4Game

Howdy folks!

I am just hoping to give some insight into gaming on Starlink internet service. I posted this originally on the Starlink subreddit here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Starlink/comments/u504xi/my_experience_gaming_on_starlink/

I switched to Starlink this past week. For the past 20+ years, i've had Frontier as my ISP. I live in the middle of nowhere (my entire county's population is less than 11k people), and infrastructure upgrades are shall we say, lacking.

So, just as a straight up comparison of Starlink to terrible Frontier DSL

Lowest Ping – Frontier by a hair. Frontier would swing between 20 and 500ms ping, but average in the 60's. Starlink has been between 35 and 150ms ping, with averages in the 70's.

Lowest packet loss – Starlink by a mile. Frontier's lines are terribly managed, and their modem is poo. Frontier's service would have me with a consistent 5-10% packet loss. Starlink has yet to reach 1%.

Speed – Starlink by a country mile. I had bonded DSL through Frontier at 25/2. It might have synced to the local CO at that speed, but the throughput was never there. In actuality, it was probably half that. On Starlink (in a bad spot – I haven't received my roof mount kit to get it above roof/treeline yet), I'm consistently getting 150+ down, and 20-25 up.

Service Level – Starlink hands down. Frontier's service constantly dropped. Every time a squirrel farted, the lines for the entire region would drop. Speed/Latency would constantly swing wildly. My only drops so far with Starlink, is when the power blinked from a bad thunderstorm, and it had to reboot itself.

Hardware – Frontier's modems are so poo, that over 20 years of service (and regular dsl and bonded dsl) I've had to replace them 6 separate times for catching fire., and another half a dozen times just for failing outright. One exploded in the tech's hands when he came out to prove I was lying. A 2nd one – brand new out of box – caught fire when the tech showed up with it and we plugged it in. Another one took my networked laser printer with it. The ethernet switch built in constantly died on all of my modems, and the wifi was so terrible, that at 15 feet from the modem, they all had less than 10% strength (and that is with me going into the modem settings and setting the radio to broadcast full strength). So far on a week with Starlink, i've had no issues even 100 feet away from my wifi point. I am seriously looking forward to receiving my ethernet adapter to plug into my switch, so that i can get my desktops on that fully, juicy speed (usb 3 wifi adapters can only get me to a 120 or so out of the 150+ the app says i have between dish and internet).

Price – Frontier wins hands down. $60ish a month for service is a lot cheaper than $110. But the service I'm getting for the $110 will never ever be matched by frontier.

Games – What is world of tanks like on Starlink? Surprisingly, it works very well. Despite what some folks on here may think – it isn't your bandwidth that matters. It isn't your ping that matters. It is consistency. Starlink isn't the fastest. It doesn't have the lowest ping. But I'm also no longer getting tons of packet drops, tons of sync drops, and tons of speed fluctuations. It is consistent service, and that means a lot. The experience is a lot smoother over-all.

So, for anyone out there who is living way out in the boonies (like me) and wants something that is consistent? You will like starlink.