Starlink is now offering its Standard Kit for free to consumers in select areas

telcodad

Starlink has announced that it will drop the fee for its “Standard Kit” to customers in select parts of the world who agree to a 12-month service commitment:

Starlink pitches free equipment to subs who make a one-year commitment
Starlink is trying to pump subscriber gains by offering its Standard Kit for free to consumers in select areas who agree to a one-year service commitment. But the satellite operator is not dropping its silly one-time, $100 ‘demand surcharge.’
By Jeff Baumgartner, Senior Editor, Light Reading - May 1, 2025
https://www.lightreading.com/satellite/starlink-pitches-free-equipment-to-subs-who-make-a-one-year-commitment

Guy54435

telcodad My son just hooked this up to our house, it has only been 8hrs but so far so good. A lot of back ups and downloads going on so I cant get a great speedtest at the moment, but what I did see was around 100 Mbps down and 30 Mbps up Better than what I had by a longshot, We shall see how it does in the snow and cold of Wisconsin.

Guy54435

Had a moment to check how fast downloads are, I heard speeds from Apple downloads are fast so I downloaded an old OS and here is the result of the download, It was a wireless download about 20 feet from the Starlink router through 2 walls and a staircase. I have some Ethernet cables ordered so I can hardwire as I dislike wireless connections.

Guy54435

Pretty consistent speeds so far from Starlink.

edited: I forgot to say this was a wired download.

urbanriot

telcodad customers in select parts of the world

Does anyone know where these “select parts of the world” are? I ask because I punched in a few regions that I’ve been to which would benefit from Starlink and I received a standard price quote.

Guy54435

urbanriot The regions, areas are changing over time, wherever there is low saturation of users is where they seem to be offering the no cost agree to a year deal offer. That is just from what I have observed nothing official.

urbanriot

Guy54435 a couple of the places I tried definitely have low saturation and the accessibility of Starlink is new to the area.

ThirdShifter

Land based ISPs will be obsolete.

MacLeech

ThirdShifter Land based ISPs will be obsolete.

Never. The ground stations still need to connect to the internet.

urbanriot

ThirdShifter Land based ISPs will be obsolete.

Maybe in third world countries but most certainly not in first world countries or countries with high population density that have rolled out fiber. There are people in areas of China who have 10 Gbps.

HarryH3

ThirdShifter Nope. There are already urban areas where Starlink is oversold, so you can’t even sign up if you live there. Radio has limited channels and bandwidth. Once they’re 100% utilized in a given area, there is no more capacity. Fiber has incredible capacity, as long as you live in an area where it is available. I have 500 Mbps down (but I typically get 900+) and 500 Mbps up, on my providers lowest tier of fiber, for $59/mo. No BS fees or taxes or other nonsense tacked onto the bill. Their other tiers are 1Gbps for $69, 2 Gbps for $89, 5 Gbps for $99 and 8 Gbps for $119.

Starlink is awesome if you have no other choice. 5G internet is faster and cheaper, if you live in an area where it’s available, but you’re still too far away from fiber. However, fiber blows both out of the water on speed and price.

InternetJeff

ThirdShifter Land based ISPs will be obsolete.

I’m just going to say LOL and let myself out.

Heat84

InternetJeff I’m just going to say LOL and let myself out.

ThirdShifter Land based ISPs will be obsolete.

Hasn’t Starlink-like technology been available for 15 or 20 years, but big telco didn’t wanna use it because it’s less profitable for them than land based ISP’s? Is that why people in here are 😂 at the idea of land based ISP’s being obsolete?

MacLeech

Heat84 Residential satellite internet has been available for 20-30 years but it was GEO sat which are 23,000 mile high orbits, so latency was high and bandwidth was limited.

Starlink’s residential phased array ground dishes made LEO sat at 300 miles orbits possible. Much less latency and more bandwidth.

Guy54435

Yes, and on some Speedtests I am able to achieve 15ms latency on others it is a little higher but always lower than 25ms my speeds so far are generally between 200 and 500 Mbps down with the occasional sub 100 Mbps in primetime usage, upload speeds are 25-45 Mbps up most of the time also. And for something you can basically just go sit it in the yard pointing North-North west and have fast internet is amazing considering The local phone company wanted over $60 for 1.5 Mbps DSL the last time I checked. My $30 a month Visible unlimited hotspot data on my phone worked okay for me but downloading things took forever. I recommend Starlink to anyone who is stuck in a an area with limited connection as I am. Also we are on The Residential Light plan.

Here is a little on that.
(Only available in select areas)

Starlink “Residential Lite” service is a more affordable service plan for personal or household-use at a fixed, land-based location in select areas. Each month, users will have an unlimited amount of deprioritized data (compared to Residential service during peak hours). This means speeds may be slower for Residential Lite service relative to Residential service when our network has the most users online.

With the Starlink “Residential Lite” Service Plan:

There are no data caps and no speed caps
Typical download speeds should range from 80 - 200 Mbps (as compared to 135 - 305+ Mbps for the Residential service plan)
Typical upload speeds should range from 15 - 35 Mbps
You may upgrade to “Residential” service at any time

Eligible areas with “Residential Lite”:

In some countries, Residential Lite is available in select areas, as shown below. Areas with only Residential service are shown in light blue. Areas with both Residential and Residential Lite service are shown in white. Where Residential Lite is unavailable, customers can use Residential service.

Residential Lite service plan maps

https://starlink.com/residential

Heat84

MacLeech

It wasn’t actually 23,000 miles was it?

MacLeech

Heat84 It wasn’t actually 23,000 miles was it?

Yes, that is the approximate height of a geostationary orbit. More specifically the latest Hughesnet Jupiter 3 satellite averages around 22,240 miles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jupiter_3

That makes the round trip distance at least double that. That is why old satellite internet often had ping times around 600ms and download speeds of 100mbps or less

Guy54435

Guy54435 It is a few days shy of a month since we got Starlink, Revisiting to report on snow and cold with the Starlink terminal. My terminal is in the shadow of the house and it probably only gets 15 minutes of sunlight on it a day. I recommend that if your terminal is in shadow as mine is and live in an area that gets cold, stays cold and you get winter precipitation regularly you should set your heating element on PREHEAT all of the time. Auto should be fine if you occasionally get cold and precipitation and or your terminal is in direct sunlight. Off would be for summertime use only or if you lived in a warm climate with no chance of freezing.
Note: I call it a terminal, it is an inanimate object ,so I wont call it the silly name others do. And yes I used to be fun at parties.

Guy54435

Guy54435 After a middle of the night unscheduled reboot, The average power used for the heating cycle has now risen to higher wattage levels and is able to keep any build-up off of the terminal. I think it somehow glitched between automatic and preheat and the automatic part was more so in control? But as stated things are working better than before and it is in fact able to keep it clean of ice and snow so far since that reboot. If things change I will report back, so far we are very happy with Starlink.

Justin48

Guy54435 After the update, what wattage are you seeing while it’s heating? Mine normally runs in the low 30s without heat and upper 70s to around 80 with heat. If I remember to turn on preheat it usually keeps ahead of the snow/freezing rain but struggles once temps are below 20°F if the precip is heavy. Thankfully these conditions are fairly rare in my neck of the woods.