![\"Starlink](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756322894_715_Starlink-internet-dish-in-original-cardboard-box-just-opened.jpg\")
<\/p>\nI recently moved to a much more rural area, so getting Starlink set up was one of my top priorities. My area is an internet dead zone where you might get a bit of 4G on a nearby hill, but that\u2019s about it. No cellular for phone calls, and the best I can hope from a landline connection is 3 Mbps. As a modern man with a modern family full of modern devices, I need fast internet\u2014so I readied Starlink even before my kids\u2019 beds.<\/p>\n
It worked pretty well, too. At first I heard a bunch of buzzing noises that I was not expecting, but that sort of coil whine is apparently pretty typical. A few minutes later, I was online!<\/p>\n
But it wasn\u2019t all smooth sailing. Having Starlink isn\u2019t like having fiber internet, and I ran into several surprises along the way. Here are all the things I wish I\u2019d known before getting Starlink at home.<\/p>\n
Starlink is better when it\u2019s mounted<\/p>\n
As soon as I had Starlink working, I messaged my friends saying \u201cSpace internet installed!\u201d with the following image:<\/p>\n
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Jon Martindale \/ Foundry<\/p>\n
That\u2019s right. The Starlink dish is propped up in the cardboard box it came in, sitting on some steps leading to a lawn that was never intended as its permanent home. It worked well enough for the first night\u2014but that\u2019s as long as I would ever want it to be there.<\/p>\n
Turns out, Starlink performs best when the dish is mounted in a location that\u2019s free from obstructions and oriented in a way that maintains a connection with as many Starlink satellites as possible. The Starlink app makes the whole process pretty straightforward, with dynamically adjusting on-screen graphics that help you rotate the dish into its optimal facing. My ground-mounted performance was (obviously) bad, so taking the time to get it into a better position was worthwhile.<\/p>\n
But I\u2019m no handyman. I can build a PC, sure, but hoofing up a ladder and drilling into red brick isn\u2019t something I\u2019m super comfortable doing\u2014so I brought in a local professional TV antenna installer.<\/p>\n
Within a couple of hours, he had the dish mounted by my roof. Performance jumped from 50 Mbps to nearly 200 Mbps downstream. A huge improvement with better coverage, less chance of someone just wandering into my yard and stealing the dish, and no chance of my kids riding their bikes over the cable. That\u2019s a win-win-win.<\/p>\n
\u2026but Starlink can be ugly when mounted<\/p>\n
Personally, I think the Starlink dish looks pretty cool. Its a unique sight compared to all those rounded satellite dishes that you\u2019ve likely seen in urban centers over the last several decades. It\u2019s more modern.<\/p>\n
![\"Starlink](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756322895_372_Starlink-internet-dish-mounted-by-roof-on-brick-wall.jpg\")
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Jon Martindale \/ Foundry<\/p>\n
But the makeshift pipe-mount system I used? Eh, that leaves a lot to be desired. There are more attractive first-party mounts you can buy at additional cost, but a giant pipe on an unpainted brace is cheaper. Unfortunately, my wife is even less of a fan.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not like I\u2019m going to be looking at it much up there. But if the exterior aesthetics of your home are important to you, it\u2019s probably worth spending some more time (and money) than I did to get it mounted in a way that gets you great performance while looking good.<\/p>\n
Starlink\u2019s upload speed is still lacking<\/p>\n
One aspect of fiber internet that\u2019s easy to overlook is that it isn\u2019t just blazingly fast for downloads\u2014you can get upload speeds that are often as fast as your download speeds. That makes quick work when uploading work documents, personal photos, YouTube videos, and more.<\/p>\n
![\"Starlink](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756322895_798_Starlink-internet-speed-test-download-and-upload-results-screenshot.jpg\")
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Jon Martindale \/ Foundry<\/p>\n
As I said at the start, though, Starlink isn\u2019t fiber. I\u2019m getting around 150 Mbps average download speeds with peaks up to 300 Mbps, but my upload speeds are decidedly slower. I\u2019ve seen some people post screenshots of 50 Mbps uploads<\/a>, but I\u2019ve yet to see mine break 30 Mbps. More often than not, it\u2019s closer to 15 Mbps.<\/p>\n To be fair, 15 Mbps is plenty for sending photos over messaging apps and streaming my webcam during Discord D&D sessions, but it\u2019s a lot more noticeable when I\u2019m trying to send long videos to friends and family. And I don\u2019t think I\u2019d get far trying to livestream my gaming on Twitch<\/a> at anything over 1080p with this kind of internet.<\/p>\n Starlink\u2019s router is underwhelming<\/p>\n This might sound like a humblebrag, but the bundled Starlink Gen 3 router\u2014a tri-band Wi-Fi 6 router with a claimed coverage of just over 3,000 square feet\u2014wasn\u2019t enough for my new house. Truth is, my place is about half of that, yet I still had trouble getting signal everywhere due to walls, obstructions, and other sources of interference.<\/p>\n Could I have place the Starlink router in a better spot for better coverage? Yeah, maybe. And there\u2019s even a mesh system I could\u2019ve employed if I was married to Starlink\u2019s hardware.<\/p>\n TP-Link<\/p>\n But, fortunately, I have a much better TP-Link Archer GE800 Wi-Fi 7 router<\/a>, so I didn\u2019t need to bother. It\u2019s complete overkill for a civilian gamer like myself, but it does offer fantastic coverage in my wonky-walled home, and I already know my way around it from the past year of faithful operation. (Lean more about why you should get your own router<\/a>.)<\/p>\n Props to Starlink for making the bridging process super simple, though. Just plug them in, switch the router to bypass mode in the app, a quick router reboot, and it was good to go in less than 10 minutes.<\/p>\n There\u2019s no planning for a global outage<\/p>\n Two days after I got my Starlink dish mounted, my service went down. My wife had just left the house and closed the door the very second my PC connection dropped, so I thought it was her fault. Maybe she knocked the mount loose by slamming the door too hard?<\/p>\n But as it turns out, it wasn\u2019t anything so innocuous. In fact, the entire global Starlink network had gone down<\/a>. <\/p>\n Jon Martindale \/ Foundry<\/p>\n I managed to text a few friends from my board game group to see if they could send me tips on how to get it working again. They sent me screengrabs from Reddit<\/a>, Twitter, DownDetector. It confirmed that it wasn\u2019t just my router or my dish. Indeed, all of Starlink was down.<\/p>\n Apparently something like this has happened a few times before, but I also have friends who\u2019ve had Starlink for years who claim there\u2019s never been any outages as far as they know. So I\u2019m not expecting this to happen again anytime soon, but tech is tech and it can fail. Even the magic of space internet can stop working from time to time.<\/p>\n Your friends will judge you for Starlink<\/p>\n Since November 2024, people around the world have been protesting against Elon Musk and those who support him. Many Tesla owners have added stickers to their vehicles, promising that their Teslas were bought before the CEO went crazy, all to fend off potential attacks.<\/p>\n![\"TP-Link](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756322895_670_TP-Link-Archer-GE800-router-better-than-Starlink-Gen-3-router.jpg\")
<\/p>\n![\"Starlink](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/1756322895_149_Starlink-internet-cmon-do-something-meme.jpg\")
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