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Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

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Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#171

Post by grim_io »

scottyah wrote: post #168
grim_io wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are the satellites required at all? Telcos manage many multiples of Starlink's traffic just fine over terrestrial high-bandwidth optic fiber.

They really don't manage the traffic well over terrestrial lines for the globe, that's why starlink, iridium, viasat, even directv have all used satellites. Billions of taxpayer money and even more private funding have been devoted to bringing lines to rural areas and the area covered is still so small.

Areas where Starlink makes sense are usually the same areas where people experience economic troubles: rural areas.

Starlink has excellent military applications. The consumer business is a dishonest joke to fool investors.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#172

Post by bigbadfeline »

wat10000 wrote: post #156
BoorishBears wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not unless you had a potential $1500 fee top of mind before you moved... Wanna guess if Starlink is advertising how insane these fees have gotten?

Let me guess... if you put the address into their handy text box, they tell you exactly what the demand surcharge is going to be for that location? I tried it, and would you look at that, I was right. I guess if you buy an entire house without checking to see what it costs to get internet service at that location, then you might be in a tough spot. Hard to blame it on anyone else though.

> I guess if you buy an entire house without checking

We aren't talking about people buying hoses now, these fees weren't there before, so it becomes a typical bait and switch. "Congestion charge" means the starlink network lacks sufficient capacity to accommodate the areas that need it the most and where it was advertised the most.

https://tech.yahoo.com/transportation/articles/elon-musk-cha...

Jul 5, 2026The congestion charge was quietly added back in 2024, starting out as a one-time $100 fee, depending on location. By June 2025, that number grew to up to $1,000 in parts of the country, as PCMag reported at the time. As of last month, surcharges can hit $1,500.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#173

Post by croes »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #145
croes wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even if invented, what is the advantage of orbit data centers?

No planning restrictions. Throw up as many as you can afford to build and launch. No grid strain because they're self-powered. And they're likely out of national jurisdictions, so you can generate all the porn you want. Technologically? Maaaaaybe a slight ping time reduction in certain configurations compared to terrestrial fiber, because even with multiple hops lasers can still be faster than fiber. Super-expensive,…

> And they're likely out of national jurisdictions, so you can generate all the porn you want.

Means also no protection from foreign actors.

No national jurisdiction is a two-edged sword

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#174

Post by nelsonic »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #86
nelsonic wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Juice?” As in they have the best product by a wide margin and are charging a totally fair price for it that reflects demand. Nobody flying private cares about the price of Starlink. It’s worse if they are squeezing people in underserved rural areas… our monthly has gone down from €35 to €29 and still getting the same speed. The second SpaceX offers direct-to-cell in our area we will switch to their service as we’ve…

SpaceX has a monopoly on high speed satellite internet. They will extract as much as they can from customers with said monopoly until there is a competitor. Doesn't sound like we're talking past each other except perhaps you might be a fan and I am not (specifically, extractionist monopolist behavior).

Don’t think anyone except Peter Thiel and Hasbro will argue that Monopoly is a good thing. ;-)

SpaceX has made the investments/innovation to better-serve the satellite internet market that already had players in it; HughesNet, Viasat, Iridium / Globalstar. Those were the price-gouging Oligopolist incumbents who Starlink is disrupting with a 10x better service for considerably cheaper.

Totally agree that SpaceX doubling the price from $10k/month to $20k looks really bad especially if they’re doing it to existing customers.

But the way I see this (as a non-private-jet-traveler) is: Starlink is doing a “Robin Hood” and making the Rich (who can all easily afford it) pay for the expansion of the service which will benefit all the rest of customers. And if the 0.01% decide to switch to an alternative supplier, that’s good for competition. So in a way it’s anti-monopolist. ;-)

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#175

Post by panative »

estearum wrote: post #14
panative wrote: post #5

Won’t somebody please think of the luxury private aviation consumers?

