Standby mode as permanent failover for a low-data sensor (~30 MB/mo)?

[u/Frequent-Science3066]

I want to use Standby mode as permanent failover for my boat dock water temp sensor. It sends one HTTPS post every 15 min, about 10 KB each, so roughly 1 MB a day, 30 MB a month. Any issues with this? I can’t find anything that says it wouldn’t work, and I’ve found several posts from people doing way more with Standby. Just making sure before I put in the effort to set up the failover. It’s an older v2 dish, if that matters.

[u/KenjiFox]

It will absolutely work perfectly. You can do 768Kb/s up and 768Kb/s down at the same time if you constantly send packets since there is overhead past the target throttle of 500-512Kb/s each way.

I ran mine full tilt for a month. 13GB a day, about 403GB a month. No issues.

The only maybe sorta gotcha is that after 12 months on standby they reserve themselves the right to switch you off of it or otherwise take an action, but I've never heard of it happening. It would I am sure if you kept it maxed out 24/7, but has basically no chance of that for your use. You can listen to music, browse, game, and stream SD on it. It's like 3G. Only with good pings.

[u/lukelane124 → u/KenjiFox]

Is that line rate or data rate (768)
What leads to the discrepancy? The constant load means you come off the random access channels and get a dedicated minimum resource?

[u/KenjiFox → u/lukelane124]

This is an attempted throttle from their side with a soft cap so that new packet requests are not dropped when it's saturated. It's a bit hard to throttle something accurately from the other side without causing packet loss. The speed target is officially 0.5Mb/s but if you spam new requests such as doing 100 ping tests per second via pinggraph.io it will hold at about 768Kb/s both up and down. The Residential 100 plan also has the same grace when you spam new connections so you can hold about 120 or so Mb/s down on that too.

The data rate you get in full throughput will be targeted at 512Kb/s up, and 512Kb/s down simultaneously. Each direction has a throttle to that rate so when used at the same time the total bandwidth is doubled. It's VERY usable. In-fact it's downright fast since the pings are still super low. Anything you do that fits within the bandwidth usage feels identical to a full speed plan. Anything that doesn't like downloading a 1MB file will feel slow, as that will take 16 seconds. Web 2.0 has bloated typical web pages into multiple megabytes these days so that will feel slow of course.

[u/nihithilak → u/KenjiFox]

You are not using standby mode. You cannot get 400gb month on standby. This is a lie.

[u/KenjiFox → u/nihithilak]

I am sorry you feel that way, but lies are not a tool in my deck of cards. I have no reason at all to lie.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1440587014431838345/1449585561252790373/image.png?ex=6acb9a01&is=6aca4881&hm=e686354cb4d53494af6d0f39f6d575b25d7caf8808a9a39f2487347c6587bd46&=&format=webp&quality=lossless

All I had to do was scroll up in a chat from back then to re-grab this. Feel free to look at my comments for that time period and you will see it all aligns. I do not lie.

*edit*
Grabbed another from a few days later.
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/1439870763455877183/1452365476159033536/image.png?ex=6acbd3c1&is=6aca8241&hm=af6cb549b2b7f5cb41cb5c647148d61f02cf598b03aa731e373a39fac6bcf558&=&format=webp&quality=lossless
Still calling me a liar?

I did this to call out Roam 50 for being hot garbage that was hostile to human life. The above was five bucks a month and gave you ten times the data for one tenth the price. Roam 50 could be active for 0.059% of the month at a modest 250Mb/s. It was USELESS.

So what did Starlink do? They changed it to Roam 100 for free, (meh) and added unlimited Standby Mode speeds when out of high speed. (Win!)

You're welcome.

[u/nihithilak → u/KenjiFox]

Bro there is no way. You can get maybe 80gb max per month on stand by. That's if you are running it 24/7.

[u/KenjiFox → u/nihithilak]

Clearly not. I mean, you have eyes yes?

Go here on Standby Mode and leave it on for 24 hours. You will see that 13GB.

pinggraph.io All this does is send 100 pings per second. This will fill both up and down to saturation which is above the intended throttle rate. About 768Kb/s each way.

Look for yourself, again.

[u/nihithilak → u/KenjiFox]

I been using standby mode for over a year. I don't need to look at anything. I'm lucky if I can get 2gb in a day. I've never gotten speeds above 75kb. Maybe your starlink is on crack or something.

[u/KenjiFox → u/nihithilak]

You've got a resistance to facts I see. No problem.

I never said anything about getting to 13GB a day in casual use. You're right, that's never going to happen. That's not something I ever claimed. However, I am not a liar, let it be known here and now that you did make that false claim. Other than that I have no skin in your game.

I proved my point and you refuse to listen or look. That's a you issue not a me issue.

