Starlink Usage Changes

Note: Back in the overcrowded cesspool that is the Metro Denver area.  I'll be here for a bit as I've upcoming medical appointments with the VA.

Recently, Starlink raised the price of the Roam Unlimited plan I had selected when I bought into the system.  It went from $150 t0 $165.  They said they were adding a benefit of being able to use it while moving as a way, in my opinion, to soften the blow of it costing more money.

This led me to examining the data usage during the periods where I had used Starlink while camping.  I saw I never exceeded 50 GB, heck I didn't get above 40 GB!

Starlink has a plan called Mini Roam, initially rolled out with their new Mini Dish systems.  It had a 50GB plan for a mere $50 per billing period.  If you exceed the 50GB, you can opt-in for $1/GB if needed.

This plan is available to us regular dish users and I signed up for it starting on Oct 2 which is when my billing period begins; on the second of each month.  We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, based on posts I saw on FB, it turned out usable data connectivity is achievable with the Starlink dish being inside the vehicle!  This assumes of course the vehicle roof's material allows Starlink signals to pass through.

Turns out, the bunkhouse area of the VRRV, which we use for storage, allows signals to get through.

I tried just setting the dish flat in the center of the bunkhouse, pointing straight up and no bothering with the tilt.  The results of some testing are below, the first number is download speed, the second number is upload speed in MBs.

189/26, 183/7, 135/3, 172/8

Quite usable speeds in our case.

Then, I thought to insert the dish into the wooden cubby which used to house the DVD Player that the VRRV originally came with from the factory.

The results of speed tests were:

107/13, 172/11, 130/17, 49/6, 91/8, 100/12, 108/14

Again, the speeds are quite usable by us and way faster than 4G LTE in most foreseeable circumstances.

Testing while driving: Steady reception (was listening to Internet radio station) and only saw two brief drops while inside some steep canyons.

So, I think we'll continue with Starlink this way, easy enough to pull it out of the DVD Cubby and put it on the roof too.