Starlink: Is it Right For Your Remote Online Business | EP 766

Starlink: Is it Right For Your Remote Online Business

Read the full episode transcript below:

00:28 David Blackmon: Welcome to another episode of WP The Podcast, i’m David Blackmon.

00:35 Tim Strifler: And i’m Tim Strifler

00:38 David Blackmon: And today I’m super excited because we’re going to geek out nerd out about something that I’m super passionate about. We’re going to talk about um you know specifically Starlink and is it right for your remote online business. So obviously with the pandemic last couple of years companies have finally realized that human beings don’t need to be planted in the office to get [ __ ] done, they actually get quite a bit done outside of the office maybe even more there are studies that are that are shown that people are more productive in a remote work environment as opposed to in an office and stuff. And um which totally makes sense to me, we’ve been remote for gosh ever since we started the company you know 10 years ago almost 10 years ago and stuff and, and I know Tim and his team’s remote too. This topic I’m mostly going to talk about, so before I dive in I want to find out if there’s anything Tim wants to say?

01:44 Tim Strifler:  Yeah I think, I it’s been a growing Trend even before the pandemic of people rving which is what David is in right now he’s in his RV , his um oh my gosh probably like Airstream. Airstream there we go, so uh traveling around and living remotely, right. And moving locations whether that’s in an RV a camper you know whatever a being a digital Nomad essentially that was a growing Trend pre-pandemic, and then the pandemic I think accelerated that even more. Because now it’s like all these offices or that people worked at are saying hey go work from home, so people are like well I’m not just going to stay home I’m going to go wherever I want to go. And so um thankfully as David mentioned Elon Musk uh and his company created Starlink. Starlink is through SpaceX right?

02:39 David Blackmon: It is, it’s uh it’s satellite it’s satellite internet. Um so basically obviously if you’re working from home you’re probably going to have your home connection which Starlink has a home option as well. Um but we mainly want to talk about working remote digital nomadism which is what I am. I started being a digital Nomad in 2015 sold my house bought an RV started traveling around the country and basically working from all the different places that wherever I was. And the way that I initially did that was kind of honestly it was hit and miss you know. I have multiple ways to connect to the internet um obviously you if you’re in a town you can go to a coffee shop or a you know any type of place like that which has free wi-fi. But a lot of times I didn’t want to be in towns I wanted to be away from towns in nature, top of a mountain and up until now until Starlink was released outside of you know, a really really crappy satellite internet system HughesNet which gave you about dial-up speeds you know. Um your options were pretty limited, you know if you had to work you pretty much needed to be near cell towers where you could at least get data, you could get a jet pack and you could, matter of fact I’m going to grab one while we’re here if stuff don’t fall in my head uh because we’re we record a video too and we put it on YouTube. So I’m showing you a jetpack This Is My ATT jet pack which is a nice device to have if there’s a t service anywhere. This is a hot spot and I can connect my computer to it and at times I would get at at optimal and this was rare you know, that I would get over 50 Megs down and five Megs upload which is more than enough to work remotely, but what Starlink has done is Holy OMG. Uh you can find Starlink at starlink.com put in your address you got two options you gotta you can get Starlink for your home or you can get Starlink for they’ve released an RV version. So Nomads like me I can go anywhere I’ve got a satellite and I just set it up outside turn it on and it points to the sky and I have blazing fast internet speed. So I recently received Starlink, um I guess probably about a maybe a month ago three to four weeks ago. I got my Starlink in and it was the easiest thing in the world to set up. Do you need to be technical to operate Starlink and satellites? Hell no! It was like opening an Apple product, it was so Sleek so easy, so clean. You open up the box, there’s a big card with three drawings on it step one step two and step three. Step one download the app, step two connect to the satellite, step three surf the web. That’s literally how easy it is, plug it in and you’re working. It’s rolling um and it was literally that easy and historically. I have I love national parks for obvious reasons they’re just incredible places in nature but the problem with national parks is you never could really work from National Parks before because they don’t allow cell towers anywhere near in or around national parks. So historically there’s no service in National Parks not even your ATT Verizon T-Mobile nothing. You go into Yosemite or the Grand Canyon or or any place like that and you’re usually dead no signal. Whatsoever well Starlink. I was in Acadia National Park a few weeks after I got my Starlink and I’m blazing 200 Megs down and 40 Megs upload speed from Acadia National Park which you know was huge. I wasn’t even in the main Park I was in a more remote part at scudic point which the main Park actually sits on an island, and there’s Bar Harbor there so they actually have had service there bajaba and uh you know certain certain parts of the park and stuff. Not great but you could occasionally get a signal whereas some other Parks. Well now I can go anywhere in the world, I can be in the middle of the ocean on top of a mountain I don’t care if a cell towers around. All I need to do is have visibility to the sky you know, and I have internet and can work from anywhere which really really excites me because I want to be remote. I want to travel I want to go places I want to record podcast episodes from the top of a mountain and stuff. Eventually my desk setup will be you know I’m going to figure out some kind of mobile desk setup to where I can be outside recording these things, and I can share nature with you and stuff. But I recently just started traveling again. Uh mid-may hit the road so uh I’m super excited it’s freaking awesome. I mean Starlink gives you Freedom like never before with internet and I would assume that with that freedom that Elon Musk and SpaceX and Starlink has given you know the ability to work and surf or not even work play on the internet and to have connectivity from anywhere. I don’t imagine these other companies are going to be too terribly far behind um you know from having connectivity to where you can you can be anywhere in the world, and not worry about it. I even crossed over into Canada and went to the Bay of Fundy which is the Fundy National Park after I was in Acadia and it worked flawlessly. I didn’t know if I was going to be like Roman I mean obviously satellites are in the sky there’s no borders that I got to worry about or anything, and I was curious as to whether or not it was actually going to work and it worked flawless. I mean Flawless it rained I had days where it was storming raining didn’t affect it at all. So all you need to do is make sure you have clear you know view to the skies and stuff. Okay I think that’s it man you got any questions you want to ask me about Starlink? 

09:16 Tim Strifler: Um well one thing that you had mentioned uh before we started recording, is that they’re talking about gigabit speed. And so I was just impressed to hear that like it’s like how quickly they’re already iterating and improving it it’s not like it’s gonna be, you know another decade before like a big Improvement. Like this happens you know, the satellites are there now they’re just going to continuously be refining and making it better which is awesome.

09:43 David Blackmon: Absolutely yeah um, yeah I’m super excited. I mean I’m happy with 200 I mean I haven’t gotten under a hundred Megs download yet and my upload speeds have fluctuated, but have never gone really below 10. And 10 is plenty you know to upload videos and do whatever it is that you need to do and stuff. So I’ve gotten as high as like 40 or 50 upload speeds which was higher than I had. We get at our office and stuff, so it was It was kind of crazy. So you know I mean that kind of stuff will fluctuate and stuff. So yeah um all right, well tomorrow we’ve got another great topic, best ways to get website traffic in 2022. Tim until then until tomorrow we’ll see you then.

10:32 Tim Strifler: Take care, bye.