Starlink

[NoTrespassing]

Email received yesterday evening;


Due to excessive levels of inflation, the price of the Starlink kit is increasing from $499 to $549 for deposit holders, and $599 for all new orders, effective today. In addition, the Starlink monthly service price will increase from $99 to $110 .

The sole purpose of these adjustments is to keep pace with rising inflation. As Starlink expands service in your area, you will be emailed when your Starlink is ready and you will have 7 days to finalize your order. You can cancel your deposit for a full refund at any time in your account page .

Since launching our public beta service in October 2020, the Starlink team has tripled the number of satellites in orbit, quadrupled the number of ground stations and made continuous improvements to our network. Going forward, users can expect Starlink to maintain its cadence of continuous network improvements as well as new feature additions.

Thank you for being a Starlink customer and your continued support!

The Starlink Team

 

[dmccarty]

We had been using UbiFi for a couple of years and it was $90 a month, if I remember right, then they upped the price to $120 a month and the service would not work. THAT was a price increase. But we would have paid it to have the service. They did cancel our service without playing games that other companies play. Thankfully, we were able to get on Verizon for much less money due to a new data plan and our current plan. However, Verizon is unlimited until one hits 150GB which we would hit from time to time. Verizon, at least at our tower, has been very problematic for the last month or two even though we are about a mile from the tower. Friends of ours are having the same issues and go to the same tower so we know it is not our hardware.

For decent Internet, Starlink is really all we have at he moment and nothing is really on the horizon.

Later,
Dan

 

[Gale Hawkins]

I would hate to the price of Starlink today if had not been a DoD project and thankfully the proof of concept was successful. When Starship rolls out I think they can launch like 250 at a time so that may help manage inflation costs.

 

[mrmikey]

..... increasing from $499 to $549 for deposit holders

Although I've got no horse in this race, this rubs me the wrong way. I thought the purpose of a deposit was to hold the price and hold delivery when it becomes available. I would imagine they wouldn't refund a portion of the deposit if the price dropped.
When things started going bad when covid started, contractors did a similar thing. 'Oops, materials went up, you owe us another $50K on a $200K house that you put a deposit on last year". Not gonna pay, oooh well, contract cancelled. Again, if prices went down, I'm sure they'd pass savings on to their customers.......not...Mike

 

[dmccarty]

I would hate to the price of Starlink today if had not been a DoD project and thankfully the proof of concept was successful. When Starship rolls out I think they can launch like 250 at a time so that may help manage inflation costs.

Starlink has some DOD contracts, has gotten some subsidies for providing rural Internet access, and has at least one contract with NASA but I have never read the Starlink was a DOD project.

Starship will launch up to 400 satellites compared to the Falcon which puts up 60 of the older satellite version. Falcon is launching 50ish of the new generation Starlink satellites but I have not heard how many of those can be launched by Starship. Even if it is a bit less than 400, the danged thing will be launching hundreds of satellites at a time.

I have seen Apollo/Saturn and Space Shuttle launches. I was on the way to work when Challenger was launched and I was watching it climb higher when "something" happened. I knew what I saw was not right, and when I got to work, we started looking for a TV to turn on to get the news.

Starship is larger than the Saturn rocket that was part of the Apollo missions. The Apollo launch I saw was when I was in the middle of Florida, but even at that distance, the Saturn was HUGE. Can't imagine what a Starship launch will look like. Dang thing looks like a "spaceship" from a bad SciFi movie from the 1930's or 1950's. The Saturn looks better but it could not launch, slow down, hang in the sky, rotate 90 degrees, fall close to earth, rotate back 90 degrees, and then land.

Later,
Dan

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Starlink has some DOD contracts, has gotten some subsidies for providing rural Internet access, and has at least one contract with NASA but I have never read the Starlink was a DOD project.

Starship will launch up to 400 satellites compared to the Falcon which puts up 60 of the older satellite version. Falcon is launching 50ish of the new generation Starlink satellites but I have not heard how many of those can be launched by Starship. Even if it is a bit less than 400, the danged thing will be launching hundreds of satellites at a time.

I have seen Apollo/Saturn and Space Shuttle launches. I was on the way to work when Challenger was launched and I was watching it climb higher when "something" happened. I knew what I saw was not right, and when I got to work, we started looking for a TV to turn on to get the news.

