This week, Starlink sent an email to its customers warning them that if they use more than 1 TB in a month, their internet access may be throttled.Starlink’s “Fair Use” and “Specifications” documents have been updated to reflect the changes, which include measures to reduce congestion during peak times and slower average speeds.
Standard residential users will receive 1 TB of “Priority Access” as part of their $110 monthly fee for use between the hours of 7 a.m. and 11 p.m., when the new policies go into effect in December.The cap will not be applied to any data used outside of those hours.Subscribers who use more than 1 TB will be moved to “Basic Access,” which is unlimited but may be significantly slower than Priority Access in a congestion situation.
After reaching the limit, users can choose to continue paying for Priority Access at a rate of $250 per TB or $0.25 per GB.Yes, according to a Reddit user on the Starlink subreddit, purchasing two Starlink subscriptions will save you $140 in comparison to purchasing two TB of data with one subscription.
According to Starlink, approximately 10% of its customers use more than 1 TB each month, and the company sent them an email informing them of the change.By waiting until after 11 p.m. to begin downloading the next game or OS update, some of them will be able to circumvent the limit.However, despite having already paid the $599 upfront fee for the necessary hardware, some customers are, to a certain extent, outraged that Starlink is altering its offerings.
Additionally, Starlink altered the anticipated speeds of its regular service without informing its customers, with the following caveat:The company’s customer support team claims that no one will notice a sudden drop in speed; rather, the new speeds reflect the average speeds it anticipates achieving as its user base grows.Despite Starlink’s claims, current customers claim that they have been experiencing significantly slower speeds for months.
Priority Access has reduced the expected speed for regular users in most of the world from 50-200 Mbps down to 20-100 Mbps.Speeds for RV, Basic Access, and Best Effort are expected to range from 5 to 50 Mbps.For static locations, businesses can purchase faster speeds and up to 5 TB of monthly Priority Access, while for ocean-based or on the move businesses can purchase up to 3 TB.
SpaceX’s decision to introduce data caps to Starlink now comes across as odd, given that the service already suffered a reputational blow last month when Elon Musk stated that the company did not want to continue paying for the use of the service by the Ukrainian military before eventually backtracking.According to CNN, SpaceX is still in talks with the Pentagon to pay for 1,300 terminals that were used on the front lines while they were offline last week.
