Maggie’s Star Link

[Hrsmn51]

I had Star Link gen3 installed 6/26/25
DOA on 7/3/25
As of today no response from support as to any resolution or assistance.
Anyone here have any experience with them?
While it worked speed was great. Expensive per my experience.
Not many options in rural Montana
H

 

[Redmanss]

I had Star Link gen3 installed 6/26/25
DOA on 7/3/25
As of today no response from support as to any resolution or assistance.
Anyone here have any experience with them?
While it worked speed was great. Expensive per my experience.
Not many options in rural Montana
H

On a Gen 2 dish for the last three years, love it. I started to get diminished performance, it was pole mounted and I scratch buried the cable in gravel which I think damaged the cable in the thaw/freeze cycle, replaced the cable and back up to greatness again. It's taken blizzards with -37°F temps, golfball hail and everything else the Wyoming prairie throws at it, dish and router (as well as the 18 months on the replacement cable) run just fine.

Check the cable for damage would be my only suggestion, especially where tacked to your house and any sharp bends, or for errant animal damage.

I have no comment about customer service because I've never used it, but I'll fill in: "Did you turn it off and back on again?"

Price wise for $90/mo it beats anything available in this area short of fiber, if can actually find it. I can't.

 

[Gemsbok]

I have to reboot maybe 1x/month when the connection between the router and the computer gets wonky (something about sleep v log off). I just Unplug the power 3x and let it restart.

 

[ggmanning]

I've had it installed on a deck at the coast for a couple years and it has been flawless. It's got to be tough with the winds and weather it sees. I have heard CS is difficult but no experience.

 

[Srgt. Hulka]

Following this thread. I just moved to a black hole of internet and cell service. My MIL has Hughesnet, which is absolutely worthless. Been wanting to switch to Starlink, but having a hard time giving up that $500 initial cost.

 

[Hrsmn51]

I had a local contractor do my install so I would hope that part went well.
After multiple discussions he is refunding my cost so he is a stand up guy. Mine is the second unit to fail in the last couple months.
My research showed the service was good. I posted the thread wondering about CS.
So far CS is none!!
I purchased another router and power supply from Wally World and still no connection. That leaves cable and antenna as failed product.
Not sure what next.
Musk's comment about employees need to be caring and competent seems to be a miss with Star Link

 

[Redmanss]

Following this thread. I just moved to a black hole of internet and cell service. My MIL has Hughesnet, which is absolutely worthless. Been wanting to switch to Starlink, but having a hard time giving up that $500 initial cost.

Watch for sales at Home Depot, I've seen it as low as $350 there.

 

[Srgt. Hulka]

Watch for sales at Home Depot, I've seen it as low as $350 there.

I certainly will, thanks!

 

[Inifinty]

The one time I needed customer service for a missing item the response by typical standards was a bit slow. But once they did engage, the problem was handled quickly and to complete satisfaction.

Elon must have customer service working on a skeleton crew where anything that falls outside the norm takes a little longer to resolve.

 

[MadDuner]

Our Starlink system has been flawless - so far.

 

[Whiskey Tango Foxtrot]

Our Starlink system has been flawless - so far.

Ours also for 2 years

 

[Redmanss]

I had a local contractor do my install so I would hope that part went well.
After multiple discussions he is refunding my cost so he is a stand up guy. Mine is the second unit to fail in the last couple months.
My research showed the service was good. I posted the thread wondering about CS.
So far CS is none!!
I purchased another router and power supply from Wally World and still no connection. That leaves cable and antenna as failed product.
Not sure what next.
Musk's comment about employees need to be caring and competent seems to be a miss with Star Link

Honestly, I’m not surprised CS is sucking with them or pretty much any big tech company. Seems to be the way all of them are going with AI chatbots replacing humans as much as possible. I’d say I was disappointed, but that would indicate I had a positive expectation in the first place.

I would say don’t walk away due to faulty initial equipment though, the service itself is impressive considering it’s satellite internet from anywhere that doesn’t risk ground equipment failing to keep you up and running.

My wife works from home a bit, when the internet goes down she loses upwards of $700/day. Previous terrestrial internet service we’ve had towers go down in blizzards for several days, that hurts. Longest outage we’ve had on Starlink was a few hours when they had an update go awry. I’m probably going to pick up a Gen 3 dish and keep the 2 as a backup for when softballs fall out of the sky, it’s only a matter of time until that happens here and would minimize her earnings loss to about an hour instead of days to ship a new dish to the sticks.

One note on hail, that’s the one thing that stops the signal. When my signal breaks up with a storm coming in I know the hail is about to hammer us. Heavy snow hasn’t been a problem at all, but prairie snow isn’t mountain snow. Put your unit on a UPS, it’s slow to reboot and will shut down on a flicker of a power blip from a lightning strike.

Eyeball your cable, taking special note where they tacked it to your house. Any pinching of the wire will fuck it, I learned the hard way how sensitive that cable is.

 

[MK20]

What industry is your wife in? I want to switch to that field, lol.

 

[wvfarrier]

We haul ours all over the place and it has been flawless

 

[Redmanss]

What industry is your wife in? I want to switch to that field, lol.

Mental health counselor, independent contractor work at $77 per 45 minute session. A ten session day is the norm with a no-show here and there she still bills at 50%. This is just her “side gig”, she’s primarily a full time employee at an agency that pays around $100k/yr with all the bennies. Thus far I’ve been unsuccessful at convincing her to shift full time into the independent work, she enjoys having co-workers and such too much and doesn’t want to be all alone with two cats and a computer to keep her company on the property 30 miles from town all day, every day.

