Elon Musk’s SpaceX order page for Starlink went live today and we now have a date for availability in Australia.
After entering an Australian address, the Starlink website shows a target date for coverage in mid to late 2021. Availability will be limited, so if you’re keen, you better be fast. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis.
To connect to the low-earth orbit satellite service, you’ll need a satellite dish that automatically self configures when you power it on. The dish costs A$709.00 with a monthly internet plan of A$139pm. We have now confirmed these are Australian dollars, shown on the receipt once you place an order.
Yep. This is the confirmation email pic.twitter.com/diz2IEAiTm
— Nathan (@corkers898) February 8, 2021
Right now, the service is in beta, and while SpaceX are officially committing to a service that delivers data speeds between 50Mb/s to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms, early beta users are reporting speeds of 100Mbps+.
Having another way to get internet in Australia (including regional and rural locations), raises the issue of competition with the NBN. While the NBN offers Satellite service, Starlink satellites are over 60x closer to Earth than traditional satellites.
This means the resulting speeds and latency available from Starlink are a significant improvement on what Skymuster Satellites from NBN can offer.
The video below shows the setup process.
For more information, head to starlink.com
I’m using NBN skymuster and it’s very reliable, fast enough for what I use it for, it’s very cheep and a lot better for me than wireless… As much as I want starlink the $700 to set up (skymuster free) and 3 times the price for what is usable now, I’ll wait awhile until the price goes down…..
What speeds are you getting on skymuster? I do expect the cost to reduce with more users.
Speeds are less important than Latency for this category of service I believe.
The sats are orbiting at what, ~500 km, meaning their orbit will decay in ~10 years, as opposed to the ones in geosync orbit which will decay in 10,000 years.
But the advantage being that the transmission time from point to point is far less, meaning the latency is less, 700ms of ping might be fine for a farmer in the Wheatbelt, but for someone in Antarctica who wants to live stream to Canberra, this is a game changer.
Too bad the Electricity source life is around 15 years. Sky muster’s EOL is around 15 years.
Not only will the costs reduce but speeds and latencies will get better as the system grows. So looking forward to the roll out of starlink
how are you paying $40 for Skymuster? Mine is $100 and latency is rubbish have already signed up to Starlink.
It’s no secret Australian internet sux with all our political bs.
I’m in the middle of one of Australia’s biggest tourist hotspots (gold coast) and I’m still waiting for an NBN connection…
I’m forced to use mobile home internet because they’ve disconnected broadband services.
I would absolutely pay the 700 & 140pm for better internet considering I already pay 100 and only one person can really use it at a time even tho it claims to be 50mb
Ive signed up , sky muster is a joke and the LNP stopped fiber rollout to rural customers
Nice, would love to hear about your experience, hit me up at jason@techAU.com.au
Can you use your existing skymuster satellite dish?
No you can’t – Starlink comes in a box already connected ready for use just add power and it is connectable out of box – satellite dish has a small motor and will track automatically
(a)As another person asked, could we use the skymuster dish already installed?
(b) I assume it is unlimited data
According to reports you need to use the supplied dish and it is unlimited data
I’m totally recommending this to a friend of mine who can only get sky muster. If he shares the cost with 2 of his neighbours they’ll all benefit. I currently pay $60 for 50mbps and its nothing for 4 or 5 people in my household to be on the internet watching videos, homework, netflix or whatever (but not at 4K 🙂 )