Starship is larger than the Saturn rocket that was part of the Apollo missions. The Apollo launch I saw was when I was in the middle of Florida, but even at that distance, the Saturn was HUGE. Can't imagine what a Starship launch will look like. Dang thing looks like a "spaceship" from a bad SciFi movie from the 1930's or 1950's. The Saturn looks better but it could not launch, slow down, hang in the sky, rotate 90 degrees, fall close to earth, rotate back 90 degrees, and then land.

Later,
Dan

You may be correct on no DoD. That was a long time before the stress of a pandemic and war deaths.

 

[rekees4300]

Email received yesterday evening;


Due to excessive levels of inflation, the price of the Starlink kit is increasing from $499 to $549 for deposit holders, and $599 for all new orders, effective today. In addition, the Starlink monthly service price will increase from $99 to $110 .

The Starlink Team

Disappointing news. One would think their prices would decrease as their customer base increases.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Disappointing news. One would think their prices would decrease as their customer base increases.

It takes a lot of nickel to get to Mars.

 

[bdhsfz6]

Up until now, I've been happy with my Verizon 4G LTE home internet plan with it's 50 down & 8 up speeds. So far, my Starlink equipment has been running for two days and is only yielding 51 down & 10 up. I was thinking of returning it for the full 30 day refund they offered in their recent email and keeping the 4G LTE.

Today however, I noticed my 4G LTE speeds dropped to 8 down and 5 up. the speeds do vary but never this low and they have remained constant at this level for the last 24 hours. I checked my router statistics and I reached 150 GB of downloaded data yesterday for the month and I still have a week to go in the billing cycle. It appears Verizon is throttling their speeds. They claim unlimited data in their ads but make no mention of throttling.

Has anyone else with Verizon 4G LTE noticed this?

More importantly, has anyone with Starlink noticed any throttling?

 

[BigBlue1]

Disappointing news. One would think their prices would decrease as their customer base increases.

They are only at about 15% build-out of their overall infrastructure. Costs aren't likely to go down until that build completes. Costs of everything are going up, as we can all see around us, so all their hardware, labor and launch expenses are rising. As much as I don't like to see it, this price increase makes a lot of sense to me from their business perspective. This increase is also roughly the same as the current inflation rate. Surprise, printing money has consequences...

 

[ponytug]

Up until now, I've been happy with my Verizon 4G LTE home internet plan with it's 50 down & 8 up speeds. So far, my Starlink equipment has been running for two days and is only yielding 51 down & 10 up. I was thinking of returning it for the full 30 day refund they offered in their recent email and keeping the 4G LTE.

Today however, I noticed my 4G LTE speeds dropped to 8 down and 5 up. the speeds do vary but never this low and they have remained constant at this level for the last 24 hours. I checked my router statistics and I reached 150 GB of downloaded data yesterday for the month and I still have a week to go in the billing cycle. It appears Verizon is throttling their speeds. They claim unlimited data in their ads but make no mention of throttling.

Has anyone else with Verizon 4G LTE noticed this?

More importantly, has anyone with Starlink noticed any throttling?

No evidence so far.

 

[jk96]

My ethernet adapter I've ordered has been pushed back twice now and needed it to connect to my existing router so I can get rid of Viasat. Finally ordered a wireless to ethernet module so I can run the starlink into my existing router. Works great and not seeing any noticeable difference in speeds.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0118SPFCK?psc=1&smid=A2JTFL4V8HYESG&ref_=chk_typ_imgToDp

 

[Gale Hawkins]

Up until now, I've been happy with my Verizon 4G LTE home internet plan with it's 50 down & 8 up speeds. So far, my Starlink equipment has been running for two days and is only yielding 51 down & 10 up. I was thinking of returning it for the full 30 day refund they offered in their recent email and keeping the 4G LTE.

Today however, I noticed my 4G LTE speeds dropped to 8 down and 5 up. the speeds do vary but never this low and they have remained constant at this level for the last 24 hours. I checked my router statistics and I reached 150 GB of downloaded data yesterday for the month and I still have a week to go in the billing cycle. It appears Verizon is throttling their speeds. They claim unlimited data in their ads but make no mention of throttling.

Has anyone else with Verizon 4G LTE noticed this?

