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In order to run a true speed test Charlie you need to disconnect all devices. And have a direct ethernet connection via your laptop. Then run the speed test. When other devices are connected it shares the bandwidth max speed. That may help you find a true result. Also if you don't already know I did see a Cisco device, in Which case I can imagine it is managed? Never use splitters over a network as it creates a route loop. You need a managed network switch that has a processor to direct traffic. You may already know this but I just thought I'd point it out. And also you didn't put an ethernet cable through a fuse box did you? 😂 That's funny. Always separate cat6 cable or whatever standard you are using from electricity. As it causes an electrical field interfering, this interrupts the signal to noise ratio or cross talk. Unless you use cat6a STP.
Living rural in New Zealand , both my wife and I work from home. And my two daughters are online all the time, without starlink we would be lost. Get up to 250Mbps down and 30Mbps up. Fitted it myself to the roof and the router sits in a cupboard and have a single extender to make sure the house is covered.
Howzit. Saffa in Oz here. We also recently moved out of Melbourne and into a little dorpie out in the bundus. Our Telstra wifi is woeful and I’m looking at starlink. I’ll also need an extender because the house is basically an H shape and there are bits that don’t get coverage. Glad to know it’s working for you and you’ve given me hope that it will be the right solution for us. Cheers 👋
Recently spent a couple of nights away at Shieldaig Lodge, Badachro, Gairloch IV21 2AN. Last time we stayed the internet was all but useless. It just about worked if we stood next to the reception desk near the front door. This time the change was huge. Internet available throughout the hotel and carpark, this was because they had just put in Starlink and boy it worked. The hotel is on Scotland's north west coast and miles from any large town. It's very impressive. Great video by the way.
Great video thanks Charlie. I'm in Ireland but in similar position to yourself with copper wires, so got Starlink. For safety I avoid ladders so I got a local TV aerial installer to install it as I saw from his social media page that he had installed a few. I had ordered the pipe clamp from Starlink but he said he didn't need it & just used one of his own clamps (thrown in free). My house has concrete block & plasterboard lined walls so I bit the bullet and bought the deco px50 powerline mesh units. I bypassed the Starlink wifi & just use the deco. Each PX50 unit has some ethernet ports so I connected my TV type devices directly to the units & then use the mesh wifi signal for everything else. So far so good & happy I switched.
Not in the market for such a set up, but it is alway fascinating and helpful to have your measured and practical views on such a wide variety of subjects. I reckon you are on your way to becoming a bona fide National Treasure!
Got Starlink in Canada about 6 months ago (also at a reduced cost) and all I can say is ..... WOW! Fast downloads, fast uploads and the best part, no data caps. I too live in a rural area and the best download speed I could get via DSL on the phone line was around 500KBytes per second. Getting Starlink was like moving from a row boat to a speed boat. Makes looking after my web site a lot easier and make my wife happier to watch her shows. Like they say, happy wife, happy life.😏
It's great isn't it. I am still having problems trying to get to the bottom of why my internal wired network should be so much slower but generally we're able to stream and work seemlessly again. As you say, you can't put a price on the peace and harmony it brings 👌😉
@@CharlieDIYte If your internal wired network is slow then look at the components that make it up. I had to upgrade two wired network switches before the gains could be felt in the rest of my system. And for what it's worth, not all computers will see the net gains the same way. It all depends on the network and the system attached to it. I can watch Netflix without issue on one computer be not on another. It constantly stalls the playback.
really good to see someone else on starlink too, we found the same as you, its night and day to fibre in rural areas. on the dish location, we used the standard tripod mount but just mounted it to a railing in the garden, its got a lot of close buildings and trees, and we're in a low point geographically, but no issues on blockages, i think its a lot more tolerant to sky coverage than people think.
Plus SpaceX only have only so far launched around 3800 of the total expected constellation of 12000 satellites. The dish will be able to see more satellites at any given moment to hand off between ince they're all up there. They have eventual plans to extend to 42000 if the demand is there. Once they get their new Starship monster spaceship perfected, they'll have even more advanced satellites launching in greater numbers (It could launch something like 300 of the existing types at a time if I remember right). I think they're currently launching between 22-56 satellites every week or two on the Falcon 9 rockets.
Moved into a rural area at the end of 2022 and got starlink for similar reasons. Been delighted with the performance compared to alternatives. Costly but hey - space internet! Will move to land-based internet if decent speeds become an option locally.
Cheers Gavin. That's exactly my thoughts. Crazy isn't it that in this day and age they still haven't sorted out FPT for is all. Or actually it's not crazy. It simply doesn't make financial sense for the operators to provide it. 😡
Starlink uses about 100W normally, more when moving. At the capped rate of 34p per kWh that's currently about 3.5p per hour. Unfortunately there are 720 of those in a month (working on 24hrs x 30 days) which comes to ~£25 per month in additional electricity. Just pointing out that it costs about £300 a year more than people realise and may not have budgeted for.
Great video. Love the safety chat and the "leave it to the professionals". I watched two "professionals" feom the council on the roof of ny neighbours the other week. Using a ladder to reach the roof. Wandering up and down unaided on the pitched roof of the two storey House. Throwing roof tiles down to each other.😂😂
Connected to Starlink yesterday here in rural France. Couldn't have been easier. Have to wait now for my order of extra cable and a wall mount to arrive. Meanwhile it's standing on a table on the patio and yesterday gave me 220 upload! Bit of an improvement on 14. We were without internet for 19 days recently and decided it was time to be self reliant rather than held to ransom by France Telecom. It's a bir spooky watching it orient itself!
As usual, clear instructions and informative to the last detail. Charlie, you are a very brave man working up in your roof. Thanks for your videos giving us, the DIY fanatics the encouragement 🙏 David
Great video Charlie, just a point of interest. An installer told me if installing on chimney stack you should always lash using galvanised straps around the stack, if you fix into single bricks the weight and wind leverage can disrupt the bricks over time and work them loose bringing the stack down, there isn’t enough downforce from weight above like in load bearing walls.
Thanks Martin. It's an interesting point that. I can't see that being a problem in my case even with this reasonably heavy galvanised pole given that the bricks are incredibly well mortared in, it's a big old double chimney and I've used three brackets to distribute the weight but I can see the logic of that argument.
Perfect video for me. I'm entering almost the exact same situation as you but halfway around the world in Canada. I also have a 5G ISP that is giving me connectivity issues, and I know the over-the-wire providers only reach 1.5mBps down and a dismal 0.5mBps up. I'm disappointed with your upload speeds, but I only need to be able to support video chat for work and the occasional large file upload to work's network. I'm even planning on mounting the dish to my chimney! Thanks very much for the video; I'm much more confident starlink is currently the best solution for my family.
Hi Charlie. Tip on the speeds.. if the starlink Ethernet port is 1Gb make sure everything else is to get the full speed out it. Eg your switch and computer both need the same speed NIC. Might explain the desktop upload vs the results you got on the speed test over wifi. 👍
I guess the next step is to get a dual WAN setup, use your fastest network as a primary and the slower one as a backup. Or load balance across both. The Unifi UDM-Pro, UDM-SE or UXG-Pro are options, as would be a pfSense box.
I have a unify network with a USG Pro. It has dual wan so have BT and local rural internet. Works very well. The problems with wifi speed are weird so needs more investigation. Can you connect to an AP with Ethernet and test the speed? Help identify if it’s the wifi or the switch or something else.
Just about to install starlink in my home on Anglesey. I only get 44mbps and so the Starlink will be far better than BT or other providers. Fantastic video and thanks for uploading it.
brilliant charlie !! as a parent of a teenager, a grandmother to a 6,4 and 2 yr old and currently renovating an old cottage with various un thought out extentions 🙄your videos have been a god send to us !! thanks so much xx
I live in a regional Australian city based on the NSW/VIC border. We receive NBNCo Internet service here which is appallingly slow, ‘copper to the Node’ with ageing landline copper connecting us to a Node which is separated form our home by 1.1km. The service we receive has been unreliable and provides speeds far below what we pay for. I’ve just purchased Starlink gear (and found the Starlink shop) at the reduced rate offered to Regional Australia. I’ve bought the mount and a longer cable from the Starlink shop. It will be far easier to access the chimney on our roof than yours and we have clear sky above us as we’re on a hillside with no overhanging trees. Thanks for your informative video which has provided knowledge and thoughts to assist my install.
