Starlink beta pricing revealed as SpaceX sends invite emails
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
If this price ($99 for unlimited data, 50 Mbps minimum) went live after beta, then it would wipe out everyone else in the Satellite internet space, and only really be competing with 5G cellular in certain circumstances.
I suspect we'll see more price discrimination, they have a really competitive product, but also one that is incredibly expensive to develop: So they'll need to recoup their capital investment ($1m-$250K per Starlink satellite, 1400+ total satellites). There may be a $99 plan forever, but the details could change (e.g. Data caps? Different speeds? Etc).
The email itself explains why it is the price it is (unreliable/beta testing). Until there's more direct competition at these speeds/coverage, I'd be extremely surprised if they didn't leverage their market position to the maximum. Keep in mind that Western markets are where they'll make back most of their investment, even if poor nations benefit.
Starlink should beat e.g. HughesNet, even with the same bandwidth and data budget, because the satellites are in low-earth orbit.
I essentially said this destroys HughesNet Gen5, and then went on to explain why its dominant market position could result in higher prices, and you felt that needed a reply saying that Starlink is superior to HughesNet? Huh?
Ensure the power is disconnected before accessing, moving or installing the Starlink (aka“Dishy McFlatface”)
https://www.docdroid.net/Wc9unhw/ridgeline-mount-guide-pdf#p...
- Tripod (you get it by default)
- Volcano $24 https://www.docdroid.net/YObvsZP/volcano-mount-guide-pdf
- Ridgeline $99 https://www.docdroid.net/Wc9unhw/ridgeline-mount-guide-pdf
Worth if when no DSL, Fibre or 4G options are available?
Worth even if other options are available because latency/price?
Coming from a country with a lower purchasing power in dollars, 100$ would make this not an option even for many even if no other options are available. Still, if the same connection was shared between 4 homes it would be a great improvement.
In rural areas, your only option is often cellular (3G/4G) "hotspots" and the monthly cost will be outrageous unless you can convince everyone in your house to stay off of Netflix, etc.
If you're in a rural area and you want Internet access for streaming video or your kids who are in school or just don't want to have to deal with or worry about data caps (with outrageous overage fees!), this is quite likely your best ption.
The $100 monthly cost isn't unreasonable. You're going to be paying probably $60-70 for spotty cellular service with a data cap and/or throttling anyways, so might as well pay the little bit extra and not have to worry about it.
The one-time $500 setup/equipment fee will be harder to justify. I expect Starlink will offer an option to spread that out over a year or two which would make it much easier for some households.
That said, only techies seem to bother with that even though it's generally worth it for the power efficiency alone, let alone the equipment rental costs
A high end DVR may cost close to 1000$ and a 20$/month equipment fee will barely break even over the life of the device...
If you have no other option, this is a very good price. In a lot of places with options, this is still a good price.
Performance is more than just a set of numbers, so we shall see how well it works. If it's good, I think it will cause a revolution in American broadband.
Having a service like this would allow me to truly expand where I could have a weekend house, to the point where the money saved on the house could pay for a decade or more of this service, with plenty left over.
It will be interesting to see if any existing providers feel the need to lower their prices in response to Starlink becoming more widely available. That's how competition is supposed to work, right?
I’m on some hotspot plans that are no longer available that have no caps, but I’m pretty lucky with the speeds I get. For me it’ll depend on what speeds Starlink gets in my area, and I might keep one hotspot anyways as it’s handy to have.
Given the apparent high initial cost, this does not look like a viable option to replace my current service. I think cost would need to get down to 75 ish a month and maybe 200 startup.
Does anyone know how this has help up in bad weather (rain? snow?)
A simple factor of 10 increase in both price and speed is not impressive. I'm gonna say I'm not overwhelmingly convinced until Starlink delivers more for less.
To the people who are the target market - these things are of little consequence.
Hmm, are you sure you're actually on LTE? That sounds more like HSDPA numbers.
Just did a speed test on an iPhone 11 with Vodafone Ireland's not-very-inspiring LTE, in an urban area. Latency: 21ms, 147/19mbit. This costs 20 euro with a cap, mind you. Capless LTE is also available, but on a generally somewhat worse network.