Starlink Set Up & First Impressions In Northern Minnesota

My folks finally got their Starlink receiver delivered this last week. They've been searching for a high-speed internet provider for a long time. They live literally off the grid near Cook, Minnesota. They don't even have power lines out to their house and rely on solar power. I suggested months ago that they should get Starlink, but they wanted to pursue cheaper options first.

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All of those options fell through, so they ended up getting on the Starlink waiting list. It only took a couple of months for it to arrive. In case you don't know what Starlink is, here's a rundown. It's Elon Musk's future of the internet with orbiting satellites providing high-speed internet across the globe.

I was up visiting this weekend and my mom asked if I could help them set it up. Fortunately, I had a friend with me who is an engineer, so I figured we'd be able to make it work.

We opened up the box and saw that there really isn't a whole lot to it.

There is a stand, a receiver, a router, and a long cord. The instructions were just a picture of how to hook it up together.

The hardest part about the setup for us was finding a location where it wouldn't be obstructed by trees. My folks live on 80 wooded acres. We finally realized the best place would be on the balcony. We placed it right on a table up top and zip-tied it down so we didn't have to worry about it moving around.

The next tricky part was how to get the cord into the house into the router. We had to drill a hole through some thick siding, but we got it done.

We plugged it in, turned on the router, and let the satellite adjust. It really only took a couple of minutes. The receiver moves around automatically to line up with the satellites. It's pretty sweet.

I ran a speed test on my phone after setting up the wifi. Downloading the Starlink app was very helpful during setup. We got download speeds of over 100mpbs. That's insane! Upload speeds were around 20mbps, which is really good as well.

It's been 4 days since we set it up and there hasn't been a single issue with connectivity according to my parents. For $100 a month after set up, I think it's definitely worth the money. They now have faster internet living off the grid in the middle of the woods of Northern Minnesota than I have at my home in the Twin Ports. This is pretty incredible!