You're very welcome Greg, thanks for taking the time to comment. Your situation with the slow existing sounds similar to mine. You're going to love Starlink 👌
Try the advanced speedtest and on the right it gives you the Router to Internet speed - the speed that the dish is communicating with the satellites. You can then use this as a guide to work out what kind of losses you are getting in your internal network.
Thanks Charlie, great review, however for the sake of safety a harness and a sling around the chimney would be better than nothing when working at height, as Rod Hull would testify to if he was still with us. He really should have taken the Emu off when trying to fix his aerial.
Very good video. I had a professional install my Starlink as I am terrified of heights. Within the house, I use a Netgear Orbi wifi system throughout 3 floors of my 16th century farmhouse (with solid stone walls some 18" thick). The Orbi is a bit on the pricy side but does a magnificent job. I use one Orbi router hub and three Orbi satellites to get maximum coverage. I just ran a speedtest on my laptop before typing this, and I see 220meg down and 22.8meg up, and that is one floor below the main Orbi hub. Highly recommended.
Starlink do offer a mesh, but at >£140 per mesh satellite that's not even wifi 6, I too am sticking with my existing Orbi setup. I toyed with the chimney but was advised against due to concerns over strength.
Great video and perfect timing, I have just taken advantage of the exact same deal living in rural Wales, been running it from the stand in the garden for a week or and for us it is pretty consistent. You solved a problem for me so thanks, no a chance in hell you would see me on a ladder, no head for heights at all so have been pondering who would be the right tradie to ask about fitting on a gable end, tv aerial people never occurred to me but of course they would be perfect! Anyway thanks also for the heads up on the ethernet adapter that was my next problem to solve :)
Unifi is a good solution so I suggest an upgrade there is not required. However, if you do not implement the environment correctly it will slow things down.....for instance if you have a high level of security implemented on some of the entry level devices it will impact performance.
Interesting. We’ve been using EE 4G cellular broadband for around 3 years and it too has been flawless until the last 6 months or so, with timeouts and weird lag that we could never get to the bottom of. In addition, we too have got the Starlink dish and we too had to wait for an Ethernet adapter. I’ve not yet plumbed it in to the rest of the network, but I’m hoping our experience will be similar to yours. Cheers for the video!
Very similar experience here. We were on a lousy FTTC line. We spent loads of money on bonding a second FTTC line, stll lousy. Then we moved to 4G and Three, which was great until everyone else started using it during COVID. Then we switched to EE, which was great, until it wasn't (evening streaming became unworkable). Now we are on Starlink which is so much better.
Yes, using EE 4G here and the last few moths have been awful. Hence now installing Starlink when it arrives today. And of course, EE deny it's anything to do with them!
Nice video Charlie, strange your unifi is slowing you down. Would be interesting to see a video on how you've wired the RJ45 ends, what Cable type you've used and what network switch your using as these could all be limiting factors. Typically I find Unifi is pretty decent kit, unless of course its really out of date stuff.
its worth understanding wifi to troubleshoot it, its surprisingly poor in how it works, with different transmission protocols and the hardware that drive them. a simple old poor device running on a new shiny wifi network can drag the whole thing into the toilet because the old device blocks the accesspoint until its done. wifi is very much only as strong as your weakest link
Yes, that sounded odd. I've got Starlink and Unifi. My Unifi wifi can still exceed the fastest speeds Starlink gives me, there is something not right there. I'm sat here in my downstairs office, my closest access point is in the loft about 50 feet away from me, through the downstarirs ceiling and the upstairs ceiling. My iPhone happily gets 250 mb/s on a speed test from here (and if I remember correctly from past tests maxes out at about 400 mb/s). Maybe he's using wireless uplink between the access points without realising it ? The placement of his access points looked less that optimal. Seemed to be low down on the ground floor and pointing horizontally ? They really need to be up on ceilings, preferrably upstairs and pointing down when you've got thick cottage walls (we have that issue too a bit). Mine are just laid on the boards in the lofts. I'm also very careful to make sure my three access points aren't using overlapping bands. If I leave it on automatic Unifi will tend to use the same band for the two APs that are at either end of my house, so instead I use manaual band selection and make sure that on both 2.4 GHz/5GHz I'm the best channel options there are.
That's a Gen 2 modem; they put the RJ45 Ethernet ports back on the Gen 3 model which I just ordered. But all in all, you chose Starlink for the same reason I did over here in the US; best option for rural users that want a decent Internet connection.
Yes there's a lot of work to do to it sadly on the body, not helped by reversing into a wall recently, but I had the engine rebuilt over a year ago due to a coolant problem and it's driving beautifully.
Great video. We just received our Starlink kit for our farm here in Texas. We have lots of trees around us so I am anxious to see how well it works. Cheers.
This was super interesting to me, as I went through this process myself a couple of months ago after moving into a rural house in North Yorkshire (Unfortunately I had to pay full whack for the kit), I ran into many of the same problems as you, orienting the dish North made me laugh as I knew what was coming next! I did wonder why you didn't route the cable through the pipe on the chimney instead of coming out the top? Regarding your home network, I would highly recommend getting a Wifi 6E setup, the speeds are not far off being as fast as wired (Just under 10GBPS) way more than your upload/download speed is capable of! This is providing you have devices capable of using a 6E ghz channel (There's also a 6GHz channel, and 5/2.4 bundled channel). I use the TP-Link Deco XE75 AXE5400 home kit, it comes with 3x access points but you can add more, really easy to setup. They actually wireless daisy chain together and have amazing signal range and penetration. This means you don't need to hard wire them together via ethernet (Although you can as you already have the cables ran) If you ever wanted to add extras beyond what you already have, as the connection over 6E is so fast, and works between the APs, there's no point running ethernet anymore, as there's no slowdown to having it run wirelessly. With the added benefit that nothing else uses the 6E band, so there's no interference either. The only downside is there's not as much custom options as something like Ubiquiti, i.e. I haven't seen an option to keep a second connection and use it to load balance your starlink connection, this was my original plan, but I've found starlink so stable I don't think it's worth it. I've only had 1 outage which lasted 5-10 mins when we had a thunderstorm last month. Hope that helps a bit! Looking forward to a future vid where you upgrade your home network! Cheers
Good luck with yours. I sent mine back after a week as lots of faulty cables and mine was one of them (kept showing as cable disconnected when it wasn’t). Customer service was good, but just too slow 😢
It’s not the setting up of the dish it’s the internal challenges of old rural homes with very thick walls. Would be great to have a video dedicated to resolving these issues
Watched with interest because I have thought about Airband. If nothing else, you’ve proved my reticence to go over to it was right. I’m using 4G EE off the next mast south of you at Martley. Probably two years now and generally has been really good with downloads averaging between 30 and 40 Mbts per second and upload averaging between 4 and 6 Mbts per second. Nice to know that Starlink could be a good alternative if EE ever got dodgy!
I know this video is a bit old now and things may have changed, but your EE router has external Mimo 4x4 antenna links. I would recommend trying an external high-gain outdoor directinal antenna with a line of sight to a 5G mast. I don't see why you wouldn't get 500 down and 500 up very easily. The antennas cost around £120 and would be installed on that pipe. 5 metres of preterminated cable come with most, so the router could go into the loft with a Cat6 down to the main router. Alternately, you could look at terminating your own, although this can be a pain. The website is easy to find (it has routerstore in the name); however, these can be purchased anywhere; really, just make sure you get a 4x4 MIMO compatible one. And looking at the 5G router you have, I think you'd need 4x Ts9 to SMA adapters. I've only recently found your channel, so forgive me if any of this has been tried or mentioned before, but I would love to see a comparison between this solution and Starlink. I think your use case with line of sight is the best possible option, beating out Starlink by some margin.
I think your router might be a Zyxel NR5103 or similar; they are spec'd to have a theoretical download speed of 4.67 Gbps with the correct antennas, so honestly, who knows what you'll get? I would bet money on higher than you currently get, but if you still have the equipment, it's 100% worth a go.
Firstly, I’d like to know how you got that kind of deal? Here in Florida, when I “finally” got my notification that my dish was coming, I had to pay the 592.00 on TOP of the 99.00 I had put down as a deposit in March. I got the kit a couple of weeks ago, had to order the 150 ft cable because our house is surrounded by oak trees. Luckily our pump house isn’t so when I checked that spot, Starlink gave me a GREAT spot message. I wanted the dishy as high as possible to make sure the oak trees didn’t block it in a few years so I ordered the Winegard 38” mast. We buried the cable in the ground, in conduit, mounted the mast to the pump house gable and turned it on! WOW! I can’t believe how amazing this system is. Right now, it’s been raining ALL night, but when I checked my wifi I had 3 bars back in my office which is the furtherest from the router. I just did an advanced speed test and we are getting from Starlink to the Internet: 159 download and 15 download with latency around the 22 mark. And 42 download and 30 upload from the router to our devices. Like I said, amazing!
