Starlink has dropped plans to charge data overage fees for standard residential users who exceed 1TB of monthly usage. In this way, a new horizon opens up to have this satellite Internet and eliminates one of the restrictions that placed it below as an alternative to fiber.
Elon Musk's company thus manages to establish itself again as a real alternative to fiber, getting rid of this limitation (still subject to a fair use policy) and having other advantages such as the portability of the satellite Internet system.
Unlimited data returns to Starlink
In December of last year SpaceX ended Starlink's unlimited data policy. So, he said residential customers would get 1TB of "priority access data" every month. After using that amount of data, customers could continue to access the Internet at slower speeds. After this, heavy users had to pay $0.25 per GB to return to full service speed.
Starlink has now changed its terms and simply states that its residential tier “includes unlimited standard data”, while 1TB, 2TB or 6TB priority access data is reserved for the enterprise tier. Of course, the Fair Use Policy still pays attention to a warning for intensive users with their intensive use policies:
“Starlink seeks to distribute standard data among our users in a fair and equitable manner. If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as temporarily reducing a customer's speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion on the Services. Bandwidth-intensive applications, such as video streaming, gaming, or downloading large files, are more likely to be affected by such actions. Standard service plan customers with high bandwidth needs should consider upgrading to a priority service plan”.
An alternative to fiber optics
This high-speed broadband Internet via satellite is an ideal alternative to fiber for remote and rural locations around the world. Of course, better in places where it is not available, because it still has somewhat high costs in comparison.
Starlink is available from $75 per month with a one-time initial payment of $489 for the necessary equipment. Official average speeds are 130 Mbps, ranging from 50 – 200 Mbps depending on your location.
SpaceX launched as many as 495 Starlink satellites into orbit in the first quarter of this year alone, and several of them were next-generation V2 satellites that offer a significant speed and coverage advantage.
Starlink is a constellation of thousands of satellites that orbit the planet much closer to Earth, about 550 km, and cover the entire world. Since the Starlink satellites are in low orbit, the latency is considerably lower—around 25 ms, compared to an average of greater than 600 ms.
