Nice that instead of completely cutting you off at the cap they put it in super slow 500 kbits. That is actually usable and used to be the fastest speed you could get at home.
I'd disagree that that is usable today. A few days ago I had some network trouble that restricted me to about 350kbps, although stable without much packet loss, and a lot of stuff just didn't practically work. At that speed, loading images and resources on webpages within timeout limits is hard. Many web apps don't work, or degrade enough that you wouldn't want to use them.
Also what do we actually use the web for? A lot of streaming video and audio that won't work. A lot of reading webpages with a lot of images and ads, that won't work. I'm sure that Wikipedia would load and work slowly, but that's not really representative of web usage today.
There's a separate argument about whether the web should be like that, but regardless of your thoughts on that, it is like that.
- News, phlogs, Wikipedia, translation services -> Gopher or Gemini, gopher://magical.fish and gemini://gemi.dev plus gopher://sdf.org and Bongusta Phlogs. It's magical.
- IRC or IRC+Bitlbee -> IM, Jabber, IRC, most protocols
- Email -> Mbsync+msmtp + mutt. Caching helps there
- Usenet -> Slrn+Slrnpull, it has tech groups, caching and there's a web news discuss group too
This is fine if you're the sort of person who knows about IRC, is satisfied with content on Gopher, etc.
But most people depend on contacting family and friends via WhatsApp/Messenger/etc, they depend on YouTube for entertainment and education, their TV is increasingly online, they read their newspaper on a website with images, etc.
It's a privilege, and a lifestyle choice, to be able to live on 2.7KBPS.
That's not bad for the cheap plan. Even the slow mode is fast enough for video conferencing and doing basic remote work. They still have a separate unlimited plan for anyone who needs more.
I’ve kept it on the backup service for 10 GB at $10 or whatever and it’s pretty cool. Used it off my balcony in SF when Google Fiber had a 1 hr outage, take it on road trips, and stuff like that. Totally worth it.
I'm actually a huge fan of "unlimited slow speeds" as a falloff, instead of a cliff.
Aside from the fact it allows you to work with Starlink to buy more fast speed, it also allows core stuff to continue to function (e.g. basic notifications, non-streaming web traffic, etc).
I do think it's vastly superior to preferential treatment for some traffic, which seems to be the most popular alternative. The one caveat is that ISPs need to be forced to be transparent about this. Often, with cell providers, it's "Unlimited 5G" advertised, with a tiny asterisk pointing to even tinier disclaimer text at the bottom explaining that they throttle your rates once you hit a (fairly low) cutoff. That type of misleading marketing undercuts the fairness of the offer.
Thing is, the heaviest users are often the ones with some malware on their machine using up 100% of the bandwidth. When you limit that to 512kbps, thats still 129 gigabytes a month, on top of the 100 gigabytes a month you let the user use at high speed. When a typical user might use just 10 gigabytes a month, it seems dumb to let one user use 23x what everyone else is paying for/using, especially when that user is most likely just malware infected and not even personally benefiting!
A better limit I think is to limit the user to 10 kbps over a rolling 24h window, 100 kbps over a rolling 1h window, 1Mbits over a rolling 1 minute window, and 10 Mbits over a 1 second window. That way they can quickly check an email or load a web page... But it quickly slows down if they try to (ab)use it for hours on end.
Starlink’s plans vary between markets, but in Australia they have a dirt cheap ($8 AUD per month or something) standby plan that gives you unlimited data capped at something like 500Kbps. If you’re going on a trip and need faster data, you can upgrade to a bigger plan for the rest of the billing month, charged on a pro rata basis, and then revert to the standby plan afterwards.
I used to use Inmarsat BGAN. BGAN would top out at around 250Kbps on a good day, and cost a few bucks per MB on a terminal that cost almost ten times as much as a Starlink Mini.
Mobile has been like this for me for like a decade or so. But in the before times it was just barbaric and ridiculous to either be cut off or absolutely ravaged by fees.
I leave my Starlink Mini in Standby Mode, which is $5/mo and is capped at 500KB/sec. I got the dish for free because I'm already a subscriber at home, so adding the $5/mo really isn't a big deal. It's perfect to go camping, because I might want to let my friends know that I had to move campsites, but I don't want to sit there and surf all day long and watch YouTube. Though 500KB/sec is more than enough to do all of that...
My internet providers (both home wifi and cellular) do this. The problem with unlimited slow speed is that it's too slow. I am sometimes unable to open the carrier's own app and pay for a recharge. Either the app just doesn't open or the transaction in the payments app fails.
I had a “hit” post on bsky [0] (90 likes, big numbers for me) asking whether people would want an unlimited mobile plan throttled at 256kbps for $2/month. Seems like yes?
There’s lots to say about how useable it is (I often get throttled when traveling and it’s really not that bad + it helps curb any desire to scroll videos!)
But mainly I want to ask - I looked into it for a minute and it seems like you couldn’t start an mvno because carriers wouldn’t let you cannibalize them?
You can get very cheap IoT plans but if you tried reselling IoT as esims for consumers, the carriers would kill it?
So yeah - Starlink to mobile is actually the only viable way that routes around this problem?
(((email in profile if you’re cuckoo enough like me and want to start a self service’d throttled mvno)))
There is something like this but twice the prive in Finland https://www.moi.fi/laitenetti . Can't make outgoing calls but there are pay as you internet call out services for that occaddional use case.
