forum thread Posted by need4crab • Mar 10, 2025
Mar 10, 2025 3:34 AM
Item 1 of 3
Item 1 of 3
forum thread Posted by need4crab • Mar 10, 2025
Mar 10, 2025 3:34 AM
Starlink Mini Mesh Kit with target circle offers(YMMV) $380.32
$380
$600
36% offTarget
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https://slickdeals.net/f/18131692-t-mobile-300-virtual-prepaid-mastercard-w-new-5g-home-internet-line-from-35-month?src=SiteS
1: Tmobile rent the gateway to users for free
2: Tmobile offers a sign up bonus
3: ~$50 a month
Sure, satellite internet is the only options at certain areas. But starlink could treat their users nicer, such as rent the device to users for free.
Starlink is expensive because they don't have competitors, thus they don't have to give users good deals
Our community has rated this post as helpful. If you agree, why not thank doneperiod
My location. No fiber, ever, dialup was the only wired option. I use cell, most people I know do, with some switching to Starlink. Tmobile came into the area around 2.5 years ago for the first time, Home wasn't available then (but is now). So, I bought my own router, and upgraded my antenna (I had been using cell internet over 10 years, old antenna wasn't fully compatible), and I'm using a phone plan in that for now. $400 antenna for the tower over 10 miles away (no lockable signal without one), plus $450 cell router (tmobile's routers are quite limited).
Closest town, 15 miles away. Fiber, 100Mbps is about $100/month, they just started offering that speed, their highest offered. I'm supposed to get fiber this summer, they did a site survey last year, likely that speed according to the funding they got, POSSIBLY that price too.
Second closest town, 16 miles in the other direction. Use based fiber, no unlimited plan, flat fee plus pay by the gigabyte used with no cap, $0.13/gig (use 100GB, add $13 to the base fee of $20, 1TB, add $130).
Starlink full, not mini, which would be a comparable use case compared to the Tmo home you mentioned, for home use. $150 for equipment in my area. And $90/month since it's low demand (due to sparse population), and 2 months free at signup since I have a Farm Bureau membership. Averages well over 200Mbps with no noticeable congestion. Faster and cheaper or at least similar priced than every town within a ~30 mile radius of me, much farther than that depending on the direction. And faster than Tmo in every location I checked within signal range in a few of those towns. (Fastest TMO was 250Mbps in the bigger town, the only one offering UC on the tower, or whichever their term is for the faster 5G in limited areas, edit, which uc is not available in the residential part of town).
Edit. In all this rambling, forgot to address equipment costs much. Which, depending on what you need, have available, choose, can be quite expensive for various options, as you can see in what I posted. Cellular providers use ~standard and common cell equipment. Starlink is a custom phased array antenna. They initially cost about $3000 to produce and were taking a significant loss on each sold (selling around $500 or so). Production cost and selling price have both lowered significantly. The mini is more expensive, but $150 for some areas for the regular one isn't bad. Plus, they are owned, retain a decent value if sold. And around here, if fiber is available, $100+ fiber install where available is common. Some installs cost thousands for low hundreds of feet. So, understanding the tech it is, they are quite reasonable. And I suspect prices will eventually lower more, if not free.