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What do USA customers think about this price if it was not a beta? Worth if when no DSL, Fibre or 4G options are available? Worth even if other options are av

What do USA customers think about this price if it was not a beta? Worth if when no DSL, Fibre or 4G options are available? Worth even if other options are available because latency/price? Coming from a country with a lower purchasing power in dollars, 100$ would make this not an option even for many even if no other options are available. Still, if the same connection was shared between 4 homes it would be a great improvement.

jlgaddis 6y ago
For those without available wired broadband options, the price point is a no-brainer. In rural areas, your only option is often cellular (3G/4G) "hotspots" and the monthly cost will be outrageous unless you can convince everyone in your house to stay off of Netflix, etc. If you're in a rural area and you want Internet access for streaming video or your kids who are in school or just don't want to have to deal with or worry about data caps (with outrageous overage fees!), this is quite likely your best ption. The $100 monthly cost isn't unreasonable. You're going to be paying probably $60-70 for spotty cellular service with a data cap and/or throttling anyways, so might as well pay the little bit extra and not have to worry about it. The one-time $500 setup/equipment fee will be harder to justify. I expect Starlink will offer an option to spread that out over a year or two which would make it much easier for some households.
- samcheng 6y ago
  Cable companies (notoriously) bundle-in an equipment rental fee, which makes many times the equipment cost over the lifetime of the customer. I'd assume they will move to that model in the long term. Probably the $500 fee is a way to ensure dedicated / "bought-in" beta customers.
  - entropicdrifter 6y ago
    On the flipside, cable companies are legally required to allow you to buy your own modem if you so choose, so if you're willing to drop $50-$200 on a good modem it'll pay for itself within a year and you can minimize the amount of data snooping your ISP can do. That said, only techies seem to bother with that even though it's generally worth it for the power efficiency alone, let alone the equipment rental costs
    - olyjohn 6y ago
      I’ve always just picked them up used. Never paid more than $10 for a cable modem. I even keep a spare around in case my first one blows up. So many people have these things sitting around from changing providers or moving.
  - Thetawaves 6y ago
    I don't think that is a universal rule - that equipment fees make back many times the cost of the device. A high end DVR may cost close to 1000$ and a 20$/month equipment fee will barely break even over the life of the device...
    - NeutronStar 6y ago
      A high end DVR might, the shitty DVR they'll loan you will.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
OldHand2018 6y ago
> What do USA customers think about this price if it was not a beta? If you have no other option, this is a very good price. In a lot of places with options, this is still a good price. Performance is more than just a set of numbers, so we shall see how well it works. If it's good, I think it will cause a revolution in American broadband. Having a service like this would allow me to truly expand where I could have a weekend house, to the point where the money saved on the house could pay for a decade or more of this service, with plenty left over.
- dgritsko 6y ago
  > In a lot of places with options, this is still a good price. It will be interesting to see if any existing providers feel the need to lower their prices in response to Starlink becoming more widely available. That's how competition is supposed to work, right?
AuryGlenz 6y ago
I’m in a rural area with limited options. The local DSL company was really bad until this year (I wonder why...), but it’s still $70 a month for up to 50 meg and I believe it has a cap. Until this year it was the same price for up to 15mb/s, which in the evening meant more like 1mb/s. I’m on some hotspot plans that are no longer available that have no caps, but I’m pretty lucky with the speeds I get. For me it’ll depend on what speeds Starlink gets in my area, and I might keep one hotspot anyways as it’s handy to have.
beezle 6y ago
I have a 20/10 dsl line that requires phone service so end of day cost is about $89 a month. For $11 more, I can get 50/25. I'm not eligible for the 100/X service which would be about $25 more. I don't have to pay for a rooter. Above in a rural area by a local monopoly. Given the apparent high initial cost, this does not look like a viable option to replace my current service. I think cost would need to get down to 75 ish a month and maybe 200 startup. Does anyone know how this has help up in bad weather (rain? snow?)
- moftz 6y ago
  Rain does a pretty good job at degrading digital satcoms. There's potentially a stronger signal from the Starlink satellite because it's in LEO vs GEO so it could work but it also could just not work well at all. If you want high reliability, look into terrestrial microwave links but that's not available everywhere.

