Starlink Internet connection now takes more than a month on top of $1,000 fee in congested areas

[Redaktion]

The SpaceX constellation of Internet satellites is seemingly not enough to accommodate all willing subscribers in certain areas of the US. Future Starlink customers are now in for a long wait to deliver their kit, on top of an already outrageous 'connection' fee.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Starlink-Internet-connection-now-takes-more-than-a-month-on-top-of-1-000-fee-in-congested-areas.1064838.0.html

[Dan Ridenhour]

I've been a Starlink subscriber for a couple years now, still love the service and it's my primary internet.  I also maintain tmobile cellular internet as a backup since I work remotely.   But over the past year ive watched the service slowly degrade.  When I got everything setup I would routinely get 120mbps down, 15-20mbps upstream and 30ms pings.  within a couple months my pings dropped to 15-20ms.  Internet life was good.

But as they got more subscribers their systems have become more and more saturated.  My downstream speeds never get above 80mbps anymore and are often in the 30s.  Upstream got down to 10mbps and pings vary more widely in the 20-40ms ping range but now for the first time I get intermittent connection drops or 200ms+ packets if I monitor the connection. 

Today for example I'm getting 47mbps down and 35mbps up...  the upstream speeds have been climbing while the downstream doesn't.  which feels like they are finally adding capacity but its still not enough to keep up with demand for downstream.

I miss the days when every update gave me a faster lower latency connection because musk gamed on starlink and was always having them optimize the connection.  They can't do that anymore, too busy trying to keep up with demand.

Demand is a good thing... for starlink, spacex and mars missions.  but the service is hurting.

By contrast my 'backup' tmobile internet is giving me 400mbps down and 20mbps up with comparable pings...  but what always made starlink better was very stable and consistent low latency connections while tmobile would have random periods of 300-500ms pings for a second here and there.   SpaceX seems to be moving in that direction,  they need to address it.