In today's video, we count down from 20 to
1 of the most asked questions about Starlink and its operation in Nigeria, from the basics
of purchase, how it works and setting it up. That was Oscarmini, a tech reviewer here in
Nigeria who also ordered Starlink and his experience was…. Let’s save that for the
rest of the video, We'll also discuss the latency, large downloads, the challenges we
faced, and of course, how it fares against 5G. Should you switch? Well, I've used Starlink
for over 30 days now, over a month, and you are about to find out what I think about it. Without further ado, let's get into the video. 1. How to Buy Starlink: Alright, let us start with availability. So,
Nigeria is the first African country to get access to Starlink. The official Starlink
website shows that other African countries, like Angola, Zambia, and Kenya, will get the
service soon or are already on the waitlist. At the time of this recording, Rwanda also
just got Starlink. If you live in Nigeria and want to purchase
the Starlink device, all you have to do is go to starlink.com. I'll also leave a link
in the description. Please beware of scam websites. The very first thing you'll see on-screen
is "order Starlink". You'll need to input your address and click order now. This takes
you to a new page where you'll input the rest of your information, including billing information. At the very end of the screen is the cost
of purchase. Now, there is a big caveat here. The website lists the prices in Naira at 268,584
Naira for the equipment, but! Your Naira card will not work here, the best way is to use
a Domiciliary card, or if you go on the Starlink website, one of the services recommended is
Payday which would work for much quicker payment. If you can't go through the hassle of getting
two current account guarantors for a Dollar-based Domiciliary account, you can sign up with
a service like Payday; I'll have a link in the description below. I even saw a tweet
where the CEO confirmed that Payday had processed 300 thousand dollars worth of Starlink orders,
and all I say is… wow! This automatically means you'll pay the equivalent
of $600, around 450,000 Naira depending on the exchange rate. This fee includes the shipping
costs and 30 days of "free" unlimited internet. For the average Nigerian, this is a steep
price to pay. So, why does it cost so much to purchase? Well, launching satellites into
space is a costly undertaking. While Starlink has tried to ensure that the cost of launching
their rockets is at the barest minimum without compromising safety, it still costs millions
of dollars to launch. In the grand scheme of things, you only pay a small fraction of
what it costs to run the entire system. 2. How Long Does it take to Deliver Starlink: How long does it take to deliver Starlink?
We purchased our device on preorder in May of 2022, and it got delivered within three
days of availability. However, if you make a purchase now, it should take 2 to 4 weeks
to deliver to your doorstep, and that's the message they've been sharing with some customers.
So far, everyone that has gotten it since its availability has gotten it within about
two weeks. Starlink also uses DHL to ship their devices, and they don't currently have
any third-party retailers. You have to order on their website. Yes, I repeated it. 3. What comes in the box? What comes inside the Starlink box? You get
a huge blue box like this when you get your Starlink. Inside the box, you get a few things:
your Starlink itself or the Phased Antenna Array, the Starlink base, the 75ft Starlink
cable, the power cable and the Mesh router itself. The Mesh router is well built, looks
edgy, and is almost like a cyber-truck in terms of design. The wires are also quite
sturdy, and they get the job done. But you don't want to damage them. Regarding documentation,
you get regulatory notices and a quick set-up guide that is just images. 4. How to Set up Starlink: So how do you set up your Starlink? First
off, you want to make sure you've downloaded the app. That's the Starlink app on either
the Apple App Store or the Google Play store, and I'll have links below to each app. Once
downloaded, you want to test your Starlink quickly. On the app, you'll get the option
to either order Starlink if you haven't already or Start Set up. We already have Starlink,
so we'll select our Starlink once we start the setup. Plug the right end of the 75ft
cable in. For many people, Starlink is already plugged in from the box, so you're good on
that front. Since it comes with a base, you'll fix it into the base properly and once it's
in, you'll plug your 25ft power cable into your power socket, plug its end into the router,
and then plug the 75ft cable into your router. Turning it on should give you a white light
underneath the router, which means Starlink is powered and ready to go. You'll create
your network name and password and then join that network. Starlink is motorised and self-orienting,
so It should automatically calibrate itself and face the sky when it shows the booting
screen. After around 15 to 20 minutes, you should be Online. As a warning, you don't
want to move or tilt your Starlink manually. Let it do that itself.
You must also ensure you do not touch or try to turn the Starlink antenna with your hands.
It is run by motors and should automatically calibrate to find the closest satellites.