jlgaddis 6y ago

For those without available wired broadband options, the price point is a no-brainer. In rural areas, your only option is often cellular (3G/4G) "hotspots" and the monthly cost will be outrageous unless you can convince everyone in your house to stay off of Netflix, etc. If you're in a rural area and you want Internet access for streaming video or your kids who are in school or just don't want to have to deal with or worry about data caps (with outrageous overage fees!), this is quite likely your best ption. The $100 monthly cost isn't unreasonable. You're going to be paying probably $60-70 for spotty cellular service with a data cap and/or throttling anyways, so might as well pay the little bit extra and not have to worry about it. The one-time $500 setup/equipment fee will be harder to justify. I expect Starlink will offer an option to spread that out over a year or two which would make it much easier for some households.

samcheng 6y ago
Cable companies (notoriously) bundle-in an equipment rental fee, which makes many times the equipment cost over the lifetime of the customer. I'd assume they will move to that model in the long term. Probably the $500 fee is a way to ensure dedicated / "bought-in" beta customers.
- entropicdrifter 6y ago
  On the flipside, cable companies are legally required to allow you to buy your own modem if you so choose, so if you're willing to drop $50-$200 on a good modem it'll pay for itself within a year and you can minimize the amount of data snooping your ISP can do. That said, only techies seem to bother with that even though it's generally worth it for the power efficiency alone, let alone the equipment rental costs
  - olyjohn 6y ago
    I’ve always just picked them up used. Never paid more than $10 for a cable modem. I even keep a spare around in case my first one blows up. So many people have these things sitting around from changing providers or moving.
- Thetawaves 6y ago
  I don't think that is a universal rule - that equipment fees make back many times the cost of the device. A high end DVR may cost close to 1000$ and a 20$/month equipment fee will barely break even over the life of the device...
  - NeutronStar 6y ago
    A high end DVR might, the shitty DVR they'll loan you will.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

OldHand2018 6y ago

> What do USA customers think about this price if it was not a beta? If you have no other option, this is a very good price. In a lot of places with options, this is still a good price. Performance is more than just a set of numbers, so we shall see how well it works. If it's good, I think it will cause a revolution in American broadband. Having a service like this would allow me to truly expand where I could have a weekend house, to the point where the money saved on the house could pay for a decade or more of this service, with plenty left over.

dgritsko 6y ago
> In a lot of places with options, this is still a good price. It will be interesting to see if any existing providers feel the need to lower their prices in response to Starlink becoming more widely available. That's how competition is supposed to work, right?

AuryGlenz 6y ago

I’m in a rural area with limited options. The local DSL company was really bad until this year (I wonder why...), but it’s still $70 a month for up to 50 meg and I believe it has a cap. Until this year it was the same price for up to 15mb/s, which in the evening meant more like 1mb/s. I’m on some hotspot plans that are no longer available that have no caps, but I’m pretty lucky with the speeds I get. For me it’ll depend on what speeds Starlink gets in my area, and I might keep one hotspot anyways as it’s handy to have.

beezle 6y ago

I have a 20/10 dsl line that requires phone service so end of day cost is about $89 a month. For $11 more, I can get 50/25. I'm not eligible for the 100/X service which would be about $25 more. I don't have to pay for a rooter. Above in a rural area by a local monopoly. Given the apparent high initial cost, this does not look like a viable option to replace my current service. I think cost would need to get down to 75 ish a month and maybe 200 startup. Does anyone know how this has help up in bad weather (rain? snow?)

moftz 6y ago
Rain does a pretty good job at degrading digital satcoms. There's potentially a stronger signal from the Starlink satellite because it's in LEO vs GEO so it could work but it also could just not work well at all. If you want high reliability, look into terrestrial microwave links but that's not available everywhere.