Starlink and Video Calls

[georgeofthedesert]

I picked up a Starlink Mini the other day and tried to use it today for work stuff at home and was having some issues making video calls. Basically the calls were super laggy/dropping completely every few minutes. With ping tests I was losing 40-60% of my packets and after some research that is common for obstructions. The direction I had to point the dish to reach satellites was towards some cloud cover and through some leafless branches of a tree. My DL/UL speeds were great, 140mb/s down and 15+mb/s up. However that packet loss made it so I couldn’t have calls. Before I swap it for the standard, what are the thoughts on the mini for two people working from home on a few video calls each day with minor obstructions like clouds/small branches? If clouds kill the signal enough with the mini that’s a no go. I live on the east coast (NC) and some of our trips bing us west to the desert (which I assume will have no issue), but most of our trips are here where there is lots of cloud cover and some tree obstructions due to being forests. I don’t expect it to work perfect with some small branches in the way, but I still need it to hold together enough to do calls. So if there is anyone using the mini that has some tips to try and make it better or if there are opinions of just get the standard, I’m all ears for it. I do have a fair bit of battery and solar so the power usage of the standard should be OK, but I loved how little the mini used…

edit: I thought I should have how it was used when I had the call issues. I put it in my backyard today on the ground with the little kickstand out. I had to put a small stick under the kick stand to raise that part of the dish up a bit to get good status on alignment.

 

[Pacific Northwest yetti]

I have the standard and it works great. However* Obstructions can be a problem. However mine has been flatmouned and never had an issue.
Depending on who/the company IT/Dept. Since star link uses multiple satellites, and a lot of them. The IP address can change multiple times when being used. Some vid conference platforms, and specific IT deps do not like this. Or block/slow the connections as it thinks it’s a red flag.

So, maybe worth check that route before getting another dish?

 

[georgeofthedesert]

Ha yeah zscaler was hating life, so I ended up switching over to doing Slack calls on my iPad/personal computer but I still had the same problem. The speeds on the work computer were like 1 mb/s down and never got the upload speed because it was so slow I gave up. But on the personal stuff it was fast, but packets were being dropped pretty frequently. When they weren’t dropped the turn around times were actually pretty decent. I’m still going try the mini in some other areas to see what’s up, but the hope is to also use it in the mountains of Western NC. So I’m hoping really hard I had something dumb going on.

 

[ChasingOurTrunks]

I have the Mini and have been testing it the last few months both at home and on a big trip. It works great for 99.9% of the time, and my obstructions are minimal for the most part and I would describe them as similar to yours. I have 98.47% ping success rate, but it doesn't work great for video calls. I'm getting interrupted every 30 minutes at least, sometimes more, with periods of about 10-15 seconds of no signal or connectivity. This is happening on regular web browsing too but is less noticeable.

If the Standard dish is better, that may be worth it for me - I also like the Mini in terms of size and shape. I need it for business purposes but the lack of video calls makes it really unworkable and I'll likely go with a cell booster solution instead and accept that I'll have less off-grid ability. I'll be interested in following your resolution path on this.

 

[driveby]

It might be your plan. If you signed up as a roam customer (vs residential) you are deprioritized. Meaning if someone on a priority plan wants your bandwidth they get it it. Good old QoS at work

 

[Hegear]

I have and still use a gen2, gen3, mini and the original unit they had authorized for in motion. I think that was a high speed office version.

Gen2, was my first and I’m still using it on my houseboat. Worked great in motion, but have to mount on a pole. Overall it is fantastic and loved the automatic alignment.

Gen 3, great again, it does work better when flat mounted than the mini but if both aligned correctly not much difference in speed.

Mini, I just love how compact this is and an all in one unit that runs straight from my lithium battery without the need of an inverter. It uses on average around 25watts vs 50-60watts on gen 2-3.

High speed version. This is on my brothers rig. He has mounted on a slight angle but never adjusts. Honestly by far the best. It just works better in every scenario except power consumption pulls around 90 watts and it’s twice the size of an gen 3. Even under tree cover it still seems to get a signal.

I have not noticed a lot of difference with cloud cover between devices.

I don’t think you will notice much of a difference between mini and gen 3 so long as both are aligned correctly. I have used all for video calls with great success.

 

[Ralph_Fonz]

I picked up a Starlink Mini the other day and tried to use it today for work stuff at home and was having some issues making video calls. Basically the calls were super laggy/dropping completely every few minutes. With ping tests I was losing 40-60% of my packets and after some research that is common for obstructions. The direction I had to point the dish to reach satellites was towards some cloud cover and through some leafless branches of a tree. My DL/UL speeds were great, 140mb/s down and 15+mb/s up. However that packet loss made it so I couldn’t have calls. Before I swap it for the standard, what are the thoughts on the mini for two people working from home on a few video calls each day with minor obstructions like clouds/small branches? If clouds kill the signal enough with the mini that’s a no go. I live on the east coast (NC) and some of our trips bing us west to the desert (which I assume will have no issue), but most of our trips are here where there is lots of cloud cover and some tree obstructions due to being forests. I don’t expect it to work perfect with some small branches in the way, but I still need it to hold together enough to do calls. So if there is anyone using the mini that has some tips to try and make it better or if there are opinions of just get the standard, I’m all ears for it. I do have a fair bit of battery and solar so the power usage of the standard should be OK, but I loved how little the mini used…

edit: I thought I should have how it was used when I had the call issues. I put it in my backyard today on the ground with the little kickstand out. I had to put a small stick under the kick stand to raise that part of the dish up a bit to get good status on alignment.

Just watch the angle and obstructions to be honest. I've had mine in snow storms and rain storms and its worked better than my home internet back in the day. Watch your compass to point your vehicle towards N or S. (I have mine mounted slightly at an angle

 

[georgeofthedesert]

Thanks, I ended up picking up the standard and I’m finding the dropped packet issue isn’t as big of a problem with the standard dish, some small tree obstructions. I’m finding the power draw and size weren’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. With the standard when I’m on a video call or doing some software updates the max it has pulled was 60w and most of the time it’s chilling at 40w, so I can live with that. So I think I’m going to settle on the standard dish. That packet loss with any kind of obstruction on the mini was a bit rough. Thanks for the suggestions and replies