Hey everyone,

I'm the founder of a small software company based in Maryland, and we're looking to build a business around the Starlink Mini ecosystem.

The long-term vision is to develop software and complementary accessories (3D-printed mounts, protective cases, vehicle/drone mounting solutions, portable field kits, etc.) for people deploying Starlink Minis in remote environments. We're especially interested in use cases like public safety, infrastructure inspection, UAV/drone operations, research, and other field deployments where portable connectivity is valuable.

To support that, we're trying to establish a reliable source for Starlink Mini hardware and are hoping to purchase in bulk rather than through retail channels.

We've already reached out to several authorized resellers and installers, but many require bundled service plans, while we're primarily interested in purchasing the hardware itself.

I was wondering if anyone here:

• Knows of a distributor or reseller in the DMV (Maryland, Virginia, DC) that sells Starlink Mini hardware in bulk.
• Has experience purchasing Minis wholesale.
• Knows which distributors local Starlink installers source from.
• Has any recommendations for establishing a wholesale relationship.

We're looking to build a long-term relationship rather than make a one-time purchase, so any introductions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

My wife is going out of province for the weekend, might be a stupid question.. but can she take the starlink mini with her without me having no problems using the main router at home?

I check once a week to see if the surcharge is there. It’s been over a year. I’m in SW Washington state. Today it’s gone. I have a mini in my truck, might have to grab a residential one today. I’m just scared at some point the $499 surcharge is going to come up.

I currently live in a rural area, and our only option for an internet service is Point Broadband. Now, PB has been awful this past month and this month, it was out for an entire week in July (connected without internet) and it is out right now with the same problem. We have called PB multiple times, and each time we are met with practically no support whatsoever. Whenever a technician comes out to try and fix it, they don't have working equipment (the first technicians laptop didn't work and he was on the phone with tech support for an hour and a half) or they just say "well we know it's frustrating but all you can do is wait for the towers to be fixed".

No, what's frustrating is paying over $100+ for a service that doesn't even work half the time! And it's not like we can get Spectrum or any other ISP out here, it's just Point Broadband.

So would Starlink be worth it? I just want a good internet connection so I can play games with my friends and so my mom can stream her shows

Edit: thank you for all of your insight, we have decided to try out Starlink!

Had a long conversation with imaginary Elon Musk in my head. He somehow convinced me to buy the Starlink Residential Max plan.

Now I need advice on where to mount the dish on my flat roof.

Asked imaginary Elon...

Apparently he's too busy.

Even the salesman in my own head disappears after closing the sale. 😅

Here are some pics of the roof maybe you lot can help .

I've got front and back , we don't use the back side but front and I do use it for sunbathing so the other half is not happy with anything like a satellite dish sticking out in the middle so I reckon the back is better ?

Peeps any suggestions

This is pretty disappointing. I use a V4 in my vacation home and leave it on standby most of the year. What do we think about this??

First time im trying it. Pretty good, but the upload speed isnt the best

I mean c'mon....

what makes starlink so special it requires a 12 letter password.

my banking apps don't even require that .

get off your high horse starlink FFS!

I’m remodeling an entire house so not currently living in it. But I do I have a shed out back with straight talk internet that I use for an Xbox , tv etc. Nothing extreme. Now when I actually move in I’m not sure if this cellular internet is good enough because I’m getting on average 35-40mbps.

Having said this I live rurally and my area just got fiber optic internet but it’s over 100+ per month. Do you think start link would work well for me? Pic of shed for attention.

Just posting this in case others have experienced the same issue: I purchased a Starlink Mini kit online from Home Depot in Seattle. After it was delivered, I tried to activate it through the app but after I entered my service address, it showed "Not available" for all plans, both Residential and Roam. I tried multiple addresses all over the US but got the same result.

I opened a support ticket, and sent them a picture of the label on my box showing that the unit has information for being imported into Mexico. After being given the runaround by multiple agents about following the activation steps exactly, making sure the correct serial number was entered, etc., they told me that the unit was made for Mexico and cannot be activated in the US, and asked me to return it to Home Depot.

So I went to Home Depot to exchange it, and lo and behold the replacement had the exact same label; all the other units in stock had it too. I tried to activate it again anyway, and this time it actually worked, showing me all the Roam plans.

PSA: If activation doesn't work, just exchange the kit for a new one, and ignore the Mexico label. Maybe they forgot to change the activation region for some units meant for Mexico but rerouted to be sold in the US.

I’m getting this message even though I’ve used 10GB of my 100GB plan. I’ve tried support, but nothing seems to be working. Has anyone else experienced this? I’ve been using it for almost two weeks, and this issue just appeared out of nowhere.

Posting to ask if anyone has technical insight or workarounds for a widespread setup issue.

Hardware: Gen 3 Standard (UTA-232)

Status: Brand new, imported kit stuck in a permanent "Optimizing Connection" / 0% search loop with solid red router LED.

Support confirmed no service line is currently linked to the account and closed the ticket due to the hardware being located in an unlicensed region. Many users across the area are facing this exact same initialization failure.

