StarLink - Roam Plan

[AZDIESELPIG]

We use Starlink at our home, we do not have cable providers etc for internet so our only option is wireless internet.

I purchased another Starlink for the RV, I am wondering who uses Starlink and what plan you are on.


We will probably try the 50GB plan at first to see if that is enough, we only really watch TV a few hours a night with most of our trips being 3-7 days 4 to 5 times a year at the most since we are not retired yet.

[CAG]

One of a dozen or more discussions on that topic by using the search feature here (top of the page). You can also gather a bunch of info from Starlink's home page.



https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...te-109851.html


and another:
https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...ink-96016.html

[AZDIESELPIG]

Originally Posted by CAG

One of a dozen or more discussions on that topic by using the search feature here (top of the page). You can also gather a bunch of info from Starlink's home page.



https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...te-109851.html


and another:
https://www.jaycoowners.com/forums/f...ink-96016.html

I appreciate you taking time out of your day but nothing in those posts or Starlinks home page tell me real life users experience using the $50.00 a month plan and if its sufficient vs buying the $165 unlimited plan for short trips.

I can pause the subscription but would typically have 2-3 weeks of paid service we wouldnt be using on the $165 plan.

[CAG]

Originally Posted by AZDIESELPIG

I appreciate you taking time out of your day but nothing in those posts or Starlinks home page tell me real life users experience using the $50.00 a month plan and if its sufficient vs buying the $165 unlimited plan for short trips.

I can pause the subscription but would typically have 2-3 weeks of paid service we wouldnt be using on the $165 plan.

And I am sure you will get that but generally I have found the best process when researching any topic is to have read and studied options. Once having done that then look for the specifics from others. It helps cut time and mistakes prior to purchase.



One of the answers that is in the information I suggested is the option, which some of us use of subscribing to residential, and then switching that to Roam when you are not using it and shutting it down. I do that every September when done for the summer thus saving the entire monthly fee until time to start up again. I then start Roam back up, switch to residential for the lower fee. Currently mine is shut off. I am on another company the rest of the year at a lower price but need that to continue my alarms and cameras to operate at the house.

You can also look at and evaluate your current usage to determine how much a day/week, month you are using in data. All of that info is available in your current service stats. If under 50 for the month you are golden if not, that likely is not your plan. A matter of reading, research and evaluation.


https://www.starlink.com/support/art...1-5689fb7a9cd7

[AZDIESELPIG]

Originally Posted by CAG

And I am sure you will get that but generally I have found the best process when researching any topic is to have read and studied options. Once having done that then look for the specifics from others. It helps cut time and mistakes prior to purchase.



One of the answers that is in the information I suggested is the option, which some of us use of subscribing to residential, and then switching that to Roam when you are not using it and shutting it down. I do that every September when done for the summer thus saving the entire monthly fee until time to start up again. I then start Roam back up, switch to residential for the lower fee. Currently mine is shut off. I am on another company the rest of the year at a lower price but need that to continue my alarms and cameras to operate at the house.

You can also look at and evaluate your current usage to determine how much a day/week, month you are using in data. All of that info is available in your current service stats. If under 50 for the month you are golden if not, that likely is not your plan. A matter of reading, research and evaluation.


https://www.starlink.com/support/art...1-5689fb7a9cd7

My data usage at home is not a good baseline for data usage - I work from home at times plus there is other family using it at home while the wife and me are gone/home.

I have the Gen 2 for the house and a Gen 3 we will us for travel. I would rather not swap between residential and roam as I have READ that people have had issues doing that with areas where Starlink may charge the $100 congestion fee when going back to residential.

I will probably just do the unlimited roam and see how much data we use on the road.

[AZDIESELPIG]

Just to give you an idea of the usage at home....

[pconroy]

I don't think anyone can tell you if 50GB will be enough. It would be for us - as we're in the RV for ony a handful of days per month. If I look at my cell phone data usage, 50GB would tide me over for a month.

But...

We will probably try the 50GB plan at first to see if that is enough, we only really watch TV a few hours a night with most of our trips being 3-7 days 4 to 5 times a year at the most since we are not retired yet.

50Gb will probably be more than enough.


We are on the Unlimited plan because we stream to two TVs and everyone's got a cell phone in the RV.