All it took for her to get there was two masters and a Ph.D with a few decades of experience, yet I still out gross her every year as a railroader…

 

[Hrsmn51]

Today star link support called.
I had purchased another complete kit from Home Depot.
They sent a credit for the new equipment and additional months service for the delay.
Next service ticket ask for a phone call to get things started.
Young man was polite and helpful and clearly spoke English and citizen.
A FAN FOR Now
Thanks. for the replies
H

 

[Mike Casselton]

So, you never bothered to check the cable? You just bought another system instead...

 

[Hrsmn51]

Yes checked all. There were no pinch points that were visible. Cable clamps were plastic lined with offset attachment.
When new system was installed used old cable and system is up and running.
Support rep suggested betting a battery backup surge protector for the future.
During the storm the lightning strike was 1/4-1/2 mile distance.

 

[deerhunter70]

Price wise for $90/mo it beats anything available in this area short of fiber, if can actually find it. I can't.

Whee do you get $90 a month? I work with a bunch of people that say they also get it for that price. Every time I check it’s showing $120. Is there a discount code I’m not aware of? Are people grandfathered in at 90. Thanks.

 

[Redmanss]

Whee do you get $90 a month? I work with a bunch of people that say they also get it for that price. Every time I check it’s showing $120. Is there a discount code I’m not aware of? Are people grandfathered in at 90. Thanks.

I couldn’t tell you as to how, it’s what I’ve been paying for the basic static service at the house since I got it three years ago. Could be grandfathered, but really I have no idea.

 

[padom]

Mental health counselor, independent contractor work at $77 per 45 minute session. A ten session day is the norm with a no-show here and there she still bills at 50%. This is just her “side gig”, she’s primarily a full time employee at an agency that pays around $100k/yr with all the bennies. Thus far I’ve been unsuccessful at convincing her to shift full time into the independent work, she enjoys having co-workers and such too much and doesn’t want to be all alone with two cats and a computer to keep her company on the property 30 miles from town all day, every day.

All it took for her to get there was two masters and a Ph.D with a few decades of experience, yet I still out gross her every year as a railroader…

my wife is also a private practice mental health therapist licensed in multiple states. Works from home doing 45min sessions for $80/hr and schedules what days and how many each day she wants to do. She does it a few days a week with our 3.5 yr old at home but she starts pre-school in September.

Me owning a commercial IT company and her counselor sessions, internet is key in our house. We run a dual wan enterprise router with automatic failover, Fiber 1000/1000 as primary and T-Mobile HSI Business 5G as failover and a generator for power outages. Haha

 

[Redmanss]

my wife is also a private practice mental health therapist licensed in multiple states. Works from home doing 45min sessions for $80/hr and schedules what days and how many each day she wants to do. She does it a few days a week with our 3.5 yr old at home but she starts pre-school in September.

Me owning a commercial IT company and her counselor sessions, internet is key in our house. We run a dual wan enterprise router with automatic failover, Fiber 1000/1000 as primary and T-Mobile HSI Business 5G as failover and a generator for power outages. Haha

Haha, that would be a killer setup for sure. I’m lucky to get two bars of Verizon at the house, and that’s only because I’m on a ridge above the valley. I walk out to my far fence line to pop some prairie dogs and I don’t even have that. Closest town with fiber is 20 miles as the magpie flies, so Starlink was the best option and most places around me run it as well. There’s a fiber trunk a few miles out, but highly unlikely they would run feeds to my area for what would be at best 100 customers.

One company runs internet that you run a dish from your house to ping a tower, same price I’m paying for satellite service and with lower reliability and bandwidth. Their towers go down in the blizzards for days at a time, cost my wife a pretty penny over a holiday weekend that she booked up.

Glad your wife is rocking it at home, wish I could convince mine to do the same. Sure would be nice to not have to change her car’s oil every two months with all the miles she puts on it running all over Wyoming with her day job. She’s licensed in three states as well (WY, NC & VA) from the years of bouncing around. She found it paid off big time to keep a license once she already had it and run the online work from bigger population centers, and was even happier when I told her it’s tax deductible too!

 

[wilb]

Custom Service is abysmal, almost completely absent. All you can do is chat with some bot and wait for a real person.

My service is suddenly and inexplicably "RESTRICTED", so no service., and No reply to my ticket in days.

I'm running 4 fixed systems including one commercial and then an additional mini.

Their billing system is messed up and no way I can fix.

So, as long as everything is it's working, it is great.

Just hope you don't need any real help

 

[Californio]

Mine has been flawless for three years, I run it into my commercial router with 7 hotspots all over the property, it just works.

 

[Aftermath]

Watch for sales at Home Depot, I've seen it as low as $350 there.

I was able to get my gear at 50% sale direct from Starlink during one of their promotions. I've had it up just over a year without any issues except when there is heavy fog or real heavy rain. The droplets in the air disperse the signals both directions. Same would happen years ago with a dish we had in Alaska...lots of snowflakes falling meant we would have poor reception.

 

[Californio]

I have a Gen 2 and leave the heater on Auto, no problem when it snows or monsoons.

 

[sirhrmechanic]

Nothing but goodness and joy from my Starlink! 10X the performance and 1/10 the price of the local service. Screw them...

Had two sets of cables go tits up, but that was a known flaw. Upgraded dish and cables and been flawless since.

And customer service (no phone number, all by chat and e-mail) has been utterly flawless and very responsive.

Cheers,

Sirhr

 

[Hrsmn51]

CS Rep yesterday advised when filing a ticket to ask for a phone call to start the ticket.
We are paying $120.00 per month which is the quote best available and it is pretty good. There has always been been a price to pay for living out here.
He did apologize for the slow response and blamed some delay on the holiday. H.e was out of Washington state.
H