RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK – North Carolina residents who live in areas where high-speed broadband is not available are more than ready to sign up for the SpaceX/Starlink satellite service to be offered in parts of the state.
Starlink recently began signing up customers for its Beta deployment in NC. “I signed up last July to get on the waiting list,” says Jim Shamp, director of public relations at the NC Biotechnology Center. Starlink finally notified him and others in certain areas, that they could open an account for $99. Starlink said it would provide 50MB per second to 150MB service, but warned during Beta it might be interrupted.
SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has said the service will double its speed to 300MB with lower latency within the year and expects to provide global coverage by next year. It has already launched 1,000 satellites and has several thousand customers in the U.S. and Canada.
A check with StarLink’s website shows, for example, service is planned for parts of Raleigh later this year.
“Starlink is available to a limited number of users per coverage area at this time. Orders will be fulfilled on a first-come, first-served basis,” the website explains.
Starlink satellite launch. Space X photo.
“As we launch more satellites, install more ground stations and improve our networking software, data speed, latency and uptime will improve dramatically,” Starlink said in its invitation to open an account.
It can’t happen fast enough in North Carolina for some users.
Shamp and his family live in the rural buffer in Orange County between Durham and Chapel Hill adjacent to Duke Forest. “For more than a decade we’ve limped along with a maximum 1 MB download DSL service from an old copper landline, originally from Verizon until they sold their local landline service to Frontier.”
No other relief in sight
The Starlink service costs $99 a month and requires a one-time $499 up front fee for equipment installation. By comparison, Spectrum offers 200MB service where it is available for about $50 a month. Google Fiber offers 1GB service–that’s 1,000MB–for $70 in the Triangle, and 2MB for $100. So 1MB is painfully slow, especially with many people working and schooling from home during the pandemic, but even in more normal times.
In an email, Shamp said “Both Verizon and Frontier charged us for higher-speed service but wouldn’t provide it. They had no interest in upgrading us, because we’re their last customer served from their Durham office.”
He added, “Frontier is now in bankruptcy, so they’re not going to be bringing any relief to places like ours. Spectrum has offered to bring service to our home – for a $10,067 one-time installation fee in addition to the monthly service fees. Our power company, PEMC, has been taking names of people interested in having them bring high-speed internet service to members. I’ve been banging on them for years about that, and so far, it’s only talk.”
He notes other solutions do not seem to be looming where they are.
Not the final solution
“The Open Broadband agreement with Orange County has brought relief to a few rural residents in the northern part of the county, but it’s really moving slowly. And our house, despite its centralized location in a big tech hub, might never be able to get it because of the forest environment. However we get it, though, we can’t get high-speed internet access soon enough.”
Still, says Mark Johnson, president of the Internet Legacy Institute, tells WRAL TechWire, “Starlink should not be the final solution for most. It’s not the end game. Over time it will be possible to get fiber to more and more people.”
Mark Johnson, president of the Internet Legacy Institute.
He explains, “Starlink is a promising solution to broadband access in areas that are difficult (expensive) to reach with terrestrial networks. Starlink is not the only Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Internet service being developed but they are the only one with their own rockets! LEO solves the biggest problem with geosynchronous satellite services – latency.”
Affordability an issue
Space X is launchingits LEO satellites every few weeks at 559 kilometers above the Earth. Geosynchronous satellites, on the other hand, orbit at 30,000 kilometers, significantly increasing latency and reducing response. “Low latency is more important than the bandwidth you get,” Johnson said.
The much-ballyhooed 5G cell phone service isn’t much of an answer. The newer high-frequency 5G uses to get the most users on a tower won’t penetrate the walls of a house and isn’t good for rural areas. “You would need an aerial on every house,” said Johnson.
There are other issues involved, he notes.
“Affordability is an issue. The FCC has a program to help people who don’t have a phone get service called Lifeline. A similar program for broadband could address the affordability issue (which is not confined to Starlink).”
Fiber, Johnson said, is the best solution because of its large capacity, but getting it to rural areas is expensive and may take quite a while. “LEO service such as Starlink’s is a good solution for a lot of places right now. I know someone who has been using it in Michigan, and they’re very happy with it.”
