The Whimsy Dome Joins 21st Century with STARLINK WIFI

 Hello Everyone! I've never been so excited to write a blog post update before. This is exciting news, but before I get into it. Let me give you a little backstory.

April 2020 | Champlin, Mn  

Amazing Wifi $40/mo no contracts, and wifi was unlimited. (At this time I thought all wifi was unlimited.)

July 2020 | Wallace, MI

Our options up here in Upper Michigan are very limited.  Hughs net is Satellite wifi, but is not offered at our address. Astrea costs $109/month for up to 25 speed with a 2 year contract no trial period and no cancellations. Oh and by the way it gets slower when its rainy, foggy, snowy, icy, or during peak hours when too many people are on. So basically never I would imagine. Never in a billion years would I sign a two year contract for that bologna. Oh and they can't gaurantee that it will work at your address..

Spectrum is the only wired internet provider in the area (that I know of) and they are 7 miles down the road and would cost a fortune to get it up to us and I've only ever heard negative things about the service in the local area and I can only imagine what their speed stipulations are as well. 

EAN - NMU Internet. This is an amazing initiative. The Northern Michigan University has a program that strives to bring fast & affordable wifi to all of the UP. Well that is amazing indeed, but my house is 9 miles too far from where it needs to be to reach the towers, or install an 80 foot tower. Or not, I'd rather not make my house a lightning rod although for $40/month and fast promised speeds it is tempting. 

The final answer I came to was going to my local phone provider. Cricket Wireless. Sean had Cricket Wireless while we were in Minneapolis and he liked it and somehow he had service at our house. I dropped google project Fi which I had and loved in Minneapolis, but sadly did not have service in the rural area that we lived in. I got a sim card and used their phone plan and then we got a hot spot. Wifi! Ahh sweet wifi. But theres a few catchs. You have to turn it on when you want it, turn it off when you don't which means you have to remember to turn it off before you fall asleep on the couch ( cough cough Sean) because if you continuously leave it on overnight or happen to be a bit of a couch potato or try to move photos around or accidentally update the fire stick app then you might run out of data before the month is up. I though oh maybe we just have to buy more gigs so many the wifi will just be more expensive here. Month after month of running out and then increasing the amount for the next month we ended on the highest plan. 100 GB data for $90/month. Speeds up to 25. Month to month. Okay fine, I can deal with this, I figured eventually technology would catch up and this area would improve their wifi connectivity eventually. They HAD to. They couldn't stay stuck in the past. 

I am a big Elon Musk nerd so I had known about his Star Link company for many months at this point and just hadn't considered it because I wasn't hearing much about it.  I got signed up to be notified when Wifi was available in my area and one day this spring I got an email letting me know it was available. I was SO pumped. I nearly bought it that night, but it was called Better than Nothing Beta. I just couldn't justify the $500 start-up cost AND paying $100 monthly for wifi that wasn't making any claims to be the best thing ever. They gave me no hope in a smooth transition. Weeks later an acquaintance in town got her stark link up and running and loved it.  I run into some extra money and decided to pull the trigger and get signed up for Starlink. 

"If anyone is going to fix this problem, it's Elon Musk."

I had a discrepancy between my address and shipping address. The N did not hold in my address so I was already off to a rocky start with hoping this hail mary is going to be able to solve all of my technology problems. I also downloaded the Starlink app and checked for obstructions with the app that clearly states to point up in a certain direction and have NO obstructions on the screen. I couldn't find a space with no tips of trees in it, but bought it anyway.

"Physically, Set Up was incredibly easy"

I don't even think I had to plug anything in except to the wall. No screwing the satellite it. I just set it on the ground. I did manage to tangle the cord excessively and that was a pain in the butt to untangle a 100 ft cord At first I was confused why the cord was SO long because I had the dish only a few feet outside my home at first. I want to mention that I put this thing to the TEST immediately and in the least favorable conditions. It was mildly raining the entire time I was trying to connect. I was getting wet and so was the dish. 

The dish started to move right away like it was supposed to. I followed the set up instructions and all was well with the set up wizard until it had to connect to the signal. I nearly gave up, but I kept trying. Move it here, wipe it off. I caught a glimpse of connectivity and I played with it some more. Played with the app to check out new satellite locations and found a more visible area just past the green house on a perch. Propped her up and plugged her in went inside to see if I could catch another connection. Alas! It connected more steady this time, but still dipping in and out. To be fair, it is still raining out and is planning to continue for the next 24 hours, but I am hoping it only gets a stronger more steady connection from here! 

Since that location worked better, I thought even higher up so that it could view past the greenhouse would be better! Sean built a platform for Starlink to sit on to attach to the greenhouse.

Update a few months later as we've had some time to get used to the new Wifi. It still has some connectivity issues, but I got an email recently that promised updates to the lasers so the connectivity should improve. I would say during an hour video call, I'll have 4 lags of 60 seconds or more and maybe two momentary lags. It's still not great, but it's leaps and bounds better than the hot spot. I can actually upload a video now without worrying about how long it will take or if it will eat up all my wifi! We can usually stream a whole movie without any connectivity issues, but occasionally it will buffer. 

I am still holding my breath and haven't canceled my internet hot spot just yet, but I am oh so excited to be on the front line of this technology and be testing this service to bring me up to speed with the world again! I am going to have to celebrate by getting my second monitor set up at home. Watch out world, Cami's got good wifi again!!