Updated March 9, 2023
Portability: Starlink now offers "Portability", which allows the Starlink account to maintain its service address, while being able to connect anywhere within the continent which the account resides. In turn, this means you can provide Celona network coverage just about anywhere you can obtain clear sky view within Starlink supported region.
Ethernet adapter: Starlink now allows for the purchase of an ethernet adapter, which connects into the base station. Now you can connect your Celona Edge and Starlink to the same ethernet access switch without any need for a WAN over WiFi bridge.
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Starlink utilizes earth spanning low orbit satellites to provide lower latency communications compared to what has been possible so far with traditional satellite-based wide area networking (WAN). As Starlink increases the number of its satellites in orbit, the capacity and coverage will continue to increase.
On the ground, Celona can utilize Starlink as its WAN / internet backhaul in temporary work sites, rural areas and many other locations that do not have strong internet connectivity today.
Same internet backhaul would offer reliable connectivity between our on-premises Celona Access Points and Celona Edge infrastructure - and the cloud-hosted Celona Orchestrator operations console along with the private spectrum coordination / access services (such as SAS for the CBRS spectrum in the US).
At our interoperability site, we set up a Celona network with Starlink as the internet backhaul based on this topology:
The following is the process we used to connect Celona through Starlink.
Out-of-the-box Starlink setup
Note: This step only needs to be done for initial setup. Afterwards, the only configuration step on power-up that might be necessary would be to change your location details in your Starlink in case you change locations.
Unboxing Starlink and starting up
At a location with full sky view, unbox all Starlink components, connect data cables between the base station and dish, connect the power cord to the base station and plug into your AC power source.
Connect to the Starlink Wi-Fi
We used an Apple iPhone 12 Pro to connect to the STARLINK Wi-Fi. No password is needed.
Name your Starlink Wi-Fi network and create the Wi-Fi password
On the iPhone 12 Pro, as soon as you connect to the STARLINK Wi-Fi, a browser window will pop up. Name your Starlink Wi-Fi network, which would be the new SSID replacing the initial STARLINK identifier.
Create a password for your new Wi-Fi network.
Note: if you Cancel, you will be disconnected from the STARLINK Wi-Fi network.
Join your newly named Starlink Wi-Fi network
After creating your new Wi-Fi SSID, connect with your new password. Your Starlink is now ready to accept local Wi-Fi connections from your devices.
Verify Starlink internet connectivity
Next, let's make sure that you have internet connectivity via Starlink. This time, let's connect a laptop via Wi-Fi to Starlink and confirm.
Connect the Gateway and Celona to a common Ethernet network
Disconnect the laptop from the LAN ethernet interface of the R500. Connect the LAN Ethernet interface of the R500, the LAN port of the Celona Access Point, and the Celona Edge to an Ethernet switch.
Note: An extra Ethernet switch won't be required if you use a WAN router such as Cradlepoint with more than one LAN Ethernet interface. For instance, the Cradlepoint E3000 Enterprise Router.
Verify Celona network connectivity to the cloud
Login to your Celona Orchestrator account and refresh the Edge Clusters page until the Celona Edge status is shown as Up. Then refresh the Access Points page until the corresponding Celona Access Point status is shown as Up.
Onboard a client device to the Celona network
In our lab, we used a physical SIM in an Apple iPhone 12 Pro device to connect to the Celona network. A performance test with the nPerf application showed 116Mbps download throughput with 4Mbps upload.
To see the Celona network in action on a Startlink WAN backhaul, feel free to request a custom demo here.