Shopping lost its charm, at least for me. I can confidently say that I'm buying things more responsibly these recent years than a decade or so ago. No more purchasing unnecessary stuff that would just occupy spaces in the house and collect dust at some point.
That is to say, I only buy those that we truly need. One which I consider as our best buy last year has solved a major problem we had and let me share more about it below.
Unstable internet has been an issue for us, changing from one service provider to the next became a source of frustration. There were only 2 known ISPs here in the country and per our experience, their services had not been satisfactory. We even bought different wireless data devices so we could use them interchangeably when the antennae were wonky, but the solution only worked temporarily. Things got worse middle of last year when suddenly, all of our connections started lagging intermittently.
While a fiber connection has already arrived in town, our remote location is still considered out of reach for it and there were no other options available locally. That prompted us to look for better alternatives elsewhere and that's when we found out that Starlink has support in our area.
I first read about the device from Jongolson sometime in 2022. The husband also watched some reviews about it from other people who are using it here in the country so at least it was not totally new to us. And so we decided to purchase one without delay.
It was such good timing because when we placed our order (July), the price was slashed to $400 (from the standard price of $600). That's a one-time payment by the way for the equipment set (the dish, mesh router, and cables).
We had second thoughts afterward, especially when the equipment did not arrive after a month from when we ordered and paid for it. 45 days and there weren't any updates either. We were anxious of course! Then finally on the 52nd day, we got a call that it was being delivered. Oh boy, we felt relieved, lol!
Yes, since the day we set it up, we never had a headache about a problematic internet connection. Elon's Starlink solved that for us. Even when we were having a breezy day, foggy and unclear skies, or in times of storms, we never lost connection. Well, except when there was a power blackout. We plugged it into the generator and it worked without requiring any new setup. We also took it to our other house and it worked like it was meant for the place.
Most of the time, we connect many devices (8 or more) at once but it still works flawlessly. The speed may vary at times but it doesn't cause any disconnection or lagging. I would say we are very satisfied. Worth the price we paid for it and the monthly charge of about $50 for the services.
I realized the monthly bill is cheaper than what we used to spend with the multiple connections we had before. So yay! We had other bigger purchases last year but this is certainly the best among them. We would not hesitate to recommend it to others here in the locality. The good thing is that the hardware price this time is about $350 which is cheaper than last year.
So how about you, did you have any purchase that you consider the best yet? Share it with us too!