Starry Internet will launch its first beta in the Greater Boston area in the summer of 2016. Not that this matters much at the outset, since Starry Internet will initially only be available in Boston sometime this summer, though additional cities are tentatively scheduled to come online before the end of the year.
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Now here is an idea – Starry Internet, the brainchild of Chet Kanojia, intends to take over every single aspect of your broadband service through the implementation of millimeter wave technology.
“The crux of the issue is there’s no competition”, said Kanojia, who formerly served as the CEO of Aereo, the ill-fated startup that, before a crippling Supreme Court decision in June 2014, allowed consumers to stream over-the-air television to their computer or mobile device using a broadband connection.
Starry has developed and is deploying the world’s first millimeter wave band active phased array technology for consumer internet communications, using that technology as a platform for rolling out a nationwide fixed wireless broadband network capable of delivering internet speeds of up to one gigabit, wirelessly to the home.
To connect to Starry Internet, users must place an antenna (called “Starry Point”) in a location where there’s clear access to the signal, such as a windowsill. The Station’s wireless radio plays nice with standard 802.11ac networks, but also packs support for future implementations of the 802.15 standard for Internet-of-Things devices. Starry Beam, the node, is then able to point the waves in different directions toward Starry Point, a small device connected to the user’s home, giving the user a connection. It’ll be required for Starry Internet service, but as a fancy router, it can be used with any Internet service.
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“It costs the cable guys around $2,500 per home to deal with the construction costs of laying down cable”, said Kanojia in an interview with TechCrunch. The underlying Internet service will be provided by other companies that can connect Starry’s transmitters to high-speed networks, Kanojia said. While the router is extra, it comes with a 3.6-inch touchscreen that runs Android, which includes software such as Internet Health Score to constantly monitor the connection and speed the user is getting. Yes, offering gigabit wireless at low prices with no caps does sound like wishful thinking. To do so, it’s focused on making the receivers very easy to set up and use, Kanojia said. “We can deliver faster broadband with no regulatory wait time and it will cost us only $25 per home”. “No, I don’t see any legal problem”.
