Star Link in Rural France: Installation and review

[AndrewCrown]

Starlink in Rural France

After 8 years of shockingly inadequate Wi-Fi, courtesy of SFR at my French home..I have ordered Star Link.

I plan to review it on this thread in the style of a readers car type thread, as it is also tricky to find unbiased reviews online.

Current set up
SFR, 41 Euros a month including land line and a SIM card.

Baseline speed.

This has reached new lows.. it does actually stream Netflix reasonably well… but a teams call is embarrassing.

Supplies a house with range extenders and an Ethernet cable to my office in the barn.

Starlink set up
300 Euros for the hardware (on offer discount of 150 off 450 Euros list)
50 `Euros a month.

I have had notification it has ‘shipped’ so let’s see when it arrives!

Edited by AndrewCrown on Thursday 6th April 21:01

Edited by AndrewCrown on Thursday 6th April 22:12

[Fatt McMissile]

At least Starlink has undermined Nordnet's ability to charge what it wants. I used the latter for a couple of years and after 2.6 GB download per month they charged 15€/ GB. Other than that it was OK though.

[Leithen]

I suspect you will find that it works very well. A number of PHers have installed it in England and Scotland with success. France ought to be no different.

[AndrewCrown]

It has arrived...

That was 9 days from ordering to delivery...not bad

[AndrewCrown]

Deceptively simple...

Nicely made kit, feels good quality..

Before dinner I attempted to find somewhere to place the dish... very hard to find somewhere that was not obstructed... once or twice I found a place... but it would not connect.


It is now after dinner, it is dark and I am one bottle of red down.. .probably not the best time to be climbing up ladders.. so will try tomorrow.

[AndrewCrown]

Couple of hours wasted on this, this morning...

Repositioned the dish..

App finally came to life after deleting the cache on my phone...

Now stuck in an endless Offine/ Booting cycle. so opened a support ticket.

[Hammersia]

Keep us updated, seems cheaper than I thought.

If you can get connected of course.

[AndrewCrown]

getting there...

[AndrewCrown]

Getting a little boring now

[AndrewCrown]

Gosh this is clearly a chatbot ... I will try one more time tomorrow.

[AndrewCrown]

This is so boring...

[Stuart70]

Deeply interested in your experience for my house in rural Normandy. Good luck.

[AndrewCrown]

Thanks Stuart...I think I will crack this..suspect dodgy dish

[Leithen]

Does sounds like a hardware problem.

[S600BSB]

Stuart70 said:

Deeply interested in your experience for my house in rural Normandy. Good luck.

I have fantastic broadband/WiFi at my place in rural Normandy (61) - use Sosh. Dead cheap too.

[AndrewCrown]

Finally someone human at Starlink has been in touch. They have reviewed the ticket and concluded the equipment is faulty.
I have a return label and have seen a new order appear in my email.

Someone also called from the USA at 0800 but that was too early for me on a Sunday! But at least they called.
Fair play they have dealt with it.

This thread will be updated next time we’re down here in May.

[Stuart70]

S600BSB said:

Stuart70 said:

Deeply interested in your experience for my house in rural Normandy. Good luck.

I have fantastic broadband/WiFi at my place in rural Normandy (61) - use Sosh. Dead cheap too.

Not sure what to respond other than lucky you. We are in a hamlet in La Manche (50) and have ancient above ground copper wire for the “last mile”. We could have superman supplying the broadband, it is not going to defeat the lack of infrastructure.

Maybe they will upgrade the hamlet, but with a population of c150 and an average age above 70, I am not holding my breath for it to be a priority.

Star Link is looking like a good option, even with Andrew’s current travails. Hoping that he has a good outcome!

Edited by Stuart70 on Sunday 16th April 15:42

[S600BSB]

Stuart70 said:

S600BSB said:

Stuart70 said:

Deeply interested in your experience for my house in rural Normandy. Good luck.

I have fantastic broadband/WiFi at my place in rural Normandy (61) - use Sosh. Dead cheap too.

Not sure what to respond other than lucky you. We are in a hamlet in La Manche (50) and have ancient above ground copper wire for the “last mile”. We could have superman supplying the broadband, it is not going to defeat the lack of infrastructure.

Maybe they will upgrade the hamlet, but with a population of c150 and an average age above 70, I am not holding my breath for it to be a priority.

Star Link is looking like a good option, even with Andrew’s current travails. Hoping that he has a good outcome!

Edited by Stuart70 on Sunday 16th April 15:42

Good luck!

[zbc]

Stuart70 said:

Maybe they will upgrade the hamlet, but with a population of c150 and an average age above 70, I am not holding my breath for it to be a priority.

Edited by Stuart70 on Sunday 16th April 15:42

I feel for you. We are in a village of about 100 in the Moselle and used to have sub 1MB but the French government prioritised Fibre here and since just before Covid we have fibre to the house and 900MB. I'd guess average age is closer to 60.

[AndrewCrown]

Gosh.. New Starlink arrived this morning...
That is rapid service. Incredible

The new one has different internal packaging.

Round 2 later today