If you try to turn it manually, you may damage the motors inside, which is not what you want. You'll also need to scan the area for the
best position to mount. Pro-tip, you should mount your Starlink router to the roof because,
according to the official guide, Starlink needs a clear view of the sky, precisely at
100 degrees field of view. If you're mounting it to the roof, you need
to use the tool in the Starlink app that scans the sky right there on the roof and at the
position where you'll be mounting your Starlink. So physically being present on the roof where
you mount your Starlink and scanning the sky will give you the most accurate result. You
can also have the person who is installing it do the scanning for you. 5. How does Starlink work?: https://youtu.be/qs2QcycggW
Now that you know how to set it up, how
does it work? What's the tech behind Starlink and satellite technology? The regular internet
service providers we are used to in Nigeria use cellular towers or cables and fibre optics.
However, with Starlink, you are getting a group of thousands of satellites constantly
orbiting the earth as closely as 550 kilometres. These satellites are said to be covering the
entire globe. Their close distance to the planet means a shorter distance for data to
travel back and forth, getting you faster internet speed and lower latency. If you look
at a regular DSTv dish, for instance, it's designed mainly to receive signals. However,
satellite internet phased-array systems like Starlink have a bunch of antennas inside them
that send and receive Signals, giving you internet from their low-orbiting satellites
in space. They used to have a round dish, but now, they've upgraded to this rectangular
design. That's a basic explanation of how it works. If you want a longer explanation,
check out Branch Education's 20-minute video. It's visually engaging, and I got this gist
well. 6. How many people can connect to Starlink?: How many people or devices can connect at
once? According to Starlink's official documentation, you can connect up to 128 devices to your
Starlink Mesh Router. Remember that the higher the number of people that connect to your
router, the slower your internet speeds will become. We had an unscientific test where
we connected over 20 devices simultaneously, and speeds got dragged down as low as 3-35
Mbps when I tested them together. Testing them individually, they did just fine. 7. Accessories: Let us discuss accessories and how you can
get more out of your Starlink. First, there is a long list of accessories and add-ons
that can be purchased separately for the Starlink router. They are there to help increase the
device's functionality in several ways. For one, you can get an additional Mesh note
that looks exactly like this and expand your internet connection. We noticed that with
this single Mesh router that we have here, if you go one floor below the studio or one
floor above, because of the thickness of the walls, the speed is almost cut in half. However,
getting another Mesh Node will give you better speeds. The mesh node is basically this, with
the power adapter. Plugging it on another floor and registering it to your device will
give you better internet that's not disrupted by walls. You can get third-party Mesh nodes
or WiFi extenders that even have the more-advanced WiFi 6. You can even toggle on bypass, so
you transfer all that power to your third-party router leaving the main mesh behind, but they
require more know-how. However, Starlink's own is just plug-and-play.
Starlink can only take up to 12 Mesh Nodes. The Router also has a range of up to 185 square
meters or 2000 square ft. Nevertheless, this varies on placement, interference, and building
materials. Another accessory that may be useful at some
point in your usage is the ethernet adapter. Suppose you prefer to connect your device
to the router by cable or connect other devices via a LAN or ethernet cable. In that case,
you must purchase the adapter that's sold separately. While we are on the topic of connecting other
devices to your Starlink router, did you know that you could make money with your WiFi connection?
You might have heard of devices like Wicrypt. It's a Router of its own that you can connect
via an Ethernet cable. Once you set it up, you can earn some crypto from the data you're
using. I spoke with the founder in an interview on the channel here and have started testing
it myself. With something like this, you can earn your data back, use it to subscribe and
basically browse the internet for free. Do subscribe to watch out for our review of their
devices, and also check the description if this is something you'll like to get. 8. Mounting on the Roof:
Mounting the Starlink antenna was the most
challenging task of everything we experienced. Since the mounts for Starlink were initially
unavailable for purchase from Starlink, I got someone to design a mounting pole that
we attached to the roof of our building to carry Starlink. Different mounting options
are also available, and you can check them out on the shop page. I should be getting
one after my tests. Again, you do not want to turn the Starlink
antenna with your hands. Mounting it on the roof cost me around 80,000
Naira. This is because our space didn't have roof access, so they had to climb a ladder
to the roof. It included the cost of renting the ladder twice, checking the signal and
calibrating it on the roof. They also had to drill the wall so it reaches the inside
of our space and doesn't dangle. It was quite a lot.