It's brilliant isn't it! They had a limited time offer which actually ended just before I posted the video. Just as well though as I'm still paying for my old broadband connection 😩
Just set this up ourselves in rural Australia. We ordered the dish and then realised we needed the Ethernet adapter, but everything came very quickly. So far very happy with the system. We had been using mobile broadband, which was slow and unreliable.
@@CharlieDIYte yes it is a bit pricey, it is a priority for us as my hubby is working from home. If the initial outlay hadn’t dropped by 3/4, I don’t think we would have considered it, but happy we did now.
Makes me feel fortunate, We live on the outskirts of a rural village, the speeds we got were terrible, then about 3 years ago they dug up the roads & fitted fibre. Couldn’t live without it now. & weirdly it’s cheaper . £30 a month. About £10 a month cheaper .
Great video as I'm about to take the plunge and order this so a lot if what you came across is very useful.. I see there's a Gen 3 Starlink now but doesn't look to be a UK thing yet sadly.
Had the same problem for a client of mine, so I used a necked pole and then U bolts to allow to clamp the stem of the Starlink unit to the pole. Nightmare!! They never mention the extras and even then the costs for say a pole adapter is ridiculous! However it works a treat for my client, so everyone is happy all round.
Not that I am in the market but I read some user reviews and it is a nice solution for all the more or less extreme situation, like mobile, boat or " in the middle of nowhere" but it has serious limitation and will never be a through competitor for wired internet in a residential area. But everything is better than NO internet ! Thanks for sharing
I dunno, unless you are gaming, nothing else really requires the wired latency, at 30-50ms on starlink it copes with all the house needs and work from home needs too
Your connection speed via Unifi can be caused by multiple factors. Some of which could be overcome in setup and others maybe not. Wi-Fi has 2 frequencies (2.4GHz & 5GHz) with the latter getting more features for higher speeds. Channel width can help to increase throughput so may be worth exploring config. It’s a tricky thing to get right and it’s possible to make it worse too so recommend changing one setting at a time and testing.
Keep in mind he has solid stone/brick walls in his house so 5GHz may not be the best option but it is most definitely worth trying everything that's available on Unifi which I no nothing about.
@@josephking6515 indeed, I’d start by testing in same room as one of the Unify AP’s (but approx. 3m away where possible) and test speeds from there. Then play with setting on channel width on 5GHz etc from there. As you say, further away from an AP and the device may prefer 2.4GHz and then speeds will drop.
What CISCO switch are you running, if it's only running at 100Mb it will slow everything down. I'd replace it with a UniFi POE switch, so you can get rid of those POE injectors too.
Interesting to see it used on this side of the pond. Just wondering though, you didn't mention ongoing costs, is it really £75 per month? That's strange about your Unifi experience, I've got it for my house and it does a good job, no complaints here. Keep up the good work! 👍
@@bikerchrisukk check with your local council or the government website for any grants available. I know down in Hampshire, we have a broadband fund for those in rural areas. It was a year ago now but the last time I checked, for the 3 cottages where I'm based, we could get close to £9k towards having FTTP installed. If it wasn't for Openreach wanting close to £30k (along with the fact that one of the cottages didn't want to join up and we needed all 3 cottages to sign off). They still have a TV that only receives 5 channels and didn't know Freeview even existed!) Worth checking if there aren't grants from your local authorities.
@@ChrisAWright That's really good info cheers mate 👍...and wow to £30k, if that was £10k per (ignoring the stone age person), I wonder if that could possibly tack on £10k to the value of the property?
I know you aren't an IT/tech guy Charlie but as someone with a 3500sq ft house over 3 floors, it would be really interesting to see how you've setup your network. I am looking at different options and like you will probably need 3 access points. I'd be interested to see a video explaining how you've done it (even if it isn't necessarily the 'optimal' way of doing it).
Sure, I'll add it to the list. The access points need an ethernet connection back to the router but you might consider a mesh WiFi system like the Netgear Orbi that someone recommended in the comments and Starlink have extra mesh routers in their shop, to boost the signal.
@@CharlieDIYte We moved into a rural location with a thick walled house of about 3,600 square feet. I went with 4G National broadband using Vodafone - which has been decent enough for us. Starlink would have been interesting, but not at full price! I had an Orbi network in our old house, a base and three satellites. It worked well. In this house it doesn't. The problem is that the Orbi appears to communicate primarily over wi-fi with a wifi back haul (assuming it isn't possible to run ethernet back haul - which is hard for us to do). I gave up on it. In the end I purchased a Mesh network from TP-Link - the Deco Mesh P9. The "P" is important because it communicates on ethernet, wi-fi AND Power line, hence "P". The Power line is built into the unit. As long as the house wiring isn't installed by Thomas Eddison, it generally manages to punch a wi-fi signal around most peoples houses. In the end, we purchased a total of nine satellites (but they are much cheaper than Orbi) and we enjoy whole house mesh coverage. Admittedly, the mesh speeds aren't fantastic but, as most of the traffice ends up on the broadband connection going to the web, it doesn't matter that much.
Nice work, shame about the size of the monthly fee though. I would do some research about your ubiquiti before you buy anything else though. It may not be the ubiquiti that’s the bottleneck and a replacement may not be any faster. Or it may be just one component of the ubiquiti network or the cisco switch. I run about 70 devices off 3 APs, one switch and the UDM pro with no speed issues.
Your lows of 6Mbs maybe indicate a problem, but if you're getting a peak of close to 200Mbs, I doubt you need to improve your Wi-Fi - this are more or less normal numbers for Starlink right now, depending on the uptake in the area. It's also worth remembering that Ku band transmissions are quite susceptible to rain fade and this can occur between the satellite and the ground station even if you see a clear sky. Best step would be to run those speed tests on the ethernet port.
Interesting to see this setup, I think this is the first unbiased and decent Starlink review I've seen from a youtuber I fully trust! I wonder how bad the weather has to get for it to cause issues. Speed might improve (or will it?) as more of those satellites go up - they're still putting dozens per month into orbit.
Thanks, I really appreciate that. Yes I think we'll need a review one year in to see how it fares in the bad weather. I'll be nervously checking it after each storm 😬
Big thunderstorm yesterday and mine cut out briefly....despite the power remaing on (proved by my oven clock not resetting. Very pleased over all, Great video btw
Hi Charlie, you are very articulate, IT knowledgeable, and very outspoken. I wonder what you do for a living? If I would have guessed, I would say you fit in the James Bond role. 😀
At 12m05s it appears that the dish's tail is merely suspended from the dish; I would recommend you use quite a few outdoors-rated (UV-resistant) cable ties -- or similar -- as otherwise winds will whip the cable are quickly wear it out. (Think those flag pole wires incessantly banging and pinging in even low winds.)
Great video as always Charlie, you are a true inspiration, and as a very confident DIYer i still learn so much from your videos. I'm no fan of Elon Musk, but the product is a great concept, however things like the removal of something basic like an ethernet port only to charge you more for an adapter sounds like it's come straight out of the apple book of creating a poorer customer experience. (dont mention the headphone jack!) Be interesting to see how this performs in snow or heavy rain.
Thanks Martin. I completely agree, it's outrageous to take away the ethernet port. Yes it's the high winds I'm most worried about. There's an option in the app to melt off any snow. 👊
I am sure musk, looks at Apple, and thinks what would they do, really no RJ45, you have to buy an adapter, just like Apple with all their dongles. Did you try using an external 5g aerial, to see if that improved things. Also ubiquity stuff is very good, I have never had any problems with speed when using their stuff
Hi Charlie - I am about to get POE Access Points; combined with a POE switch should make a very simple complete and robust wifi set up. As POE no separate power will be needed at the access points. I have looked back at your brief clip of your access points and I can’t tell if they are POE or not.
The Unifi WiFi platform is excellent if implemented correctly, it may be worth having a local firm take a look at your network to see if there are any issues with your home network that could be rectified.