[AZDIESELPIG]

Originally Posted by pconroy

I don't think anyone can tell you if 50GB will be enough. It would be for us - as we're in the RV for ony a handful of days per month. If I look at my cell phone data usage, 50GB would tide me over for a month.

But...



50Gb will probably be more than enough.


We are on the Unlimited plan because we stream to two TVs and everyone's got a cell phone in the RV.

I wasnt looking for a hard answer, just what peoples experience has been on the 50GB plan perhaps.

We only take about 5 trips a year.

This is kinda was what I was looking for....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqVOzwJGoq8

[salukee]

We have diddly squat for other internet options at the house. So, we have (for about a year) the Starlink roam plan for $165/year. For our data usage, that was about the same as Viasat, our other at home option. We stream movies and our DirecTV service, plus a laptop and our two cell phones. I purchased an extra cable so we can take the modem and dishy on the road when we travel.

It's expensive but it works great.

[bender88]

Would you have to have 2 plans, a residential plan and the roam plan to keep internet going at the house while you are away or can you get a residential plan and add a roam option. I realize we'd have to have 2 systems just wondering about the plan options.

[pconroy]

When we signed up several years ago, we picked their "RV" plan. And we use it at the house with zero problems.

[bender88]

How does your internet stay on at the house when you are away? Does the RV (roam plan) let you have 2 separate modems and dishes?

[TowPro]

we have starlink mini. it does NOT shutoff at 50g if you follow the directions and turn on the switch you agree to the price of $1 per gig.


we had our mini connected from Saturday afternoon Sunday Morning a week later.
we watched TV about 3-4 hours every night (I turn streaming down to 720 as that is all the TV can do). Might have been several sports games on that would extend the usage time that day.


I try to not use my phone on it but we had 0 cell service so we had 3 phones connected the whole time, that included maybe 8 hours of VoIP service. When you connect the phone to the Starlink AP set it to "metered" as that is supposed to limit the phone internet access.
I might have logged into work for 3 hours during that week. Wife might have worked 24 hours during that time which would have included connections to a website to review/edit stuff. between us we may have done 5 hours of MS Teams video calls. Might have been a couple sports games on during this trip.

I used 75 Gb. my bill was $75.00.

without it we would not have had any access at all. If I travel we both must be on call 7/24. I know that sucks, but it pays well.


When I bought starlink I had the choice of picking residential billing, but they said if you select that you can't use it mobile or change the address for 1 year. Plus you could not put the service on hold when you did not need it. so I picked Roam.


My other option was to buy a cellular hotpot. That would be several hundred buy in (it would have cost 1/2 the buy-in price for starlink) plus $60 per month and no ability to put it on billing hold That last trip we had 0 cell service on verizon or ATT so that new device would have been useless.

[Poppyof5]

May not be an answer you need but we use Starlink year round as we travel full time. We have a roam account. Works everywhere we’ve been. You can start and stop it whenever you need to, maybe something to look into.

[Ronald M A]

My wife and I use approx. 2gb a day when camping. Streaming on a TV and laptops are what we use it for.

[jimmoore13]

I have a Gen-3. We used it all summer to run our consulting business from our RV. We have the unlimited roam plan, because we are online for 8+ hours per day 5 days a week for work.

We might opt for the $50/month + $1/Gb roam plan next season, because we don't watch TV, and typical work data usage is often much less than video streaming.

One tip regardless of what plan. Always get your system up and running at home before you hit the road. This will allow you to debug any issues (they are rare) you might encounter while you have a solid internet connection and phone service at home. If you get out in the boonies and run into problems, you might not have cell service needed to resolve those problems.

BTW, our Starlink worked great even though we had peek-a-boo views through gaps in the trees. A word of caution, however. The more obstructed the view the more problems you can have with real-time connections like Wi-Fi or VOIP calling, Zoom, and connections to remote servers (think Quickbooks Online or online gaming). Streaming video is much more forgiving, because many issues are masked by buffering. There is ZERO buffering with phone calls, Zoom, and with the back and forth connections to remote servers. If you have a partially obstructed view, that means less opportunity for satellite hand-off overlap. This shows up on speed tests very randomly...speed tests are usually brief enough to miss a hand-off, but every now and then you'll see a big drop in speed momentarily, and that's when calls drop and remote server connections go bust.