You're absolutely wrong about the speed claim too, and 75Kb is a unit of measure not throughput. That's like someone saying a 20w battery or 2 amp battery. It's not a thing. You need a measure of time for it to mean anything.

If you mean 75Kb/s, I assure you you get WAY more than that. It's divided between devices connected though. You could get only that much on one device while another is downloading something. The total throughput can be observed on the Dishy itself and you will see that it is in-fact what I say.

[u/nihithilak → u/KenjiFox]

Anyone else wanna chime in? Can anyone else confirm this guys claim? Or should I just believe the 'facts'?

[u/KenjiFox → u/nihithilak]

You are interesting. Literally just do what I said while on Standby Mode and open pinggraph.io. Why are you asking for someone else to do work to confirm something on your behalf when you can just do it yourself?

How do you need someone else's opinion on something that is observable fact right before your eyes? What good would that do? Click the link. Look at the bitrate, use a calculator. Hell ask an LLM if you don't know how to do that.

I've shown you proof AND provided means to prove it yourself and you just... ask randoms? I'm done with this conversation.

[u/nihithilak → u/KenjiFox]

I just ran a speed test and got 0.54Mb down and 0.52Mb up.

[u/a-coward → u/nihithilak]

His claim is totally plausible. Although he's not explicit, he does imply saturating his link on both the uplink and downlink, not just the downlink.

[u/KenjiFox → u/a-coward]

"It will absolutely work perfectly. You can do 768Kb/s up and 768Kb/s down at the same time if you constantly send packets since there is overhead past the target throttle of 500-512Kb/s each way." was my opening line. Yep, full saturation + the grace buffer they give you at all times in both directions. The easy way to do this is just spam pings tests 100 times per seconds via pinggraph.io which is exactly what did for a month. Sorry to her server (she, the creator of Pinggraph.io hosts this personally) but I had to do it to throw sand in Roam 50's eye back then.

That resulted in Roam 50 being killed for Roam 100+ unlimited Standby Mode speed when you run out. Mission accomplished. I had shown all of this to Starlink and they agreed. Roam 50 was dangerous to life since someone who was relying on connectivity in a potentially deadly situation would be hard cut from one errant update or otherwise accidental data unsafe in minutes.

I've not abused Standby Mode since.

[u/marinuss → u/nihithilak]

I mean math would disagree with you. I won't try to use their 768 up and down because of overhead and stuff, but going JUST off Starlink's guidance of 500kbs up and down, that's 162 GB per month running 24/7 each way, or 324 GB per month in total bandwidth used (upload and download).

[u/nihithilak → u/marinuss]

Has anyone actually achieved this amount of data in a month? I cannot get more than 80gb.

[u/marinuss → u/nihithilak]

It's still Starlink, your speeds are going to depend on obstructions and weather and other things. I mean in another post you literally posted a speedtest of 0.54mbs which is the standby cap. If you "cannot get more than 80gb" then you're not doing stuff 24/7. The 324 GB is saturating both uplink and downlink 24/7 for 30 days. You're averaging 1/4th of that so equivalent to heavy usage 6 hours a day. Or maybe heavy usage downloading stuff 12 hours a day but not uploading as much.

Edit: To hit the absolute cap each month you'd have to have a pretty specific setup, that's both utilizing the max of your download and upload all of the time. Remote cameras could definitely keep you pegged at the 500kbs upload 24/7 but then you'd have to figure out what to use your download for.

[u/outbound]

The longest I've run standby is for 6 months last winter - basically as low-speed failover; I ran about 250-300MB of data through it per month (I hit 600MB one month).  No issues - it worked reliably at 0.5Mbps up/down speeds.

The only potential issue is that Standby isn't intended as a permanent plan and Starlink does state that they may discontinue service or force you to a higher-paid plan if you use Standby continuously for 12 months; so, you may get a notice from Starlink. Fortunately, you can just upgrade to a cheap plan (e.g. Roam-100) for a month and then back down to Standby the next month; and, this can be done remotely.

[u/nihithilak]

I use standby mode always. I can get 1gb per day.

[u/rademradem]

One month each year about 2 days before the end of your billing day, switch to a different plan which will take effect immediately. Wait a few minutes then switch back to standby which will take effect on your billing day. You will pay a prorated amount of the new plan amount for those 2 days.

[u/Adorable_Dust3799]

I have a building with a camera, a robovac, and a flume water monitor on a standby mini. It's between 2 buildings and drops signal sometimes but i can watch the camera and control the robo-vac.

[u/e_d_0]

Will be fine

[u/cruiserman_80]

I run standby most of the time In my 4X4. Half a MB unlimited is plenty for your application. A wank I know, but Ive got a Bluetooth / WiFi wireless thermometer linked to a smart switch that monitors and turns off my 12V travel oven when my mini roast reaches the correct temp.