More importantly, has anyone with Starlink noticed any throttling?

You might want to like making a hard decision after the war is over. As you're reading today many many people are working to provide a denial of service to servers in Russia. Well this works both ways so right now conclusions on speed issues can be hard to figure out. Just one thought.

 

[MHarryE]

I've had Starlink for 13 months now. When I purchased, Starlink stated that it was selling below cost for beta testing and prices would be adjusted when they had more experience. The announcement for a price increase did not come as a surprise as inflation is a handy excuse. Starlink's seed money has been in part $9.2 billion to provide high speed Internet to rural areas. I had ViaSat prior to Starlink. My ViaSat bill was about $110 with fees and taxes so the new Starlink bill matches what I was paying - plus I do a lot of streaming which was not possible for me with ViaSat. I still think they are taking advantage of "inflation, I want part of that".

 

[JESSE1]

I still have my deposit with Starlink but if my T Mobil 5 G home internet keeps working well I'll get my deposit back. Starlink still shows mid '22 for my area so I've had time to test out T Mobil and so far it's working well with decent speeds from 175 early in the morning to 75 during busy times.

 

[bdhsfz6]

I still have my deposit with Starlink but if my T Mobil 5 G home internet keeps working well I'll get my deposit back. Starlink still shows mid '22 for my area so I've had time to test out T Mobil and so far it's working well with decent speeds from 175 early in the morning to 75 during busy times.

I'm curious if T-Mobile has a data limit before they throttle their speeds like Verizon does.
If not, for me anyway, they could be a more cost effective solution than Starlink.

 

[Gale Hawkins]

If one cannot find a less expensive option then starlink something is wrong. The intent was to provide services for people that could not get services at their location from other sources but just like Tesla cars starlink never was stated to provide the best price but it could provide the best service in some locations.

 

[bdhsfz6]

If one cannot find a less expensive option then starlink something is wrong. The intent was to provide services for people that could not get services at their location from other sources but just like Tesla cars starlink never was stated to provide the best price but it could provide the best service in some locations.

This is absolutely true.

As these less expensive options become available in more rural locations, the Starlink customer base is sure to shrink. The resulting price increases may ultimately make their internet service unaffordable for some.

At some point, a balance will be achieved but who knows what the prices will look like.

The same scenario is occurring with Iridium. They provide worldwide satellite based phone service but their marketshare is being erroded by the proliferation of cell towers into rural areas..

 

[plowhog]

Tmobile is supposed to take over a Sprint tower near me next July. *If* that happens, *if* it supplies me with 5G, I won't proceed with Starlink. Yep, two "ifs" together, aahhh.

For me, the issue is whether to invest $500+/- in a system that will continue to increase in monthly price over time. In other words, in the future, would I be happy with Starlink at $200, $250, or $300/mo?

If I install Starlink, I'll do so presuming the monthly fees, over time, will be far above what they currently are. I believe the recent price increase is only one of many to come.

Similar to Starlink, (rural subsidy from the govt), I once bought real property subsidized by a developer. HOA fees were $170/mo, presuming to go down once reaching full "build out" of the project. But after full build out, HOA fees increased to $395 per month. Removing the subsidy caused the price to more than double.

Ground based providers install a tower, some fiber, and wireless equipment. Once built out, on-going costs are fairly low. To contrast, Starlink's satellites degrade orbit, requiring recurring space launches just to keep the system functional. What is the cost of that?

I think everyone knows, or believes, Starlink is selling equipment and services below cost right now. So the question is: what will the price be once below-cost operation is abandoned, and the subsidies are gone, and the system is built out?

Starlink marketing and accounting folks know what numbers are needed to operate the system at a profit. But they're not talking. If I had to guess, I'd guess its probably double the monthly fees which are being billed today.

 

[WM75Guy]

I'm curious if T-Mobile has a data limit before they throttle their speeds like Verizon does.
If not, for me anyway, they could be a more cost effective solution than Starlink.

For Verizon to throttle you down depends on your connection type. I have the LTE Home Internet gateway and have never been throttled down. I consistently get 30-50 Mbps and I use a lot of data working from home on VPN. Same with my neighbor, who also works from home, and he does VPN and is on video conferencing all day.

Here is what the website shows.

They will throttle down a mobile hotspot.