This speed test is superior to the Starlink tests...which generally test speeds only to their ground station. This Fusion Connect speed test actually reaches out to a remote server...usuallly in TX...and it measures the all-important Jitter as well as ping, down and up speeds. https://www.fusionconnect.com/speed-...ng-jitter-test

Numbers you want:

• Ping: 30 is good. 40 is acceptable. 50 is kinda sorta OK.
• Jitter...VERY important for real time connections like phone: 5 or less is excellent. 5 to 8 is OK, but you might get an occasional dropped call or zoom connection. Once you start exceeding 8, you will have problems, and you should consider moving your dishy for a better view of the sky.
• Down speeds: really anyting 40 and above is all you need for excellent streaming video. The ISP at our previous home gave us 15+ down, and we had no issues with streaming. With phone calls and Zoom, data volume is actually quite small, so download speed is not a concern.
• Up speeds. Anything from 5 and up is more than adequate unless you are uploading video content or similar huge files. The commands from the remote for streaming TV are insignificant. Again phone/zoom doesn't use nearly that much data. And, depending on the work you are doing on a remote server, the commands you send are tiny bits of data.

Jitter is extremely important, and that's where an obstructed view can cause problems.

One last thought. If you boondock power consumption is a thing. The mini, which doesn't perform as well as a Gen-3, uses less power. But a Gen-3 can draw about 100 watts quite a bit of the time. At 12 volts, that's 8.3 amps. 8.3 amps is nothing to sneeze at. Run it all day, as we do, and that's floating up around 70 amp hours (AH). To be fair, at times the Gen-3 will draw less, but if you're working it, and if it's constantly struggling as it hunts for the next bird, it can really exercise your battery...and your solar and your generator.

The Mini uses about half of that, but the monolithic design of the mini bundles the dishy, router and power supply into one package. If your dishy needs to be 50 feet from the rig to get a clear view of the sky, the router is 50 feet from your rig...and that makes the Wi-Fi connection a bit sketchy. The Gen-3, OTOH, allows the dishy to be separated from the router, and the router can live inside where your devices can easily "see" it.

I opted for Gen-3 for that reason...that I can park the Dishy where it can see the sky as well as possible, and my router and power supply live inside near the laptops we use for business.

We LOVE Starlink. We were out at a variety of campsites for 14 continuous weeks, and our business never missed a beat.

P.S. Our solution for the "cable question" is simple...the standard old-school electrical port for a shore power cable. Looks factory, water tight, and easy-peasy. All you need is a 4" holesaw and a bit of courage to drill a 4" hole in your rig. But, of all the options others suggested, this one made the most sense to me.

[Learjet]

I see the answers are all over the place. I think you can add the Starlink mini to your residential plan for a $30 add on vs. having another plan.

FYI I have Fiber at home, but have a Mini on order for the RV.

[royphillips]

Originally Posted by AZDIESELPIG

We use Starlink at our home, we do not have cable providers etc for internet so our only option is wireless internet.

I purchased another Starlink for the RV, I am wondering who uses Starlink and what plan you are on.


We will probably try the 50GB plan at first to see if that is enough, we only really watch TV a few hours a night with most of our trips being 3-7 days 4 to 5 times a year at the most since we are not retired yet.

We just installed the Starlink roam on our RV and have the unlimited plan . Don’t know if the Canadian is different . We have been impressed because we started in Saskatchewan Canada and went to Vancouver Island and now down in Death Valley. We have never lost service for more than a minute turn a sharp corner out of a parking lot. It’s nice to have wifi on the go all the time.

[pconroy]

Originally Posted by bender88

How does your internet stay on at the house when you are away? Does the RV (roam plan) let you have 2 separate modems and dishes?

Starlink at home is backup only. Normally we have a cable modem for house.

[rodpod]

Excellent write up thanks for taking the time to provide useful info. Ditto on the use of the gen 3 Starlink. We have had this system for several months and it works fantastic. My son works remotely so it's critical to stay connected. Hot spots only work so well. We use our SL in 2 locations. Our RV has a pole mount and a tripod,we use either depending on obstructions. We also use the SL at our second home in the keys. we were able to eliminate our exorbitant cable fees so the net cost of the roam plan is about half. My son fabricated 3d printed additional mounts so we can quickly connect in both locations. Starling is a game changer.