DirecPC

We have no cell signal in our neighborhood and on our DSL connection, wifi calling was always choppy. On Starlink I find wifi calling the same, doesnt work well. However, a few years ago our cell phone company gave us a femto cell when I told them we had no service locally. This is a box that plugs into the router, connects to the internet and generates a 4G signal in the house. This worked very well on DSL even with 0.5 mbs upload speed. I have got my router now operating in bridge mode, connected to the ethernet adaptor, with the femto cell plugged into the bridged router, and calls work very well, no choppiness, dropped calls etc. There is a bit of a lag, call the house land line from the cell phone, say something, and the voice comes out the land line phone with a bit of a delay, which was also the case on the DSL, maybe a bit more lag on Starlink. I think in normal conversation off premises it would not be noticeable.

Ok, got the ethernet adaptor and connected it to the WAN port of the router -- this did not work well. Some devices connected to the internet, others like the hardwired security camerias lost all connectivity. Decided against putting Starlink into bypass mode so I put the router into bridge mode, and all is good. We have over 20 devices , 18 wireless and two hardwired, that are things like the ring camera, the ROKU, some of the lights are turned on by voice command, and the friggin vacuum cleaner and the refrigerator talk to the internet, why they have to I have no idea, and all worked fine without having to reset or reconnect any of them.

We are in an area where we are surrounded by trees and have a few tall ones. Where the house is a cleared area . Had Starlink professionally installed , installer picked a location atop the roof that gave the least obstructions on the Starlink app. Its been running about a week and a half. Below are screen shots of our outage log for obstructions, and what our visibility looks like from the app. Visibility is mostly obstructed to the north, and in fact its where the dish usually points itself. In terms of noticeable impact to service, I cant really say we notice complete loss of service whenever its obstructed. Speed tests are all over the map. I can run six successive speed tests and get widely different results each time, usually in the 20-130 mbs range, most commonly getting around 40 mbs. I run speed tests at random times during the day. Notice in the AM will usually get 130 but after noon, 20-40. We usually have scattered rain showers in the PM. Never noticed a loss of service during rain though. I am using the Starlink router, have not added my own yet. I have identified that the WIFI signal strength is not that great, so I have been testing in line of sight within 20 feet of the router. Question: how does every one else's outage logs and visiblity compare? Is this "normal" and par for the course, or do I really need to improve the installation? The Dish is in the best place, anyplace else on the roof is more obstructed. The obstructions relate to maybe 5 trees, locally it costs $1000 each to have them knocked down and hauled out. Aside from the expense, the idea of knocking down trees to get better internet does not sit well with me. I have an option to put the dish up on a40 foot tower to get better visibility. I might do that, am just concerned if there is a problem in the future, it wont be acessible to anyone not willing to go up a tower. Anyway, if what I am experiencing is "normal" then i probably will leave the Dish where its at. If not, up the tower it goes. Compared to our DSL, Starlink is 3X faster on its worst test and 10X faster on its worst upload. The only thing I am a little nervous about is cutting the cord with the telephone company's DSL. Our DSL goes out every two weeks more or less. But Invariably its up and running after ten minutes and a phone call and they "clear ports" or "reconfigure" and we are good for another couple of weeks. If Starlink goes down, I need the internet to email them, and judging from the one ticket I sent then, it takes a week for them to get back. We dont get even a cell signal here, so, if I lost Starlink, would have to get in my truck and drive about a mile away to get a signal to send a support ticket. Thanks in advance for all comments. And this is what the visibility looks like in the app

Thanks for the reply, that is encouraging. I have been collecting alot of information on this subject, and it seems like plugging one routers wan port into the ethernet connection of the upstream router may work but there are can be some issues. Both routers are providing Network Address Translation configured like that. According to one article I read, possible issues with double NAT are there might be issues with VPN service, some websites using SSL, if you are doing any port forwarding or triggering, and possibly issues with online games. Not terribly familiar with the latter myself but this could be a problem I read for accessing security camera feeds, which, is one of the wired devices i need to connect to starlink. Improved remote access to security camera feeds with our very limited DSL connection (about 0.5 mbs up) is one of our reasons for getting starlink Solutions are either a) put the starlink router into bypass mode (and lose the app access to some of its features) or configure the router downstream of the starlink router to act lke an access point instead of a router (and lose some of its security features). With respect to that, I was wondering how secure the starlink router is. I have been playing around with testmyports and ShieldsUp to check it for vulnerabilties and so far the only concern I have is google is the DNS server. Dont like the idea of having every single web call logged and tracked. Anyway, I will fire up it with the old router plugged into the new and see what works and does not. I am wondering if there is a way to access the starlink router apps feature even when it is bypass mode.

Had a few other things related to this question my router is a linksys MR9600 and I have read that I can put it into "bridge mode" so "... the router essentially acts as an Ethernet switch". which I think means the Starlink router would not have to be put in bypass mode if the old router is used as a switch. There apparently some downsides though. " Priority and other advanced features" in the MR9600 wont work. "It disables many of the router’s features, such as NAT and DHCP. It can make it more difficult to configure your network. Additionally, bridge mode can reduce the security of your network since the router is no longer able to screen traffic coming from the internet." So this brings up a couple of other questions. One, what kind of security does the starlink router provide to screen inbound traffic? Second I dont know about this, but the two wired devices I would hook up are a cell phone femtocell box used to generate a cell phone signal in the house, works way better than wifi calling, even with starlinks speeds. The other is our home security camera system which has a wired connection to the router so we can see the cameras away from home. Anyway thanks for all comments

We have had the new flat dish and Wi-Fi only router for a few days. I have several devices that require a wired connection. Currently these devices are connected to a Linksys router which connects to a DSL modem. I have ordered the ethernet adapter and should have it in a few days. Scouring the internet for hints about what to do when the ethernet adapter arrives has me a bit confused. Can I simply unplug my router from the DSL modem and plug it into the ethernet adapter and all is good? Or I have been reading that in some cases it's necessary to put the satellite router into bypass mode. Or do I need to mothball the old router and buy a switch. If the latter whats a good switch to get. I think I would prefer to use my old router as the router settings for quality of service prioritization security are accessible whereas the starlink router has little or no settings that are accessible. On the other hand I understand in bypass mode my Android app that I use to check the health of the starlink connection would no longer work so that's not a desirable outcome either. Appreciate all comments and advice thank you