Starlink comes to Brevard

​If you are like me, you have been patiently waiting for Starlink satellites to become available for service in our area. I recently interviewed a Transylvania County couple that has started using Starlink’s service. Yes, it’s available here now under their “Best Effort*” plan.  When you click to preorder on Starlink’s website you will get this message that makes it seem as though it is not available yet:

But, for those of us that have been on the waitlist we got this note in September that Best Effort service is available for use. Local residents, Desmond Dunker and Tisha Allen, decided to take the risk and order their satellite after seeing the message from Starlink. Desmond was thrilled to tell me and came to Through the Trees recently to say that he had installed the satellite and he was already satisfied with the service. I asked to interview him and he invited me out to the house to come see for myself. 

I drove the windy road up off of East Fork to get to Desmond and Tisha’s place. When I arrived Desmond was on the roof. He was snapping a photo of the Starlink Satellite so that he could show me.

This is its temporary spot. He’s got it positioned for the best service to pick up the satellites when they orbit by. Desmond and Tisha are picking up broadband literally Through the Trees right now thanks to the fallen foliage. 

In the spring, he plans to use a poll to mount the satellite on his roof to continue to get an open view of the sky and not be covered up by the canopy of leaves. When Desmond uses Starlink’s app it says that there is no good position on his property. So, before taking me on a tour inside he showed me the antenna that he plans to mount the Starlink on. 

When Desmond and Tisha decided to buy their home they knew that there was not going to be good service. They came down from New Jersey and brought their router and booster with them. They even bought this booster to help improve cell phone service. Turns out that if you don’t even have one bar of service it won’t work because there is nothing to boost. You are looking at the best cell phone amplifier money could buy in 2017 that ended up being useless. 

Why move to the middle of nowhere with no internet access? Tisha fell in love with the house. It’s a whole story. They were not planning on moving to Brevard when they came through on vacation**. 

As our tour continued into the house I learned that they first subscribed to Hughes Net satellite internet that promised 25 Mbps download speeds and it did not deliver. The problem was latency. They would hit refresh on a browser and wait 3-4 minutes just to see if they had new emails come through their inbox. They had service with Hughes for over a year and spent $500 to cancel it early. When there was decent cloud cover they said they could not expect it to work at all.

Next Desmond and Tisha signed up with Comporium Communications.  Their service cost $70/month for DSL for 9 Mbps. They quickly decided to pay to boost their service to get 11 Mbps. So, at this point they were still in a contract with Hughes, they could not rely on the service, they had service with Comporium and they could finally Zoom meetings and stream videos and check their email.

Desmond and Tisha’s DSL network looks like this:

When Starlink Satellites became available for preorder. Desmond and Tisha signed up March 2021 and made a $99 down payment. At the time preordered households were told that service would be available in Sept of that same year. Since then the date has been pushed back several times to now with “Best Effort” service available. 

So, continuing on the tour Desmond proudly bought the satellite for a total of $540 on Sept 26, 2022 and pays $110 monthly for service. When you decide to sign up with Best Effort service you will receive an antenna with a bolt, the cable, a router and a power cord. 

Router on Tisha's desk

​Their internet situation is not like the typical household user. They bought a beautiful home that was built in 1988, but on the property is a natural spring and a cabin that was built around 1880s and they need internet service for both. Desmond has internet access and security systems in both homes. He’s also interested in extra gadgets for fun. The internet range was not far enough initially, so he had to buy an ethernet adapter. He’s installed a mesh router system to reach his whole property.

Our tour continued from the living room to the hallway where Desmond showed me his Alexa enabled thermostat. They didn’t know it had this special feature until one day it started talking to them when they said something that sounded like “Alexa”. Their thermostat is an Ecobee which is a top selling smart thermostat. Desmond told Alexa to play a song and Unholy by Sam Smith and Kim Petras starts playing from the thermostat and y’all… it sounds amazing. I would be proud to have a thermostat speaker like that in my house.  Desmond’s face lit up and he said I have never heard this song. I told him that it was currently one of the top hits.

Then, he says that he got a Google Home device sent to him for free because he pays for storage and he asked Google to play him a song. In the kitchen behind us the device starts playing another song. Both devices sound amazing and are battling until Tisha emphatically tells Google to “shut up” which stops it instantly. 

Currently in their network there are security cameras, temp sticks, smart plugs, Alexa and Google devices, smart thermostat, water detectors, and doorbell cameras.

Desmond really needs the high speeds. They are both retired, but he does a lot of volunteer work for the community. Before Starlink when he was on a Zoom, Tisha would be careful to not stream when Desmond was in a Zoom to cause lag.  For meetings where he would need to record the session he would need to upload big files the night before. With 300+ megabits files and Comporoum's upload speeds at ½ a gegabite a second it would take hours.

Lastly, he showed me the recent speed tests connected to his Starlink satellite. Since it’s on “Best Effort” you can see that there is a wide range of speeds. From frustratingly slow 3.72 to 192 Mbps totally off the charts.

​Desmond and Tisha are currently using Starlink service which they are happy to report works on cloudy days and they have Comporium for now as a backup. I wish them luck mounting their satellite to the new position on the roof which will put them in the best position by next summer when the high speeds will be guaranteed. At that point if the speeds are consistent they will just continue with Starlink.

**Read about how the Dunckers came to Brevard

*For those with urgent connectivity needs, we are offering a Best Effort service option. 
 
What is Best Effort?
Best Effort enables typical internet activity with the understanding that Best Effort users will be deprioritized behind Residential users. 
 
The monthly service charge is the same but unlike Residential, Best Effort users will have the option to pause service on their account page. 
 
What will the internet experience be like with Best Effort?
During times of peak network congestion, Best Effort users will experience notably slower speeds than Residential users.  Best Effort users will be able to engage in typical internet activity like email, online shopping, or streaming an SD movie, but they won’t be able to engage in activities like online gaming, video calls or streaming 4K and HD movies.
 
Outside times of peak network congestion, Best Effort users can expect to engage in all of the above activities and more, but speeds will be slower than Residential users.