Hi Charlie, I have multiple unifi installs across friends and family houses. I've seen this issue before, and would recommend adjusting the Channel width within the Radio settings on the unifi app. You have to do this for both 2.5 and 5ghz. The APs should then get much closer to the speed on the router. Happy to talk through if easier. They can sometimes take a bit of tweaking. Great video btw, I've just installed starlink in a business in central London. Working ok, but get a few obstructions on the roof of the building unfortunately
@@pickiewickiehello, do you have a business number I could contact you on? We are looking at a network installation in our office using starling and unify.
I just picked up the rural offer too; lucky to see it the day before it ended. Delivery of the dish was super fast, but the ethernet adapter is / was much slower. I wanted to go for the chimney install, but was advised against it due to concerns over strength; your install looks solid though - fair play. 👍 Good vid, and good tips. The cable's a pain to get through, and doing that in advance I found helped a lot.
for the pipe mount I would use pipe/hose clamps and just use a grinder to cut two slits 150% of the length you try to clamp down or more if the pipe is on the large side inner diameter wise.
Regarding your speed tests - connecting over wifi as you have found out, CAN be very hit and miss with speeds. This is down to so many things: antenna, wifi standard and version, wifi frequency (we're up to 3 now: 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz, 6Ghz) each on client and access point, wall thickness and construction, location, orientation etc etc etc. To get the best speed, it's always going to be a direct connect with a cable, but it looks like you're getting a pretty good speed over wifi, low latency and jitter, but that may change as you move about the property. At the end of the day, data is going up to and down from space, it's always going to be slower than FTTH or 5G to a local tower (and then further on via fibre again), but glad to hear it's doing you alright
I am curious as to where you are based, as in "Rural", I am rural in West Sussex and have moved over to Box Broadband (Surrey based) and have connected to their fibre network. This is under a government initiative for connecting rural areas. So far very happy with better download and upload speeds that you report. I am on the lowest connection, 100Mb, which is fine for us. I too was getting frquent drp outs with TalkTalk and they were not interested in solving the problem, luckily I was close to the end of contract so could switch.
Your Unifi system should be fine, make sure you have the latest firmware on each access point, your Cisco switch is Gigabit and not 10/100, your POE injecors are gigabit and not 10/100, and finally, make sure you have seperate SSIDs for both the 5ghz and 2.4ghz bands. Set the 5ghz channel width to 80mhz and carry out your speed tests only when connected to 5ghz, as the 2.4ghz band will max out at about 70mbps.
Hi Charlie, Quite a journey you have had to go through . But it proves that a lot of places in the Uk are still badly provided by the internet speed . But glad you are now sorted . Best wishes as always 😀👍👍👍
Going to be set mine up in Brazil next Monday. I hope I get roughly the same speeds as you do because that will be great. I am curious how my PS5 will do on it. Hmmm
For rural locations i get it. But i will say i was expecting >200 speeds for the cost of the whole outlay throughout the year. Still i guess if needs must and you are used to much worse its a big upgrade and if you can make that investment worthwhile for yourself then why not.
Yes that's the point. That EE router seemed to be the answer and was only £35 a month but is shocking. The frustrating thing is I've got 8 months left to run on the contract for a non existent service.
Hi Charlie, I was interest you swapped from 4g LTE/5g cellular, to starlink. What did you use for your cellular antenna, a built in router or an external aerial? Built in is not normally strong enough when rural. If you'd used an external antenna, combined with a parabolic dish, you should have been able to improve your download and upload speed more than sufficiently. I'm in the UK and rural. I obtain around 200mb down and 100mb up. I use two antenna towards two separate masts to provide stability. You should also look at the network using, as the performance will vary wildly. Stay away from piggy back services as they limit the bandwidth.
It's a fair point Stephen and thanks for your feedback. I used the internal aerial. But the signal was fantastic for a year or so using this and then just dropped off a cliff. Starlink has been brilliant though.
My 5G three internet is one of my best ever purchases, downloads of 700 and uploads of 60ish. Plus it's cheap. This looks a great option for rural areas tho 🎉
Yep. Loved the EE router whilst it worked and cheap as you say. Something's happened with ours though. It's hopeless now and the worst thing - I've still got 8 months left on the contract.
I have noticed some 45 ms ping on your readings is that correct? I tested a similar system a couple of years ago, admittedly the speed was fast but the request time was horrendous so after a month I had to return it. Since this area has yet to be provided with fibre, I was considering trying again with a different company. Perhaps Starlink could be a good start. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙏
I’d really like to give Starlink a go and if it was £99 I would but it’s back at the high price of £460. It’s a pity they don’t give the discount to customers who do live in rural areas, or even free kit for that matter; at £75 pm they are doing pretty well out of it. I wonder how often the £99 offer comes up?
Just for information. Rule of thumb for drilling & tapping threads. Thread tapping depth should be 1.5 times the bolt diameter. So for an M10 bolt 15mm. This gives maximum holding strength. Tapping an M10 hole in a thin walled tube such as scaffold tube will result in a very low strength fixing.
Thanks for this. Don't forget though I'm only gently tightening it. The thread depth would far exceed the strength of the mast if I was to properly tighten it. Horses for courses.
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In order to run a true speed test Charlie you need to disconnect all devices. And have a direct ethernet connection via your laptop. Then run the speed test. When other devices are connected it shares the bandwidth max speed. That may help you find a true result.
Also if you don't already know I did see a Cisco device, in Which case I can imagine it is managed? Never use splitters over a network as it creates a route loop. You need a managed network switch that has a processor to direct traffic.
You may already know this but I just thought I'd point it out.
And also you didn't put an ethernet cable through a fuse box did you? 😂 That's funny.
Always separate cat6 cable or whatever standard you are using from electricity. As it causes an electrical field interfering, this interrupts the signal to noise ratio or cross talk. Unless you use cat6a STP.
Living rural in New Zealand , both my wife and I work from home. And my two daughters are online all the time, without starlink we would be lost. Get up to 250Mbps down and 30Mbps up. Fitted it myself to the roof and the router sits in a cupboard and have a single extender to make sure the house is covered.
That’s good to know, I’m also rural NZ (Manawatu) and we could only get ADSL that’s super limited in the amount of data and would be slow as heck haha
Howzit. Saffa in Oz here. We also recently moved out of Melbourne and into a little dorpie out in the bundus. Our Telstra wifi is woeful and I’m looking at starlink. I’ll also need an extender because the house is basically an H shape and there are bits that don’t get coverage. Glad to know it’s working for you and you’ve given me hope that it will be the right solution for us. Cheers 👋
If you live in a rural area then Starlink is a game changer. I couldn't work from home without it so thanks Elon 😀💪
Agreed 👌
Recently spent a couple of nights away at Shieldaig Lodge, Badachro, Gairloch IV21 2AN. Last time we stayed the internet was all but useless. It just about worked if we stood next to the reception desk near the front door. This time the change was huge. Internet available throughout the hotel and carpark, this was because they had just put in Starlink and boy it worked.
The hotel is on Scotland's north west coast and miles from any large town. It's very impressive.
Great video by the way.
Great video thanks Charlie. I'm in Ireland but in similar position to yourself with copper wires, so got Starlink. For safety I avoid ladders so I got a local TV aerial installer to install it as I saw from his social media page that he had installed a few. I had ordered the pipe clamp from Starlink but he said he didn't need it & just used one of his own clamps (thrown in free). My house has concrete block & plasterboard lined walls so I bit the bullet and bought the deco px50 powerline mesh units. I bypassed the Starlink wifi & just use the deco. Each PX50 unit has some ethernet ports so I connected my TV type devices directly to the units & then use the mesh wifi signal for everything else. So far so good & happy I switched.
Not in the market for such a set up, but it is alway fascinating and helpful to have your measured and practical views on such a wide variety of subjects. I reckon you are on your way to becoming a bona fide National Treasure!
Aw, Chris, that's incredibly kind. Thanks so much for watching even though you're not in the market for one. 👊
I also installed my new Starlink about a week ago and I am very happy with it. Oxfordshire, UK.
Got Starlink in Canada about 6 months ago (also at a reduced cost) and all I can say is ..... WOW!
