Let’s Talk STARLINK

I'm perhaps 5 feet from the end of the array, but an open array, especially 12kw, is putting out a different spray than a 2Kw closed. You're pretty close together which equates to a similar clearance at 5 feet as I did through trial and error.

Latest changes, this is a big one!!

https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/starlink-for-rvs-is-now-starlink-roam/

I've been waiting and watching things unfold with the intent of going with the RV Mobility. Now this surprise! With the hardware renamed Starlink Roam being geofenced to land only, I wonder how accurate the geofence is. Might it be possible that it would still work for coastal cruising in the Pacific Northwest?

I see on Starlink's website that they have a "Canada Limited Time Offer" of $350 (vs. $759) for hardware. Despite the uncertainty regarding this question, plus Starlink's unknown future plans for marine use, I'm thinking of taking a gamble.

I wonder if the land geofencing when nearshore would be effective, but I imagine if one is close enough to land there may be 4g or 5G cellular coverage anyway?

Since the dish has built in GPS and reports position to SL, accurate geofencing very close to shore would be very easy to implement.

I have just ordered the new in motion antenna to upgrade our original RV antenna. We ll see how it works out on the next trip to the exumas. I haven’t cancelled our MyIslandWifi sim and won’t until this is all clarified

Pascal makes a good point about the built in GPS potentially making geofencing very accurate.

In the southern areas of the PNW there can be good cellular coverage but Canadian providers charge a lot for data! You'd be shocked how much we pay the oligopolies up here for voice/data plans. In northern areas of the PNW there's no cell coverage at all - but we're very close to land (hence my curiosity about the accuracy of geofencing).

Won’t geofencing (as described by the folks at rvmobileinternet.com) prevent it working on your trip to the Exumas? Or am I missing something?

It could. It depends on their definition of land use. If strict then yes… as soon as you get offshore, service could be lost.

Bahamas is not Approved for use yet as apparently they have not signed agreements with the Bahamian government.

right now everything is up in the air… I mean.. in low orbit I even wonder if this threat of geofencing isn’t to slow the growth and allow capacity to build.

Just finished installing a new Starlink high performance dish today… went pretty well, of course the hardest part was having to pull ceiling panels, lights, speakers in the skylounge to run the cable across and down to the electronic bay. Will probably keep the original starlink dish as a back up and just put the account on pause. The new dish is a big improved since it sits right on the roof

that said, I am amazed at some of the SL quirks… for example, the installation instructions specifically say to install the High Performance antenna with the connection facing forward. I understand is connector is supposed to be waterproof but if we running 20kts into a 30kts headwind…. That s like a pressure washer on the plug. Why couldn’t they put the connector under the dish!

then you have the router with the power on LED hidden on the bottom… makes a lot of sense. And why the heck do they have what seems to be lights on the front, part of some orbit logo but with no LED…

these starlink folks are a bit odd. . Kind of like some absent minded professor colony.

I was on their website the other day. Have prices come down or is it really $5k/month for marine service? If so, it's better than the $25k/month for private jet service..... Sheesh.

In principle, yes, but I doubt they will do it. If they want to create a geofence that closely follows the coast, they need millions/billions of fence posts (data points). America is a big place with a simple coast but RoW is even bigger with more complex coast. Take a country as small as Croatia in the EU - it has 1246 islands so who is going to geofence that? And if they do, they have hardly begun the task because Croatia is just 1/8th the size of California. Go figure.

If they want to cut that workload, they can just have a fencepost every 1/10th mile or mile (or whatever), and jump across anchorages, small anchorages and archipelagos. That will be good enough for them. SL would then work well for purely coastal runs, and for sitting in horseshoe bay anchorages. That will be ok for many people, probably me included, especially with 4G backup.

I'm following all this closely because I have a boat in build and am holding off ordering SL till the last minute (end of 2023), because things move so fast. So, thanks to everyone for the great information on here.

I believe you can buy 1TB for $1,000/mo.

Sorry for asking, might be stupid, but is there any traffic limit for residential or roam usage? Can't find this info on SL site...