Le
Stability
Dropouts have been common for us. What are they? They are essentially when you lose internet connection and your speeds “drop down to zero” for brief periods. We experience these anywhere from seconds to minutes. Dropouts are only a problem for continual internet usage (think zoom calls, downloading, uploading etc); however, if you are just browsing, or streaming shows, these are not a concern as browsers are intelligent enough to buffer.
Why do they happen? Starlink antennas are constantly jumping between satellites as they, and the earth, move around. Here is a cool visualization of this motion. Because of this, connection is not necessarily steady and dropouts occur as you move between satellites and/or satellites become obstructed. I imagine this will improve in the coming years as the Starlink constellation improves along with the technology of connecting to them.
Below is an example that highlights the difficulty to use Starlink near obstructions / what Starlink considers obstructions.
Setup / Storage
The Starlink system is quite bulky and requires setting up, moving around, and storage. In terms of storage, we personally use the box that it came in which is 30″x20″x10″ and takes up a bit of floorspace in our garage. You could alternatively by more compact traveling case for $250 on the Starlink site.
Because you currently void warranty if you use your Starlink while in motion, we do take ours down and put it back up when we are parked again. It typically takes anywhere from 5-30 minutes for our Starlink to boot and receive signal, and we often have to move it around. Moving it around for better signal is another reason we have not permanently mounted ours though we have seen some folks do that.
Starlink comes with a 75ft ethernet cable wrapped in proprietary housing and 75ft of cable is quite a bit to manage so when our system it set up, it often gets in our way. With that said, you could definitely make adjustments to have the system be more permanent and out of the way; however, we haven’t put the time and energy in since it only provides us reliable internet a portion of the time… read on for information on that statement.
Reliability
Starlink RV is not fully reliable yet. It will absolutely get you coverage in some far out places with little tree / mountain cover which is awesome as cell signal isn’t always out there! However, Starlink will not get you signal everywhere and it highly depends on two things. First, your view of the sky (trees, mountains, and buildings obstruct this). Secondly, the network traffic levels. Starlink RV is by default de-prioritized on the network, so if you are in a congested cell, your internet will be the first to throttle. According to Reddit threads, this is more of an issue on the east coast currently, but we have also witnessed it in the west in popular areas. We use our Starlink reliably and with internet stability 30% of the time, and the other 70% use our cellular router.
All in all, Starlink will get you internet in some pretty epic places, but I would not recommend relying on it completely if you work from the road.
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