Fast downloads, fast uploads and the best part, no data caps. I too live in a rural area and the best download speed I could get via DSL on the phone line was around 500KBytes per second. Getting Starlink was like moving from a row boat to a speed boat. Makes looking after my web site a lot easier and make my wife happier to watch her shows. Like they say, happy wife, happy life.😏
It's great isn't it. I am still having problems trying to get to the bottom of why my internal wired network should be so much slower but generally we're able to stream and work seemlessly again. As you say, you can't put a price on the peace and harmony it brings 👌😉
Wish we had a discount down here in poor New Mexico 😒 Cheers on your good fortune 😂🤙
@@CharlieDIYte If your internal wired network is slow then look at the components that make it up. I had to upgrade two wired network switches before the gains could be felt in the rest of my system.
And for what it's worth, not all computers will see the net gains the same way. It all depends on the network and the system attached to it.
I can watch Netflix without issue on one computer be not on another. It constantly stalls the playback.
really good to see someone else on starlink too, we found the same as you, its night and day to fibre in rural areas. on the dish location, we used the standard tripod mount but just mounted it to a railing in the garden, its got a lot of close buildings and trees, and we're in a low point geographically, but no issues on blockages, i think its a lot more tolerant to sky coverage than people think.
Plus SpaceX only have only so far launched around 3800 of the total expected constellation of 12000 satellites. The dish will be able to see more satellites at any given moment to hand off between ince they're all up there. They have eventual plans to extend to 42000 if the demand is there.
Once they get their new Starship monster spaceship perfected, they'll have even more advanced satellites launching in greater numbers (It could launch something like 300 of the existing types at a time if I remember right). I think they're currently launching between 22-56 satellites every week or two on the Falcon 9 rockets.
Moved into a rural area at the end of 2022 and got starlink for similar reasons. Been delighted with the performance compared to alternatives. Costly but hey - space internet! Will move to land-based internet if decent speeds become an option locally.
Cheers Gavin. That's exactly my thoughts. Crazy isn't it that in this day and age they still haven't sorted out FPT for is all. Or actually it's not crazy. It simply doesn't make financial sense for the operators to provide it. 😡
Starlink uses about 100W normally, more when moving. At the capped rate of 34p per kWh that's currently about 3.5p per hour.
Unfortunately there are 720 of those in a month (working on 24hrs x 30 days) which comes to ~£25 per month in additional electricity.
Just pointing out that it costs about £300 a year more than people realise and may not have budgeted for.
How does that compare to a traditional router?
@@C4sp3r123 less than 10W
@@beplh5242 That's a massive difference!
Now that's an interesting point!
It shouldn't use that much unless you have the snow melt feature turned on. The specs for the V2 dish say the average usage is 50-75W.
You are a very patient man, Charlie! Thanks for sharing 👍
Thanks Paul, appreciate the comment 👊
Great video. Love the safety chat and the "leave it to the professionals". I watched two "professionals" feom the council on the roof of ny neighbours the other week. Using a ladder to reach the roof. Wandering up and down unaided on the pitched roof of the two storey House. Throwing roof tiles down to each other.😂😂
Connected to Starlink yesterday here in rural France. Couldn't have been easier. Have to wait now for my order of extra cable and a wall mount to arrive. Meanwhile it's standing on a table on the patio and yesterday gave me 220 upload! Bit of an improvement on 14.
We were without internet for 19 days recently and decided it was time to be self reliant rather than held to ransom by France Telecom.
It's a bir spooky watching it orient itself!
Glad to hear you're sorted. It's great isn't it. 👍
As usual, clear instructions and informative to the last detail.
Charlie, you are a very brave man working up in your roof.
Thanks for your videos giving us, the DIY fanatics the encouragement 🙏 David
To be honest I didn’t understand a thing about the technical stuff but still watched all the video and enjoyed the chimney work! 😂
a set of those bolt tapping bits are definitely on my Amazon wish list! Good find!
Great video Charlie, just a point of interest. An installer told me if installing on chimney stack you should always lash using galvanised straps around the stack, if you fix into single bricks the weight and wind leverage can disrupt the bricks over time and work them loose bringing the stack down, there isn’t enough downforce from weight above like in load bearing walls.
Thanks Martin. It's an interesting point that. I can't see that being a problem in my case even with this reasonably heavy galvanised pole given that the bricks are incredibly well mortared in, it's a big old double chimney and I've used three brackets to distribute the weight but I can see the logic of that argument.
I’ve seen photos of bricks levered out after a windy day. One bricks mortar isn’t strong enough…
Perfect video for me. I'm entering almost the exact same situation as you but halfway around the world in Canada. I also have a 5G ISP that is giving me connectivity issues, and I know the over-the-wire providers only reach 1.5mBps down and a dismal 0.5mBps up. I'm disappointed with your upload speeds, but I only need to be able to support video chat for work and the occasional large file upload to work's network. I'm even planning on mounting the dish to my chimney! Thanks very much for the video; I'm much more confident starlink is currently the best solution for my family.
Interesting piece of kit Charlie, glad you got there in the end, it's a technical minefield, I will be reading with interest the comments later !
Charlie is very easy to watch. TIP. Any thing fitted to a chimney, I would recommend and lashing instead of drilling and bracket.
Thanks. I hear what you say. 3 of these brackets should be more than strong enough though even with the weight of that pole.
As usual a brilliant and comprehensive review. Many thanks, Charlie.
Thanks Greg, I really appreciate that 👊
Hi Charlie. Tip on the speeds.. if the starlink Ethernet port is 1Gb make sure everything else is to get the full speed out it. Eg your switch and computer both need the same speed NIC. Might explain the desktop upload vs the results you got on the speed test over wifi. 👍
I guess the next step is to get a dual WAN setup, use your fastest network as a primary and the slower one as a backup. Or load balance across both. The Unifi UDM-Pro, UDM-SE or UXG-Pro are options, as would be a pfSense box.
Peplink is another name to throw into the dual WAN ring!
I have a unify network with a USG Pro. It has dual wan so have BT and local rural internet. Works very well.
The problems with wifi speed are weird so needs more investigation. Can you connect to an AP with Ethernet and test the speed? Help identify if it’s the wifi or the switch or something else.
Just about to install starlink in my home on Anglesey. I only get 44mbps and so the Starlink will be far better than BT or other providers. Fantastic video and thanks for uploading it.
brilliant charlie !! as a parent of a teenager, a grandmother to a 6,4 and 2 yr old and currently renovating an old cottage with various un thought out extentions 🙄your videos have been a god send to us !! thanks so much xx
I live in a regional Australian city based on the NSW/VIC border. We receive NBNCo Internet service here which is appallingly slow, ‘copper to the Node’ with ageing landline copper connecting us to a Node which is separated form our home by 1.1km. The service we receive has been unreliable and provides speeds far below what we pay for. I’ve just purchased Starlink gear (and found the Starlink shop) at the reduced rate offered to Regional Australia. I’ve bought the mount and a longer cable from the Starlink shop. It will be far easier to access the chimney on our roof than yours and we have clear sky above us as we’re on a hillside with no overhanging trees. Thanks for your informative video which has provided knowledge and thoughts to assist my install.
You're very welcome Greg, thanks for taking the time to comment. Your situation with the slow existing sounds similar to mine. You're going to love Starlink 👌
Heavily considering getting starlink so found your video and subbed because you're just an awesome presenter. Very enjoyable. Cheers 🍻
Try the advanced speedtest and on the right it gives you the Router to Internet speed - the speed that the dish is communicating with the satellites. You can then use this as a guide to work out what kind of losses you are getting in your internal network.
This advanced speed test is only available in the app after the ordinary speedtest has completed
Thanks Charlie, great review, however for the sake of safety a harness and a sling around the chimney would be better than nothing when working at height, as Rod Hull would testify to if he was still with us. He really should have taken the Emu off when trying to fix his aerial.
Emu pushed him
Very good video. I had a professional install my Starlink as I am terrified of heights. Within the house, I use a Netgear Orbi wifi system throughout 3 floors of my 16th century farmhouse (with solid stone walls some 18" thick). The Orbi is a bit on the pricy side but does a magnificent job. I use one Orbi router hub and three Orbi satellites to get maximum coverage. I just ran a speedtest on my laptop before typing this, and I see 220meg down and 22.8meg up, and that is one floor below the main Orbi hub. Highly recommended.
That does look good!! And I should probably have mentioned that Starlink do something similar. Thanks for sharing 👊
Starlink do offer a mesh, but at >£140 per mesh satellite that's not even wifi 6, I too am sticking with my existing Orbi setup.
I toyed with the chimney but was advised against due to concerns over strength.
