
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An “ultra-compact” model, which Amazon says is its smallest and most affordable, is a 7-inch square design that weighs about 1 pound and will offer speeds up to 100 Mbps.

SteveK - clip your post and paste it to your refrigerator. See how it wears in 5 years. And pickup a copy of "The Innovators Dillema." Explains why AOL is a punchline.

Amazon started out as a bookseller. They have slain dozens of incredibly mighty foes to dominate. Not a perfect track record, but tough competition.

Peter
 
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guy with a boat said:
Except SpaceX wouldn’t be SpaceX without Musk. Wacky though he may be, he is the only common denominator between Tesla/Solar City, SpaceX, Starlink, Boring Co., Neuralink, Paypal and Twitter. The jury is still out on the Twitter adventure/debacle, but the others have or will change the industries they are in like no other group of companies in modern history. Seems like a pretty good legacy for a wacky guy still in his 50s.
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Yep. Musk is the obnoxious uncle who you tolerate because he picks up the check at family events.
 
Blue Yonder said:
You may be in luck... Amazon just previewed their antennas: https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/14/amazon-first-look-project-kuiper-satellite-internet-antennas.html
Click to expand...

This should be interesting to watch. Starlink came in at a price point that was an absolute game changer. People bought in long before the satellite population was where it is now. They will continue to buy in until Amazon has good satellite population. So it then becomes a question of whether existing customers will switch (buy new hardware) or stay with a proven system. All of this is predicated on Amazon delivering on time (actually the 3rd party rockets delivering on time).

I have no idea whether Starlink is profitable or not at this point. But I would imagine revenue coming in from monthly service has to be canceling out the cost of adding new satellites.

Given the above, I would rather be in Starlink's position with a massive inbound cash flow to offset infrastructure development, as opposed to Amazon's position of building a lot of the systems (huge cash outlay with minimal revenue coming in) and hoping they will come.

Ted
 
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