I want the old plan back. If we went over the 50Gb/month, there was the option of continuing on at $1/Gb, which is the same price per Gb as the base plan. IOW, they didn't punish you for going over. Now if we go over, it's either put up with slow speed data, or upgrade to unlimited.
Awesome news. When we started RV traveling we wanted to do the 50G plan whenever we were out of cell-range but it turned out to be such a convenient service that 50G didn't last us more than 3 days so we switched to unlimited and haven't regretted it. Absolutely worth it because even the residential dish works flawlessly while driving and the kids can game and stream all at the same time from the pickup.
You can also start on the 100G plan and when you run out of data switch to unlimited right from the app. That'll bring down the first-month bill a tad and give you a chance to gauge the "slow speed" option.
That’s great for me. I use it mainly for work (food trucks, not much data) but sometimes I’ll use it for personal stuff like weekend camping and hit the 50. Now I can just not worry about it ever.
Regardless of the price and the data, I'd never subscribe to this service due to the owner.
I'm looking forward for alternatives from a more neutral vendor
They have a monopoly on sat-only market, but that isn’t really big enough of a market to support their growth goals. They want to eat all wireless providers Internet as well.
This makes the $50/mo plan viable for wan failover. Still have the cgnat issue, but there's some documentation about requesting an ipv4 address from support. Has anyone succeeded with that?
20ms pings, and I'm on the original gen 1 dish from the beta days still. Can't really tell much difference from a land-based connection. The mini is even faster when it has an equivalent view of the sky.
I spend a lot of time out of reception and starlink has been fantastic. So much so that I leave it on anytime I'm driving where I have cellular reception because it's just consistently good. I get ~100Mbps whether it's a forest service road, ATV trail, or on the highway through curvy mountain passes.
I'm on the 50GB plan so doubling for free is very nice, but it looks like they yanked the ability to optionally purchase additional high speed data for $1/GB. Maybe it's still there?
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[ 2.7 ms ] story [ 70.1 ms ] threadAlso what do we actually use the web for? A lot of streaming video and audio that won't work. A lot of reading webpages with a lot of images and ads, that won't work. I'm sure that Wikipedia would load and work slowly, but that's not really representative of web usage today.
There's a separate argument about whether the web should be like that, but regardless of your thoughts on that, it is like that.
- News, phlogs, Wikipedia, translation services -> Gopher or Gemini, gopher://magical.fish and gemini://gemi.dev plus gopher://sdf.org and Bongusta Phlogs. It's magical.
- IRC or IRC+Bitlbee -> IM, Jabber, IRC, most protocols
- Email -> Mbsync+msmtp + mutt. Caching helps there
- Usenet -> Slrn+Slrnpull, it has tech groups, caching and there's a web news discuss group too
- SSH -> Mosh
But most people depend on contacting family and friends via WhatsApp/Messenger/etc, they depend on YouTube for entertainment and education, their TV is increasingly online, they read their newspaper on a website with images, etc.
It's a privilege, and a lifestyle choice, to be able to live on 2.7KBPS.
My 1200 baud from 1987 would beg to differ. Granted, that was for bulletin boards, not the WWW (which hadn't been invented yet).
Aside from the fact it allows you to work with Starlink to buy more fast speed, it also allows core stuff to continue to function (e.g. basic notifications, non-streaming web traffic, etc).
A better limit I think is to limit the user to 10 kbps over a rolling 24h window, 100 kbps over a rolling 1h window, 1Mbits over a rolling 1 minute window, and 10 Mbits over a 1 second window. That way they can quickly check an email or load a web page... But it quickly slows down if they try to (ab)use it for hours on end.
I used to use Inmarsat BGAN. BGAN would top out at around 250Kbps on a good day, and cost a few bucks per MB on a terminal that cost almost ten times as much as a Starlink Mini.
There’s lots to say about how useable it is (I often get throttled when traveling and it’s really not that bad + it helps curb any desire to scroll videos!)
But mainly I want to ask - I looked into it for a minute and it seems like you couldn’t start an mvno because carriers wouldn’t let you cannibalize them?
You can get very cheap IoT plans but if you tried reselling IoT as esims for consumers, the carriers would kill it?
So yeah - Starlink to mobile is actually the only viable way that routes around this problem?
(((email in profile if you’re cuckoo enough like me and want to start a self service’d throttled mvno)))
[0] https://bsky.app/profile/greg.technology/post/3mbmwsytnyc23
When I talked to them earlier this year they said there was potential to sell other data rates though nothing was as low as $2/month.
Unlimited 32kbps $1.60/mo (I guess this makes more sense for IoT?)
Unlimited 300kbps $4/mo
Unlimited 1.5Mbps $6/mo
https://mineo.jp/price/#mysoku
I put some more details on my blog if you're interested in power specs or DNS options on the router, etc. https://bitcreed.us/bitblog/starlink-on-the-road
You can also start on the 100G plan and when you run out of data switch to unlimited right from the app. That'll bring down the first-month bill a tad and give you a chance to gauge the "slow speed" option.
It's a completely different story in countries with crappy networks (looking at you Philippines), remote areas, or offshore.
[0]: https://x.com/elonmusk/status/2009171282030653877
I'm on the 50GB plan so doubling for free is very nice, but it looks like they yanked the ability to optionally purchase additional high speed data for $1/GB. Maybe it's still there?