Great video and perfect timing, I have just taken advantage of the exact same deal living in rural Wales, been running it from the stand in the garden for a week or and for us it is pretty consistent. You solved a problem for me so thanks, no a chance in hell you would see me on a ladder, no head for heights at all so have been pondering who would be the right tradie to ask about fitting on a gable end, tv aerial people never occurred to me but of course they would be perfect! Anyway thanks also for the heads up on the ethernet adapter that was my next problem to solve :)
Unifi is a good solution so I suggest an upgrade there is not required. However, if you do not implement the environment correctly it will slow things down.....for instance if you have a high level of security implemented on some of the entry level devices it will impact performance.
Interesting. We’ve been using EE 4G cellular broadband for around 3 years and it too has been flawless until the last 6 months or so, with timeouts and weird lag that we could never get to the bottom of. In addition, we too have got the Starlink dish and we too had to wait for an Ethernet adapter. I’ve not yet plumbed it in to the rest of the network, but I’m hoping our experience will be similar to yours. Cheers for the video!
Very similar experience here. We were on a lousy FTTC line. We spent loads of money on bonding a second FTTC line, stll lousy. Then we moved to 4G and Three, which was great until everyone else started using it during COVID. Then we switched to EE, which was great, until it wasn't (evening streaming became unworkable). Now we are on Starlink which is so much better.
Yes, using EE 4G here and the last few moths have been awful. Hence now installing Starlink when it arrives today. And of course, EE deny it's anything to do with them!
Nice video Charlie, strange your unifi is slowing you down. Would be interesting to see a video on how you've wired the RJ45 ends, what Cable type you've used and what network switch your using as these could all be limiting factors. Typically I find Unifi is pretty decent kit, unless of course its really out of date stuff.
its worth understanding wifi to troubleshoot it, its surprisingly poor in how it works, with different transmission protocols and the hardware that drive them. a simple old poor device running on a new shiny wifi network can drag the whole thing into the toilet because the old device blocks the accesspoint until its done. wifi is very much only as strong as your weakest link
Yes, that sounded odd. I've got Starlink and Unifi.
My Unifi wifi can still exceed the fastest speeds Starlink gives me, there is something not right there.
I'm sat here in my downstairs office, my closest access point is in the loft about 50 feet away from me, through the downstarirs ceiling and the upstairs ceiling. My iPhone happily gets 250 mb/s on a speed test from here (and if I remember correctly from past tests maxes out at about 400 mb/s).
Maybe he's using wireless uplink between the access points without realising it ?
The placement of his access points looked less that optimal. Seemed to be low down on the ground floor and pointing horizontally ? They really need to be up on ceilings, preferrably upstairs and pointing down when you've got thick cottage walls (we have that issue too a bit). Mine are just laid on the boards in the lofts.
I'm also very careful to make sure my three access points aren't using overlapping bands. If I leave it on automatic Unifi will tend to use the same band for the two APs that are at either end of my house, so instead I use manaual band selection and make sure that on both 2.4 GHz/5GHz I'm the best channel options there are.
That's a Gen 2 modem; they put the RJ45 Ethernet ports back on the Gen 3 model which I just ordered. But all in all, you chose Starlink for the same reason I did over here in the US; best option for rural users that want a decent Internet connection.
Good to see the mk4 still rolling.
Yes there's a lot of work to do to it sadly on the body, not helped by reversing into a wall recently, but I had the engine rebuilt over a year ago due to a coolant problem and it's driving beautifully.
Great video. We just received our Starlink kit for our farm here in Texas. We have lots of trees around us so I am anxious to see how well it works. Cheers.
Thanks buddy. Good luck with the install. Yes, use the obstruction checker tool to see if the trees interfere with the signal. 👊
This was super interesting to me, as I went through this process myself a couple of months ago after moving into a rural house in North Yorkshire (Unfortunately I had to pay full whack for the kit), I ran into many of the same problems as you, orienting the dish North made me laugh as I knew what was coming next! I did wonder why you didn't route the cable through the pipe on the chimney instead of coming out the top?
Regarding your home network, I would highly recommend getting a Wifi 6E setup, the speeds are not far off being as fast as wired (Just under 10GBPS) way more than your upload/download speed is capable of! This is providing you have devices capable of using a 6E ghz channel (There's also a 6GHz channel, and 5/2.4 bundled channel).
I use the TP-Link Deco XE75 AXE5400 home kit, it comes with 3x access points but you can add more, really easy to setup. They actually wireless daisy chain together and have amazing signal range and penetration.
This means you don't need to hard wire them together via ethernet (Although you can as you already have the cables ran) If you ever wanted to add extras beyond what you already have, as the connection over 6E is so fast, and works between the APs, there's no point running ethernet anymore, as there's no slowdown to having it run wirelessly. With the added benefit that nothing else uses the 6E band, so there's no interference either. The only downside is there's not as much custom options as something like Ubiquiti, i.e. I haven't seen an option to keep a second connection and use it to load balance your starlink connection, this was my original plan, but I've found starlink so stable I don't think it's worth it. I've only had 1 outage which lasted 5-10 mins when we had a thunderstorm last month.
Hope that helps a bit! Looking forward to a future vid where you upgrade your home network!
Cheers
Thanks for this. That's really interesting and is something I'll definitely consider. Also really appreciate your update on Starlink. 👊
Good luck with yours. I sent mine back after a week as lots of faulty cables and mine was one of them (kept showing as cable disconnected when it wasn’t). Customer service was good, but just too slow 😢
It’s not the setting up of the dish it’s the internal challenges of old rural homes with very thick walls. Would be great to have a video dedicated to resolving these issues
Hi Charlie, it would be good for you to to do a follow up video on your experiences since you installed last year. #pleasethankyou
Didn't cover which package you pay for monthly for the contract.
I can't understand why this doesn't make the edit as it was in the script. £75 per month which is £40 more than I was paying for EE.
Watched with interest because I have thought about Airband. If nothing else, you’ve proved my reticence to go over to it was right. I’m using 4G EE off the next mast south of you at Martley. Probably two years now and generally has been really good with downloads averaging between 30 and 40 Mbts per second and upload averaging between 4 and 6 Mbts per second. Nice to know that Starlink could be a good alternative if EE ever got dodgy!
Cheers Andy. Glad to hear yours is working ok. Yep Airband was far too unreliable. 👊
I know this video is a bit old now and things may have changed, but your EE router has external Mimo 4x4 antenna links.
I would recommend trying an external high-gain outdoor directinal antenna with a line of sight to a 5G mast. I don't see why you wouldn't get 500 down and 500 up very easily.
The antennas cost around £120 and would be installed on that pipe. 5 metres of preterminated cable come with most, so the router could go into the loft with a Cat6 down to the main router.
Alternately, you could look at terminating your own, although this can be a pain.
The website is easy to find (it has routerstore in the name); however, these can be purchased anywhere; really, just make sure you get a 4x4 MIMO compatible one.
And looking at the 5G router you have, I think you'd need 4x Ts9 to SMA adapters.
I've only recently found your channel, so forgive me if any of this has been tried or mentioned before, but I would love to see a comparison between this solution and Starlink. I think your use case with line of sight is the best possible option, beating out Starlink by some margin.
I think your router might be a Zyxel NR5103 or similar; they are spec'd to have a theoretical download speed of 4.67 Gbps with the correct antennas, so honestly, who knows what you'll get? I would bet money on higher than you currently get, but if you still have the equipment, it's 100% worth a go.
Firstly, I’d like to know how you got that kind of deal? Here in Florida, when I “finally” got my notification that my dish was coming, I had to pay the 592.00 on TOP of the 99.00 I had put down as a deposit in March. I got the kit a couple of weeks ago, had to order the 150 ft cable because our house is surrounded by oak trees. Luckily our pump house isn’t so when I checked that spot, Starlink gave me a GREAT spot message. I wanted the dishy as high as possible to make sure the oak trees didn’t block it in a few years so I ordered the Winegard 38” mast. We buried the cable in the ground, in conduit, mounted the mast to the pump house gable and turned it on! WOW! I can’t believe how amazing this system is. Right now, it’s been raining ALL night, but when I checked my wifi I had 3 bars back in my office which is the furtherest from the router. I just did an advanced speed test and we are getting from Starlink to the Internet: 159 download and 15 download with latency around the 22 mark. And 42 download and 30 upload from the router to our devices. Like I said, amazing!
