There are still teething issues and service limitations for the service, however, including the Trade Me access problem.
This morning, Hauraki Adventures MD Dave Braddock alerted the Herald to a message thread on Trade Me's community message board, where a dozen angry and confused Starlink users were complaining they had been shut out of the auction site for just under a week.
And Coromandel Starlink user Simon Richie told the Herald he had also been having problems, but he put some of them down to the weather (a bugbear for Starlink, just as is for Sky TV occasionally).
"I've noticed some problems recently - URLs [website addresses] just not loading first time; I need to retry, when it's usually successful," the retired fibre optics engineer said.
"Today and yesterday have been particularly bad, but Starlink has been indicating outages which I assume has been rain fade associated with the unusually bad weather here."
A member of Trade Me's support team, "Hamish", replied that Starlink had made changes to its setup that made it appear as if customers located in New Zealand were trying to access it from overseas. To Trade Me's automated security systems, it looked like they were trying to mask their true location - and it blocked them for that (seemingly) suspicious activity.
"You may need to use a different internet service provider to use Trade Me if possible," Hamish told the group of blocked users.
One of the members of the chat posted a message she had received from Starlink, which seemed to get to the guts of the problem. Starlink had issued a new range of IP (internet protocol) addresses for its New Zealand users. It would take "several weeks" to complete the processes of websites and other content providers whitelisting the new addresses. In the meantime, they would inadvertently block Starlink customers.
The Starlink support message read, according to Trade Me user "Tracey": "We are in the process of moving customers to our next generation Starlink ground infrastructure. This move is to help improve your reliability and overall experience. During this move, various content / other providers will need to update their IP lists from Starlink. We have provided them with this list but it takes a few weeks for the IP addresses to update."
The Herald put Braddock's problem to Trade Me comms manager Millie Silvester, who replied:
"We're aware that some of our members who use Starlink are currently unable to access Trade Me.
"We have sophisticated systems in place to keep our site trusted and safe.
"Starlink's network acts very differently to most internet providers and we need to ensure that we can continue to protect our members, while allowing those who use Starlink to access Trade Me safely.
"We've been in touch with Starlink about this issue and are working on a solution. We're really sorry for the inconvenience."
Braddock contacted the Herald again this afternoon to say his Trade Me issue had been resolved.
What is Starlink?
• Subsidiary of the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX
• Building a network of satellites to offer broadband from above
• Some 1600 Starlink satellites launched by Space X so far; 42,000 planned
• Via local partner Vocus, has six ground stations dotted around NZ, which connect its satellites to the internet at large
• Requires a satellite dish, called "Dishy", which costs $799 plus $114 shipping
• Offers unlimited data (a first for the world of consumer-level satellite broadband) for $159 per month
• DIY install, with the help of a smartphone app for orientation of the satellite dish
• Comes with 30m of proprietary cable and a Wi-Fi router
• Promises speeds of up to 150Mbps (enough for Netflix etc) and latency (or lag) as low as 20ms to 40ms
• 30-day return option
• Currently in beta. Starlink has not said if its signature unlimited data will persist beyond this trial phase
