Help with internet/cell in Sagle (Sandpoint, Star: rent, house, live in)

[NYY05]

I'll be moving to Sagle this week and finding out that internet/cell service may not be that great. I will have to be on call for my job so this is a concern. What internet and cell services do you find to get the best connectivity in the area? I'll be renting along the river. I'm coming from a pretty remote area of Montana and had less trouble here so I'm hoping someone has some advice. Also, do you all use satellite for TV? Thank you in advance!!

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Cell phone coverage changes from block to block. All the trees and dips and hills seem to interfere with cell phone coverage in odd and mysterious ways. You can have good coverage in one spot and half a block away the will be nothing. Sometimes it changes between the front yard and the back yard of the same house,



All you can do is to take out your phone at each location and see if you get reception.



I use Verizon because it gives the best coverage over a three state area, where I need it to work. But even Verizon has dead spots, especially when you get into any mountainous areas. There is no company that is free from dead spots.

[nm9stheham]

The above advice is spot on. When you get out to a fringe coverage area, you simply have to test and test to see what is exactly where.



There are home/small office boosters that the OP should learn about for the house, and in-car boosters for in-vehicle help... in case they find some marginal coverage.



Can't help with the landline service there.

[ejisme]

You might investigate if there is a peer-to-peer system out of Sand Point that has coverage in your area. Not the fasted internet, but should be able to handle wifi-phone service.

[nowhereman427]

Originally Posted by oregonwoodsmoke

Cell phone coverage changes from block to block. All the trees and dips and hills seem to interfere with cell phone coverage in odd and mysterious ways. You can have good coverage in one spot and half a block away the will be nothing. Sometimes it changes between the front yard and the back yard of the same house,



All you can do is to take out your phone at each location and see if you get reception.



I use Verizon because it gives the best coverage over a three state area, where I need it to work. But even Verizon has dead spots, especially when you get into any mountainous areas. There is no company that is free from dead spots.

Which 3 state area?

[oregonwoodsmoke]

Originally Posted by nowhereman427

Which 3 state area?

Idaho, Washington, and Oregon. And occasionally, but not often, Southern California. It worked in western Montana when I was there on vacation.

[OurNextAdventure]

Starlink is scheduled to be providing service to the PNW area of the US mid to late 2021 if you are able to wait that long.

[Idahodreaming]

Sagle Starlink Questions
Hello all. Put an offer in house in Canyon Creek area of Sagle up hill and curious about Starlink speeds (up and down) and estimated latency. We are both remote workers and need good internet. Retirement soon but not yet. Currently seller has it installed but not quoting any estimated speeds. Getting a lot of confusing info here on blogs of the new account availability, cells being overloaded etc. Any current and reliable info on that? Current owner taking his equipment and we are concerned about turnaround for new account. Also said we may need biz plan which is $500 a month. Cannot afford that. Jobs good but not that good. Was hoping to move by family here but need good reliable internet. Just an FYI asked them to do speedtest but not providing it. Asked us to ck with Starlink for that info which is not possible. Any independent information would be greatly appreciated. Thanks

[Cnynrat]

Hi Idahodreaming,

We live in eastern Sagle, roughly 10 miles east of 95 as the crow flies. We've had Starlink now for about 3-4 months. IMO, unless you live where you can get cable or some other hard wired Internet service Starlink is the only way to go.

Our speed test results tend to vary a bit depending on which test you run. Sitting here in mid-afternoon I just ran three, and these are the results:

Starlink speed test (from their Android app): 127 Mbps down, 13 Mbps up, 27 ms latency
Ookla speed test: 143 Mbps down, 9 Mbps up, 34 ms latency
Speakeasy speed test: 116 Mbps down, 10 Mbps up, 37 ms latency

The current monthly cost for Starlink is $120/month, and there are no data limits. Until recently they had a 1 TB/month data limit, after which they would deprioritize you in their fair use algorithm, but they removed that "feature" about a month ago.

We have cancelled HughesNet, which gave us less than 5 Mbps download speeds. We were in a 30 GB plan for a long time, and had frequent months when we exceeded that, so we switched to a 50 GB/month plan which was enough most of the time. Note that we were doing very little video streaming on Hughesnet. Now that we have Starlink we have also cancelled Dish, and we are getting all our TV by streaming. I don't know the numbers right off the top of my head, but the combination of Starlink plus the couple streaming services we pay for is much less than what we were paying for Dish + HughesNet.

We live on a heavily treed property, and I was initially concerned about whether we had enough visibility of the sky. In fact, we were offered a Starlink beta test system a couple years ago and turned it down because it was in March, and I figured we would have to get the antenna on top of the house to clear the trees - not going to happen in March.

We currently have our antenna sitting on our picnic table on our back deck, a very sophisticated installation! It works fine there. Starlink tells me we have had 37 seconds of obstructions in the last 12 hours, which is more or less typical. That's 0.08% if my arithmetic is correct, and honestly we never notice it. I do plan to mount the antenna up on the house as part of a bigger project to install a new ham radio antenna on the peak of the house. I'm going to need a lift to do that, so we'll get it all done in one day when I rent one. Obviously, I can't guarantee you won't have visibility problems, but my experience leads me to believe it's not as big an issue as some might think.

If it helps anyone to evaluate potential obstructions, everyone's antennas around here point more or less north by northeast.

As far as availability in this area you would need to check with Starlink. I think if you go to their website and enter the address of the property they will tell you whether there is a waiting list. When we decided to pull the trigger it was not available in our area because Starlink is managing subscribers per cell in order to maintain performance. IIRC we had to make a refundable deposit on the equipment to put our name on the waiting list, and we waited 4-5 months to get our equipment. If that happens you are actually waiting for them to launch more satellites so the system has more total capacity.

Dave

[Idahodreaming]

Hello Dave,
Thank you so much for s comprehensive reporting on Starlink and your current experience with it. I found the installer by calling around. His name is Lenny from 7BTV in Sandpoint yesterday and he said it works great in it’s current orientation, he was very helpful and is a great resource if needed. But he could not offer any speeds at that location so your information is very helpful to us.
Also he mentioned the delays you referred to and his customers are getting them now in 2 weeks or under but that could change anytime as the grid gets filled up. So we need to order asap but current owner needs to cancel his subscription at that address once escrow closes.

Your quick response and time taken to help me is greatly appreciated. Hope to be a Sagleian soon!