SpaceX’s Starlink Quietly Mentions High-Speed Data Caps Are Coming for US Users

It looks like SpaceX is preparing to impose high-speed data caps for Starlink users in the US, possibly to address congestion woes facing the satellite internet service. 

The company quietly added a section to the Starlink terms of service(Opens in a new window) that discusses potentially slowing down internet speeds for subscribers once they exceed a monthly limit, which was noticed by(Opens in a new window) a user on Reddit. 

According to the new policy, residential Starlink users will receive a “monthly allocation of ‘Priority Access,’” with fast internet speeds. But once they exceed an unspecified limit, speeds could be reduced if the surrounding area is already full of other data-hungry Starlink subscribers.

“Under such plan, after you have used your monthly limit of Priority Access data, you will continue to have an unlimited amount of ‘Basic Data’ for the remainder of your billing cycle,” the company says. “With ‘Basic Data’ your access will no longer be prioritized over traffic generated by other customers during periods of network congestion.”

Speeds for the Basic Data plan could get slow enough that the policy warns: “In times of network congestion, users with Basic Access may experience slower speeds and reduced performance compared to Priority Access, which may result in degradation or unavailability of certain third-party services or applications.”

(Credit: Starlink.com)

SpaceX is also bringing the same caps to Starlink users in the business tier and for its upcoming mobile service plan. But it seems these customers will be able to receive additional priority access if they pay for it.

“After Priority Access data is exhausted each month based on your data limits set per Service Plan, Starlink will throttle your upload and download speeds for Business and Mobility Service Plans unless additional Priority Access is purchased,” the terms of service says, later adding: “Certain Service Plans allow customers to select ‘Add-On Services’ for additional fees per GB.”

The terms of service also link to a Fair Use Policy for Starlink, which is intended to describe how SpaceX can manage a subscriber’s network traffic, and potentially throttle the speeds. However, currently, the link(Opens in a new window) leads to a 404 error page. The terms of service also make no mention of what the monthly high-speed data cap will be set at.

SpaceX did not immediately respond to a request for comment. But in August, the company announced a similar policy for users in France. Specifically, the high-speed caps involve slowing down a customer’s internet speeds once they exceed a 250GB monthly data limit and if capacity on the network has been stretched.

“Users can also choose to purchase additional data to recover priority at €10/100GB,” SpaceX wrote in an email to users in France. 

The current advertised speeds offered for the Starlink service tiers.
(Credit: Starlink.com)

Currently, SpaceX imposes no data caps for Starlink in the US. Nevertheless, speeds have been slowing down due to network congestion, likely because Starlink has become so popular. As a result, demand for Starlink is stretching the network capacity, which can bring the normally high download speeds to 5Mbps or lower, according to affected users.   

To solve the congestion woes, SpaceX plans on sending thousands of more Starlink satellites into orbit, but that’ll require time and approval from the FCC. Still, the new high-speed data cap policy could alienate Starlink subscribers, many of whom are already paying $110 per month for the service. 

Good news for night owls: The new terms of service say that using Starlink from 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. “will not count toward Priority Access data limits.”