9. Is Starlink Unlimited: Is Starlink Unlimited? And What are the Monthly
Costs? How many gigabytes does the monthly payment give you? As for the data plans available, Nigeria currently
has no data cap for data usage. The unlimited is unlimited in Nigeria for the residential
plan. If you get a fixed business plan, you'll have Priority-Access data plan options of
500 gigs, one terabyte, and three terabytes at about 444.54 Naira per gigabyte. This is a fancy way of saying your internet
speed will be as fast as promised until your purchased data is exhausted. Then, speeds
will slow down significantly. In the US, this Priority Access data is capped at 1TB, after
which internet speeds will drop until a new subscription is purchased. We saw a Tweet
of a Nigerian man that has already used over 1.5TB which.. what are you doing for 1.5 terabytes
of data. 10. Starlink Plans - Residential, RV, Business
and More:
Starlink offers three major plans, from the basic Starlink residential to the RV plan
and the highest Starlink business. The other plans include the special (and quite expensive)
plans for Maritime and Aviation set-ups. The significant differences between these main
plans are self-explained by their names. The RV plan is for those needing to move around
a lot or travel with their devices. The Starlink Residential plan is for people setting up
an internet service in their homes. A residential plan is restricted to a 15-mile radius within
the location where you registered your router. However, you can also get the portability
option for an extra $25, which allows you to go outside the radius and still get decent
speed. Sadly, the RV and Portability options are not readily available for Nigerians. You
may have to wait for Starlink's updates. Moving your residential router outside this
15-mile radius might get you less internet speed than advertised. A friend of mine registered
his device for a Lekki address. On setting up and testing around Yaba, they were getting
just around 19 Mbps, but when he moved it back to Lekki, he got that 100-200 Mbps speed.
This is one case, though, but it's something to keep in mind. The business plan is designed for businesses.
It is said to offer more than double the size of the residential plan physically and in
the internet speed it provides. But, once again, this is also unavailable for our region. 11. Can Starlink work without Electricity?: Can Starlink work without electricity? Well,
the answer to that question is. (Pause) No, it can't. Your Starlink router requires constant
power to run. Starlink has no battery that keeps it running when the power goes out.
If you do not have an inverter or struggle to get fuel in Nigeria, you may have to resort
to your mobile ISP until power is restored. Another option that we use here is this power
station by popular energy that we got some time last year. These hold enough charge to
carry the router for around 2 - 3 hours or at least 2 hours. TESTING 12. Download and Upload Speed: Alright, let's talk download and upload speed.
For my unscientific download and upload test, we'll talk about a regular testing website, Speedtest.net.
The highest download speed I recorded was about 250Mbps, and the highest upload speed
was about 32Mbps. The Starlink app lets you test download speeds in a few different ways.
You can test the Speed between your Router and the internet and the speed between your
phone and the router. One of the things a lot of people asked me to do was to download
a whole game. For the PS5, we downloaded a 33GB game file in 30 mins. We left the download
for a 151GB file and went to sleep, but it took around 5-7 hours to complete. Downloading
the 2GB Diablo Immortal game on the S23 Ultra also took 10 minutes and 35 seconds which
is fair. What of the upload speed? I made a tweet and
even a short video talking about it. We tried uploading a 24GB file, and it took around
two days, with a few struggles. Our regular 5G router did this 24GB upload in just over
5 hours. Starlink's upload speeds are the way they are because of the way their Satellite
technology is. It receives data at a much faster rate than it sends data. 13. PING + Latency Test: When it comes to the ping test, there's a
chart I always refer to. Many people ask for ping numbers to know how well it would perform
for gaming. Let's talk general range. For a quick breakdown, anything less than 20ms
is excellent for gaming, and you shouldn't experience any lags during your gameplay.
20 to 50ms is good, and you should still get smooth gameplay, 50 to 100ms is fair and the
average range for gamers connecting to international servers. However, there will be occasional
lags. Poor gameplay starts at 100 - 300 ms; this comes with more lags that don't necessarily
spoil your gameplay but will annoy you. Anything above 300 ms is unusable. Well, Starlink sits
in the middle. We've never experienced less than 50ms, even with periods of high speeds.
The average range is 70 to 90ms for Starlink, so there is good gameplay but occasional lags. 14. Gaming Test Playing COD Mobile on a flagship device, the
S23 Ultra precisely, we were netting around 70ms in ping; I didn't experience any lags.
It was smooth even at the high graphics settings. COD Online on the PS5, though, was on 90-98ms.
So, it was good for the most part. 15. Speed vs Location Test When mounting your Starlink dish, you need
to be very watchful for obstructions. According to Starlink, if obstructions are even up to
2%, you could experience slow speeds. The most important thing when you set up is
to ensure that your Starlink antenna gets a clear view of the sky. We had to mount our
Starlink twice because we were not getting the expected internet speed at the first location.
The best way to save you the stress of doing it multiple times is to move your Starlink
around a little and run a speed test. This will help you find the best point to mount
your it for fast internet. We must stress that Starlink has to be outdoors and not indoors.