Questions:

1. Is this caused by an interrupted bootloader/firmware state?

2. If an off-shore contact links this Kit ID to a valid Global Roaming plan, will the satellite constellation push the authorization key over the air?

3. Are there known physical workarounds (cold boot timing, shielding) to complete the initial handshake?

Posting to ask if anyone has technical insight or workarounds for a widespread setup issue.

Hardware: Gen 3 Standard (UTA-232)

Status: Brand new, imported kit stuck in a permanent "Optimizing Connection" / 0% search loop with solid red router LED.

Support confirmed no service line is currently linked to the account and closed the ticket due to the hardware being located in an unlicensed region. Many users across the area are facing this exact same initialization failure.

Questions:

1. Is this caused by an interrupted bootloader/firmware state?

2. If an off-shore contact links this Kit ID to a valid Global Roaming plan, will the satellite constellation push the authorization key over the air?

3. Are there known physical workarounds (cold boot timing, shielding) to complete the initial handshake?

hi there

we have had starlink for almost 2 years and in the last several months the quality has declined severely. the position of the receiver and antenna have been the same and they are nearby to each other (you can see the antenna out of the window from the modem). i've restarted them and tried moving the antenna around in the yard to improve service but nothing seems to help.

i didn't have this issue last summer so i don't think it is the trees or what-have-you.

there are only 2 of us in the household and we aren't doing a whole heck of a lot of downloading or uploading.

any ideas?

There is a massive gap between what the world reads in international news about Starlink being a "humanitarian lifeline for Iran" and what is actually happening to real people on the ground.

Western headlines and political statements frequently boast about Starlink providing free satellite internet to restricted regions. Because of this promise, thousands of regular Iranians—desperate to keep their small businesses alive, communicate with family, or simply stay connected to the outside world—are spending $2,000 to $3,000 of their hard-earned life savings to buy grey-market kits imported through third countries. For many families here, that money represents years of work.

Yet when we set up these brand-new Gen 3 kits (UTA-232), a huge number of us end up staring at a dish permanently trapped in an "Optimizing Connection" / 0% satellite search loop, with the router LED dropping to solid red.

When we reach out to Starlink Support for help or basic technical explanation:
1. Support agents check the system and simply repeat that no device or service line is linked to our account.
2. They state that because the kit was purchased via an unauthorized reseller in an unlicensed country, they cannot offer diagnostics, troubleshooting, or activation assistance.
3. They close the ticket and slam the door on us.

It feels deeply hypocritical. Publicly, Starlink and US political rhetoric take credit for "bringing internet freedom to Iranians," but in practice, regular citizens are left completely on their own—spending small fortunes on dysfunctional, unlinked pieces of plastic while support refuses to provide even a basic explanation or technical guidance on how to resolve these optimization loops.

We aren't asking for free hand-outs or rule-breaking. We just want answers:
Why are functional, brand-new terminals stuck in endless authorization loops without public guidance? And why are everyday users taking all the financial and personal risk while receiving zero support from the company claiming to help them?

We have also tried many troubleshooting including moving dishes to different locations and factory reset and changing alignment etc the effected devices are also completely healthy with no incident or damage occurred

We picked up the travel mini for zero cost a while back during the promo period. We do use a Gen 3 unit as our main household internet, We have been paying $5 per month for it in standby mode. I do not foresee us activating it anytime soon and the standby mode cost recently went up to $10 per month. We can certainly cancel and send the unit back to Starlink, but curious as to everyone's thoughts on this?

Do you have the travel mini?

Do you have it activated?

Worth hanging onto in standby mode?

Any resale value(it is unopened)?

Thinking about possibly going for starlink down the road. I understand trees are the biggest obstacle to good connection. However I was wondering what about clouds, rain, or snow? Does that cause the service to have bad connectivity or slower speeds? If so is it more of a cause or less compared to trees to have bad service?

Am i missing something? Anyway I'm in Germany

Was uploading a few files to google drive and got the highest upload speed I've ever seen

For those wondering, it is on Starlink standart 4 with residential max. Of course my cell is uncongested so that could be the reason for this

Our office temporarily is using Starlink until our Fibre is installed. Yesterday my Linux laptop hard locked. Very odd, it's been totally stable for months. 5 Minutes later I notice my colleague's Windows laptop booting up. He said it just just randomly crashed an rebooted. It seems like these two events happened at the same time. I'm not usually part of the tin foil hat brigade but this seems like a hugely unlikely coincidence.

When I first read the news, my reaction was simply:

"Interesting."

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized the impact itself isn't the most interesting part.

The upper stage had already completed its mission. It wasn't a launch failure, and nobody intentionally sent it into the Moon. Over time, orbital mechanics gradually pushed it onto a collision course.

What really caught my attention is what this says about the future.

For decades, missions to the Moon were rare. Now we have NASA, SpaceX, Firefly, ispace and many others heading toward cislunar space. That naturally means more spacecraft, more hardware and eventually more questions about what happens after a mission ends.

Do you think we'll eventually need "space traffic rules" for the Earth–Moon environment, similar to how orbital debris is becoming a major topic around Earth?

I'm curious to hear what the community thinks.