Using Starlink with Peplink

Hi Steve,

Would you have any updates to these recommendations when using the Bypass function with the RV/Roam systems? As the SL router is altogether Physically bypassed, is there suggested changes to protocol?

Also, an anecdotal question- Having recently commissioned a RV high performance with a BR1Pro 5G I experience anticipated performance in stock setup through SL router but, when bypassed the speed drops to a crawl (and there is a warning of “Poor Cable Connection”). If the router is reverted to factory settings, performance increases 10-fold.

Is this an isolated case, or a known phenomenon?

Best regards,
Brian

The 192.168.100.0 networking range is the Starlink router uses to communicate between itself and the Peplink. 192.168.100.1 is the IP address of the Starlink router itself and is how the app you have on your phone communicates with it.

By setting a management address of 192.168.100.100 on the Peplink, that allows the Peplink to route the traffic from the Starlink app on your phone so you can manage it.

Sounds like you might have other configuration or network issues. The health checks and management setting is something I’ve used on hundreds of setups without issues.

That seems like you might have some sort of issue with the dish, or an obstruction. Looks like you’re getting an interruption every minute. Really the only way to get 100% reliable connectivity if you can’t fix that part is to have both your Starlink and cellular connections at priority 1 so they are both being used at the same time.

That way the cellular connection will cover the outages from Starlink, but you’ll have slightly better results with the lower latency Starlink connection when it’s up.

The downside is that it will use a lot of bandwidth on your cellular plan which might run you up against an overall cap of some sorts.

I think I cover some of the bypass bits in the article. In general, there’s not much you have to do other than add a management address.

If you’re seeing poor cable connection, you likely actually have a bad cable connection, or something funky with the WAN port on the router. I’ve seen this a few times, once with one of my Starlink setups, and it actually turned out to be a bad ethernet cable/ethernet adapter on the Starlink side.

There are performance challenges with older Peplink products that cut performance down much lower when cabled versus when using WiFi as WAN, but the BR1 Pro 5G is not one of them. This sounds like some other sort of issue.

The issue was an incompatibility between the Starlink and the Peplink transit Ethernet chipsets. I installed a dummy switch between the two (Peplink recommendation) and that solved it.

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Ah! You must have one of the hardware platforms that I noted in my article that points to this forum post: Peplink | Pepwave - Forum

The super-old ethernet chipsets they were using caused issues that couldn’t be resolved without a switch in between. Not the best solution, but Peplink isn’t a huge vendor that Starlink really cares about, so getting them to change something was not going to happen. It also appeared to affect a number of other products out there using similar or identical ethernet chipsets.

Steve, appreciate the article… read it the first time when it came out, and again today… since I have my Max Transit Duo Pro configured and running with multiple cellular, and the refurb Gen3 SL is inbound. So the obvious question: any updates/changes/advice for the Gen3 SL?

I’m on Residential to start, but will switch to RV after tested and running. And setup fusion (finally). And 12VDC power.

Any thoughts, relative to your article given the Gen3 ?
Thanks, David.

Hi David,
I’ve not found anything so far that would require a different setup or configuration with Peplink and the gen3 dish. Everything in the article seems to still apply. Of course, if you want to use things underway, the High Performance dish still continues to be the best choice, but the residential/RV dishes work as well as long as you don’t go too fast.

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I also have questions about the Standard Gen3 set up for use with my Peplink MAX BR1 Mini.
The new Standard dish has ethernet ports. Does that eliminate the need for an Adapter for use with the Peplink router? If so, is the Starlink cable, router and power supply still required? Does the non-actuated dish still require power?

I now realize that it is the router, not the dish, that has ethernet ports. Does that mean the router must be retained for ethernet connection to Peplink?

If you are going to use the gen3 without an aftermarket power supply or other kit, you’ll need to retain the Starlink router and connect it either via Ethernet or WiFi as WAN. If you don’t want the WiFi network to be broadcast from the Starlink router, and want your Peplink to do that instead (which is the usual choice), you can put the Starlink router in bypass mode which I believe I cover in the article that is connected to this forum post.