It's brilliant isn't it! They had a limited time offer which actually ended just before I posted the video. Just as well though as I'm still paying for my old broadband connection 😩
You don't need to change your unifi, you probably just need to configure it correctly. Unifi is rock solid with speeds
Yes, I'm sure it's not configured correctly and doesn't help that I've got RJ45 connectors on solid CAT5e cable.
@@CharlieDIYte I went full unifi and all works well. I'm surprised you managed to get RJ45 on solid cable. Get some keystone jack's. Makes life easier
Just set this up ourselves in rural Australia. We ordered the dish and then realised we needed the Ethernet adapter, but everything came very quickly. So far very happy with the system. We had been using mobile broadband, which was slow and unreliable.
Glad to hear that Joanne. It's more than you'd pay ideally but is a life saver in rural locations isn't it 👊
@@CharlieDIYte yes it is a bit pricey, it is a priority for us as my hubby is working from home. If the initial outlay hadn’t dropped by 3/4, I don’t think we would have considered it, but happy we did now.
Makes me feel fortunate,
We live on the outskirts of a rural village, the speeds we got were terrible, then about 3 years ago they dug up the roads & fitted fibre.
Couldn’t live without it now.
& weirdly it’s cheaper . £30 a month.
About £10 a month cheaper .
Yep, still waiting for them to do that here
Great video as I'm about to take the plunge and order this so a lot if what you came across is very useful.. I see there's a Gen 3 Starlink now but doesn't look to be a UK thing yet sadly.
Make sure the unifi 5ghz is set to 80Mhz channel bandwidth, it’s not by default on unifi. Should get you 400mbps plus on the ac or 6 gear.
Thanks Ed. I'll check 👌👊
Love how I got an Ee advert literally after you mentioned how bad it was
Just pulled the trigger on the business set up.
Had the same problem for a client of mine, so I used a necked pole and then U bolts to allow to clamp the stem of the Starlink unit to the pole. Nightmare!! They never mention the extras and even then the costs for say a pole adapter is ridiculous! However it works a treat for my client, so everyone is happy all round.
Not that I am in the market but I read some user reviews and it is a nice solution for all the more or less extreme situation, like mobile, boat or " in the middle of nowhere" but it has serious limitation and will never be a through competitor for wired internet in a residential area.
But everything is better than NO internet !
Thanks for sharing
I dunno, unless you are gaming, nothing else really requires the wired latency, at 30-50ms on starlink it copes with all the house needs and work from home needs too
@@Extragonk Just google the reviews and read the experienced downsides before you buy. That's all I am saying.
I'd definitely go with wired internet if I had that option.
Great to see you in Euston a couple of weeks back, Charlie. Another great informative vid; I've no use for one........ yet 😉 cheers, Simon.
Ah, Simon, great to hear from you. It was awesome to meet you at Euston and as I said, I really appreciate your interest in my vids 👊
Great efforts in creating the video. You've truly gone from A-Z :)
Your connection speed via Unifi can be caused by multiple factors. Some of which could be overcome in setup and others maybe not. Wi-Fi has 2 frequencies (2.4GHz & 5GHz) with the latter getting more features for higher speeds. Channel width can help to increase throughput so may be worth exploring config. It’s a tricky thing to get right and it’s possible to make it worse too so recommend changing one setting at a time and testing.
Keep in mind he has solid stone/brick walls in his house so 5GHz may not be the best option but it is most definitely worth trying everything that's available on Unifi which I no nothing about.
@@josephking6515 indeed, I’d start by testing in same room as one of the Unify AP’s (but approx. 3m away where possible) and test speeds from there. Then play with setting on channel width on 5GHz etc from there. As you say, further away from an AP and the device may prefer 2.4GHz and then speeds will drop.
What CISCO switch are you running, if it's only running at 100Mb it will slow everything down. I'd replace it with a UniFi POE switch, so you can get rid of those POE injectors too.
Interesting to see it used on this side of the pond. Just wondering though, you didn't mention ongoing costs, is it really £75 per month? That's strange about your Unifi experience, I've got it for my house and it does a good job, no complaints here. Keep up the good work! 👍
The lowest residential plan is £75/month. I've just looked into their UK rural offer.
@@ChrisAWright Blimey. I guess if there's no other options, needs must eh.
@@bikerchrisukk check with your local council or the government website for any grants available. I know down in Hampshire, we have a broadband fund for those in rural areas. It was a year ago now but the last time I checked, for the 3 cottages where I'm based, we could get close to £9k towards having FTTP installed. If it wasn't for Openreach wanting close to £30k (along with the fact that one of the cottages didn't want to join up and we needed all 3 cottages to sign off). They still have a TV that only receives 5 channels and didn't know Freeview even existed!)
Worth checking if there aren't grants from your local authorities.
@@ChrisAWright That's really good info cheers mate 👍...and wow to £30k, if that was £10k per (ignoring the stone age person), I wonder if that could possibly tack on £10k to the value of the property?
I know you aren't an IT/tech guy Charlie but as someone with a 3500sq ft house over 3 floors, it would be really interesting to see how you've setup your network. I am looking at different options and like you will probably need 3 access points. I'd be interested to see a video explaining how you've done it (even if it isn't necessarily the 'optimal' way of doing it).
Sure, I'll add it to the list. The access points need an ethernet connection back to the router but you might consider a mesh WiFi system like the Netgear Orbi that someone recommended in the comments and Starlink have extra mesh routers in their shop, to boost the signal.
@@CharlieDIYte We moved into a rural location with a thick walled house of about 3,600 square feet. I went with 4G National broadband using Vodafone - which has been decent enough for us. Starlink would have been interesting, but not at full price!
I had an Orbi network in our old house, a base and three satellites. It worked well. In this house it doesn't. The problem is that the Orbi appears to communicate primarily over wi-fi with a wifi back haul (assuming it isn't possible to run ethernet back haul - which is hard for us to do). I gave up on it.
In the end I purchased a Mesh network from TP-Link - the Deco Mesh P9. The "P" is important because it communicates on ethernet, wi-fi AND Power line, hence "P". The Power line is built into the unit. As long as the house wiring isn't installed by Thomas Eddison, it generally manages to punch a wi-fi signal around most peoples houses. In the end, we purchased a total of nine satellites (but they are much cheaper than Orbi) and we enjoy whole house mesh coverage. Admittedly, the mesh speeds aren't fantastic but, as most of the traffice ends up on the broadband connection going to the web, it doesn't matter that much.
Nice work, shame about the size of the monthly fee though. I would do some research about your ubiquiti before you buy anything else though. It may not be the ubiquiti that’s the bottleneck and a replacement may not be any faster. Or it may be just one component of the ubiquiti network or the cisco switch. I run about 70 devices off 3 APs, one switch and the UDM pro with no speed issues.
Your lows of 6Mbs maybe indicate a problem, but if you're getting a peak of close to 200Mbs, I doubt you need to improve your Wi-Fi - this are more or less normal numbers for Starlink right now, depending on the uptake in the area. It's also worth remembering that Ku band transmissions are quite susceptible to rain fade and this can occur between the satellite and the ground station even if you see a clear sky.
Best step would be to run those speed tests on the ethernet port.
was waiting for someone to share their uk experience
we've had it for a year now, its been really good
If possible I would be putting in an access window or door from the attic into the valley.
Interesting to see this setup, I think this is the first unbiased and decent Starlink review I've seen from a youtuber I fully trust! I wonder how bad the weather has to get for it to cause issues. Speed might improve (or will it?) as more of those satellites go up - they're still putting dozens per month into orbit.
Thanks, I really appreciate that. Yes I think we'll need a review one year in to see how it fares in the bad weather. I'll be nervously checking it after each storm 😬
It barely works in bad weather. I had it for one year.
Big thunderstorm yesterday and mine cut out briefly....despite the power remaing on (proved by my oven clock not resetting. Very pleased over all, Great video btw
Hi Charlie, you are very articulate, IT knowledgeable, and very outspoken. I wonder what you do for a living? If I would have guessed, I would say you fit in the James Bond role. 😀
At 12m05s it appears that the dish's tail is merely suspended from the dish; I would recommend you use quite a few outdoors-rated (UV-resistant) cable ties -- or similar -- as otherwise winds will whip the cable are quickly wear it out. (Think those flag pole wires incessantly banging and pinging in even low winds.)
It's a fair point. I've secured it with zip ties. Not sure why I didn't show it in the vid. Always forget something!