Yes, people also asked whether it could be inside. 16. Starlink's Range Test So we know that Starlink has a native range
of 2000 square feet of its position. So far, the range has been pretty good. We had it
on the middle floor of our building, and it comfortably reached the floors above and below,
although it got slightly slower. Again, we plan to get something like the mesh to use
Starlink and extend the capability to different floors, but in terms of range, you should
be covered. If you can conveniently split your Starlink to 2.4 and 5GHz on the app,
you should be able to make this work, but you’ll have to connect to the 2.4GHz when
you're farther and the 5GHz when you're near the Router. But not all phones can see this,
especially the newer iPhones. For some reason, it just connects to anyone it feels like,
and you can't choose. The Pixel 7 Pro and Samsung S23 Ultra did a good job finding 5GHz
immediately. Even the old iPhone XS did but the iPhone 14 doesn't let you select. 17. Starlink's Weather Test What about Bad weather? Bad weather may affect
the speed that Starlink offers. Since we got it set up, we have experienced rain a few
times, and during these times, our Starlink speeds got reduced by an average of 75%. So
we were getting 100Mbps on average, and we started getting 25 Mbps or less when it rained.
We did a reboot, and it was around 45 Mbps, but it didn't go any higher. This could be
correlated to the weather, our area, or both, but there's no clear tell. The position of
our Starlink stayed the same as well. 18. Starlink's Multi-Connectivity Test If a device is connected to Starlink, can
that same device hotspot other devices? It depends on the device. Suppose your device
supports sharing wifi internet as a hotspot. In that case, you can share your hotpot connection
with another device when connected to Starlink. The router does not affect this feature. 19. Starlink's Support What is the support like? So far, I have not
needed to contact support for any issues. But, if you purchase a Starlink kit, you'll
also get access to a Nigerian address for the company on its website. However, there
needs to be someone to call to complain about Nigerian enquiries. For instance, if you have
a damaged router, you'll have to open a ticket on their site, and they do take quite a while to respond. It's a global company, SpaceX
and as far as we know, they only have a corporate building here in Lagos. 20. Starlink vs 5G Router vs Fibre One of the questions I got was, "in your honest
opinion, is it as fast as 5G?" Well, I'll say this. There’s no winner and there are
few things you should consider. They are speed, location, portability and affordability. Let's
talk Speed. 5G, by design, is meant to be faster—very many times faster than Starlink.
The point here, 5G is faster than Starlink at between 300 to 1,000 Mbps compared to the
50 to 260 Mbps you can get on Starlink in Nigeria. On the other hand, if we look at the 5G map
on a site like speedtest.net, we'll see that 5G is only readily available in some places.
Whereas Starlink is satellite internet, it can work almost everywhere in every corner
of the country because it's satellite. You just have to point it to the sky, and it will
calibrate and point to where it will receive its best signal. 5G will only work in some
places. However, because the 5G modem is portable,
you can move to a workspace with 5G coverage and use your router. For Starlink, it has
to be in the location you've set, especially since it's only the Residential plan that
most Nigerians have access to now and not the RV one. How about the cost? Starlink cost me around
450,000 just for purchasing the kit and the first 30 days of unlimited internet. I then
spent 80,000 Naira to mount it on the roof to get the best reception. I also need electricity
for this to work effortlessly. Before I can conveniently use Starlink, I'd spend half
a million Naira. For the 5G Router, on the other hand, I just get a modem which I can
plug a power bank into and get a few hours of use without electricity. The full set-up
also costs 50,000 Naira, and I can do their subscriptions for 100GB at 18,000 Naira. Starlink
is unlimited for now at around 31,500 Naira every month. The 5G router, though, is capped.
These are the choices. There's also Fibre which is fantastic; you
pay for the speeds you get. For instance, for FibreOne, and their residential plan,
you can pay as low as 12 thousand per month for unlimited internet at 16Mbps or as high
as 66,750 per month for up to 152Mbps. But if you want their highest tier for Business,
You're looking at 163 thousand Naira for up to 500Mbps per month, but you have a cap of
12,500 Gigabytes. This is quite costly, but even if you add their installation cost, it's
less expensive than Starlink's initial commitment. Starlink will be one to watch over time, in
the long run, since it's got the confidence of unlimited internet at home and is around
31,500 Naira monthly with 50 to 250Mbps speeds. I'm using a mix of the MTN 5G router, Starlink
and my mobile internet. One balances the other. Speaking of the 5G router, check out this
video of our review of this router and speed tests after almost a month of using it.
