Starlink and Internet in Australia
Introduction:
Since I returned from USA to Australia in 1996, I have struggled at the cutting edge of internet technology. It has been expensive, and a steep learning curve, even for me.
The cost has been at about AUD75 per month to have the best available. I started with telephone at 57k bps. This worked in Perth, but before 2000 there were hardly enough telephone lines in the street to cope. Cellphones saved the day although not useful for data. I moved to Satellite (1 mbs down, 57k up) then cable, etc. then, 1 year ago, to Starlink. Starlink is twice the price but seems to have what I need. The $139 per month unlimited (usually 500 Gb) is much better value than $59 I was paying 20 years ago for a 1 mb dish and 400 mb data. But Now I have Starlink.
Details on how to set it up.
Replacing or adding a Dish:
After 1 year my service crashed after a power outage of a few days, and I didn't have time to drive out to the farm for a few weeks. It seemed that the Starlink service or hardware was non-functional. To save time I bought a nearly new dish and modem for $200 on Gumtree. The guy who sold it was very helpful and gave me a few tips by text messages as I had questions.
I could not find the setup information I needed to add a new, extra, dish to my account. I still don't know exactly. So here is the problem.
Be Prepared!
When the dish is installed and connected to the PC by Wi-Fi or directly with an ethernet adapter (sold as an extra add-on), it does not connect. So, you need to have access to the internet so that you can log in to the Starlink site, become a new user, and put in some payment credentials. After that, your dish will become active.
So that seems easy, but not so easy if you have no Wi-Fi or ethernet (the dish is down), and you live in an area with very poor 4G Telstra service (one bar). If using the Starlink App on your iPhone, you will need to have a good 4G connection and, ideally, a hotspot from the phone to the PC to get Wi-Fi. Of course, you normally would set the whole thing up on your iPhone (use the app), if you had a decent connection. It entails flipping from the app to the browser login and receiving a security code to your email. Be prepared!
Set it up in a location where you have another Wi-Fi and Cellphone connection:
My solution was to take the whole thing back to Perth and set it up there. Then, move the installation to my farm. I found then that it did not like the new location (I guess it felt like it had been stolen). The solution was, once again, find a Wi-Fi connection and tell the Starlink app (or website) that this particular dish was at a new location, not your account address.
Annoyances:
People at Starlink service are helpful, but don't understand the real-life issues with installation. There are several other annoying problems.
The printing on the devices is so tiny and poor quality that you will need to take a magnified photo and have that available to read the numbers on your dish and on your modem. Also, I still haven't figured out how to have both dishes on my account. Instead, I have two accounts now, with different login emails on each. I have both dishes up and running at about 200 Mbs. I'll decide which to cancel next month when the fees are due.
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