A lot of people on this forum actually have investments in SpaceX, directly or indirectly, and they're interested in this stuff as a signal of the health of the company. Not everything has to be some little gripefest.

Won’t somebody please think of the poor SpaceX shareholders? (Not that the article was framed that way.)

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#176

Post by wat10000 »

bigbadfeline wrote: post #172
wat10000 wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let me guess... if you put the address into their handy text box, they tell you exactly what the demand surcharge is going to be for that location? I tried it, and would you look at that, I was right. I guess if you buy an entire house without checking to see what it costs to get internet service at that location, then you might be in a tough spot. Hard to blame it on anyone else though.

> I guess if you buy an entire house without checking We aren't talking about people buying hoses now , these fees weren't there before, so it becomes a typical bait and switch. "Congestion charge" means the starlink network lacks sufficient capacity to accommodate the areas that need it the most and where it was advertised the most. https://tech.yahoo.com/transportation/articles/elon-musk-cha... Jul 5, 2026The conge…

They're not applying these retroactively. (They did so in the reddit link above, but that was a mistake that they fixed.) The only way you'd have this problem is if you check before you buy, see that it's not there, buy the place, then move in and find out that a surcharge was added in the meantime. That would suck, but I suppose it's a risk you run if you don't lock in your deal ahead of time, and you choose to move somewhere with only one good provider.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#177

Post by wat10000 »

vel0city wrote: post #71
r3trohack3r wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> He then reviewed my billing history and account details, confirmed that my service address had never actually changed, and determined that nothing had been moved. As a result, he issued a full refund.

So not his service address, but a slightly different latitude/longitude would have received that.

His address would have received it too, if he was starting new service. It's only for new customers, they're not hitting existing customers with the charge. The error was that putting in the address made it look like he had moved, which counts as new service.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#178

Post by wat10000 »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #95
naturalmovement wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're privileged enough to work a six-figure tech job while engaging in a homesteader larp in a "cabin in the woods", you can probably afford the fee. So can "off-grid" YouTuber grifters. It's like everyone feels entitled to something they didn't know existed a few years ago.

People feel entitled to the advertised rate structure. Was there anywhere in the promo material that you might get slapped with $1500 connection fees? If you are not big tech, that’s a lot of money. For the home in the middle of nowhere, $1500 could be more than you would pay in monthly rent. Plenty of rural people without access to good internet were hoping for Starlink to save them from garbage DSL connection optio…

I go to their home page, click "get started," and it asks me where I want service. If I put in a place with a congestion surcharge, then it shows me on the next page. In fact, you have to pay it up front to order service. Seems advertised to me. If you don't want to pay it, then you don't have to use their service.

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#179

Post by ButlerianJihad »

wat10000 wrote: post #178
0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People feel entitled to the advertised rate structure. Was there anywhere in the promo material that you might get slapped with $1500 connection fees? If you are not big tech, that’s a lot of money. For the home in the middle of nowhere, $1500 could be more than you would pay in monthly rent. Plenty of rural people without access to good internet were hoping for Starlink to save them from garbage DSL connection optio…

I go to their home page, click "get started," and it asks me where I want service. If I put in a place with a congestion surcharge, then it shows me on the next page. In fact, you have to pay it up front to order service. Seems advertised to me. If you don't want to pay it, then you don't have to use their service.

> congestion surcharge

I can't wait until our urban cable-modem and DSL providers pick up those "congestion surcharge" ideas! (FCC tariffs prevent this, right?)

Re: Starlink unlimited aviation plan to rise from $10k/month to $20k

#180

Post by runarberg »

latchkey wrote: post #142
runarberg wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure, I am glad for you. I‘m sure there are dozens of people in your situation. Now if we can only get a whole constellation of satellites to accommodate every possible niche.

Now your bias becomes clear. Should have stated that in the first place.

My bias is that I don‘t belong to a tiny minority of people who willingly enter a weird niche that has extreme accommodations.

I think you can safely assume that everyone on this thread excluding you shares my bias.

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