Great video as always Charlie, you are a true inspiration, and as a very confident DIYer i still learn so much from your videos. I'm no fan of Elon Musk, but the product is a great concept, however things like the removal of something basic like an ethernet port only to charge you more for an adapter sounds like it's come straight out of the apple book of creating a poorer customer experience. (dont mention the headphone jack!)
Be interesting to see how this performs in snow or heavy rain.
Thanks Martin. I completely agree, it's outrageous to take away the ethernet port. Yes it's the high winds I'm most worried about. There's an option in the app to melt off any snow. 👊
I’m also in a rural area, cellular is way too inconsistent, sometimes 20+mbps sometimes 0.5, I wish they had that deal over here in the us
I am sure musk, looks at Apple, and thinks what would they do, really no RJ45, you have to buy an adapter, just like Apple with all their dongles.
Did you try using an external 5g aerial, to see if that improved things. Also ubiquity stuff is very good, I have never had any problems with speed when using their stuff
I know. Terrible isn't it! I mean, just one wouldn't hurt!
Hi Charlie - I am about to get POE Access Points; combined with a POE switch should make a very simple complete and robust wifi set up. As POE no separate power will be needed at the access points. I have looked back at your brief clip of your access points and I can’t tell if they are POE or not.
All those Unifi access points he showed are PoE.
Always wondered how Starlink would work in bad winds. Seems very delicate for UK windy days
It's a fair point. I'll report back in a year. 👊
Had Starlink for almost a year and yes high wind and heavy rain affect performance adversely
The Unifi WiFi platform is excellent if implemented correctly, it may be worth having a local firm take a look at your network to see if there are any issues with your home network that could be rectified.
Hi Charlie, I have multiple unifi installs across friends and family houses. I've seen this issue before, and would recommend adjusting the Channel width within the Radio settings on the unifi app. You have to do this for both 2.5 and 5ghz. The APs should then get much closer to the speed on the router. Happy to talk through if easier. They can sometimes take a bit of tweaking.
Great video btw, I've just installed starlink in a business in central London. Working ok, but get a few obstructions on the roof of the building unfortunately
@@pickiewickiehello, do you have a business number I could contact you on? We are looking at a network installation in our office using starling and unify.
I just picked up the rural offer too; lucky to see it the day before it ended. Delivery of the dish was super fast, but the ethernet adapter is / was much slower.
I wanted to go for the chimney install, but was advised against it due to concerns over strength; your install looks solid though - fair play. 👍
Good vid, and good tips. The cable's a pain to get through, and doing that in advance I found helped a lot.
Thanks Steve. Yes my chimney is strong as, thankfully. Hope your install goes well. I'm really happy with it so far.
Brilliant install,first time viewer.thanks
Thanks, really appreciate that, and great to have you on board 👊
Really interesting. Though aren't your speeds going to reduce the more people get Starlink?
there is a contention, the US side of things are seeing caps in high use zones but apparently the uk is not there yet.
for the pipe mount I would use pipe/hose clamps and just use a grinder to cut two slits 150% of the length you try to clamp down or more if the pipe is on the large side inner diameter wise.
What stops wildlife (birds) from coming and surfing on it?
It's a good point. I suppose they won't sit on a sloping surface 🤔
Regarding your speed tests - connecting over wifi as you have found out, CAN be very hit and miss with speeds. This is down to so many things: antenna, wifi standard and version, wifi frequency (we're up to 3 now: 2.4Ghz, 5Ghz, 6Ghz) each on client and access point, wall thickness and construction, location, orientation etc etc etc.
To get the best speed, it's always going to be a direct connect with a cable, but it looks like you're getting a pretty good speed over wifi, low latency and jitter, but that may change as you move about the property. At the end of the day, data is going up to and down from space, it's always going to be slower than FTTH or 5G to a local tower (and then further on via fibre again), but glad to hear it's doing you alright
Thanks buddy, appreciate that. Yes I'm gutted the 5G is no longer viable and I've just realised I've got 8 months left to run on the contract 🤦
I am curious as to where you are based, as in "Rural", I am rural in West Sussex and have moved over to Box Broadband (Surrey based) and have connected to their fibre network. This is under a government initiative for connecting rural areas. So far very happy with better download and upload speeds that you report. I am on the lowest connection, 100Mb, which is fine for us. I too was getting frquent drp outs with TalkTalk and they were not interested in solving the problem, luckily I was close to the end of contract so could switch.
Your Unifi system should be fine, make sure you have the latest firmware on each access point, your Cisco switch is Gigabit and not 10/100, your POE injecors are gigabit and not 10/100, and finally, make sure you have seperate SSIDs for both the 5ghz and 2.4ghz bands. Set the 5ghz channel width to 80mhz and carry out your speed tests only when connected to 5ghz, as the 2.4ghz band will max out at about 70mbps.
Can't thank you enough for that Brian. Will get onto it 👊
Hi Charlie, Quite a journey you have had to go through . But it proves that a lot of places in the Uk are still badly provided by the internet speed . But glad you are now sorted . Best wishes as always 😀👍👍👍
Thanks! Yes, and I've just realised I can't cancel my EE contract for another 8 months!!
Thanks for the video very informative 👍👍
Going to be set mine up in Brazil next Monday. I hope I get roughly the same speeds as you do because that will be great. I am curious how my PS5 will do on it. Hmmm
Good luck - you'll love it sand here's an update ua-cam.com/video/HDFD7Mautzk/v-deo.html
jumped at the £99 offer? :P nice! nearly did it myself but managed to get on a trial for Virgin PIA :P
Ah good work. Hope the Virgin does the job. 👊
So lucky that rural Northumberland has fibre to the property. Starlink was my next option until we got the fibre.
much appreciated thanks.
One question - lighting strikes ? any thoughts
Im in a seasonal thunderstorm area.
excellent
Good video thanks, you stated the purchase cost of the installation, but what does Starlink cost per month to use it? Bob. UK
instead of drilling and tapping , you can get "taptite" bolts for fixing into steel
Yes good point. That drill and tap was so easy to use though.
thanks a lot
For rural locations i get it. But i will say i was expecting >200 speeds for the cost of the whole outlay throughout the year. Still i guess if needs must and you are used to much worse its a big upgrade and if you can make that investment worthwhile for yourself then why not.
Yes that's the point. That EE router seemed to be the answer and was only £35 a month but is shocking. The frustrating thing is I've got 8 months left to run on the contract for a non existent service.
Hi Charlie, I was interest you swapped from 4g LTE/5g cellular, to starlink. What did you use for your cellular antenna, a built in router or an external aerial? Built in is not normally strong enough when rural.
If you'd used an external antenna, combined with a parabolic dish, you should have been able to improve your download and upload speed more than sufficiently. I'm in the UK and rural. I obtain around 200mb down and 100mb up. I use two antenna towards two separate masts to provide stability.
You should also look at the network using, as the performance will vary wildly. Stay away from piggy back services as they limit the bandwidth.
It's a fair point Stephen and thanks for your feedback. I used the internal aerial. But the signal was fantastic for a year or so using this and then just dropped off a cliff. Starlink has been brilliant though.
My 5G three internet is one of my best ever purchases, downloads of 700 and uploads of 60ish. Plus it's cheap.
This looks a great option for rural areas tho 🎉
Yep. Loved the EE router whilst it worked and cheap as you say. Something's happened with ours though. It's hopeless now and the worst thing - I've still got 8 months left on the contract.
Thanks very useful
You're welcome. Thanks for the comment 👌
I have noticed some 45 ms ping on your readings is that correct? I tested a similar system a couple of years ago, admittedly the speed was fast but the request time was horrendous so after a month I had to return it. Since this area has yet to be provided with fibre, I was considering trying again with a different company. Perhaps Starlink could be a good start. Thank you so much for sharing. 🙏
Great video. Thanks! 😊
You're welcome, thanks for the comment 👊
I’d really like to give Starlink a go and if it was £99 I would but it’s back at the high price of £460. It’s a pity they don’t give the discount to customers who do live in rural areas, or even free kit for that matter; at £75 pm they are doing pretty well out of it. I wonder how often the £99 offer comes up?
Just for information. Rule of thumb for drilling & tapping threads. Thread tapping depth should be 1.5 times the bolt diameter. So for an M10 bolt 15mm. This gives maximum holding strength. Tapping an M10 hole in a thin walled tube such as scaffold tube will result in a very low strength fixing.
Thanks for this. Don't forget though I'm only gently tightening it. The thread depth would far exceed the strength of the mast if I was to properly tighten it. Horses for courses.