Starlink introduces 'data cap' of 1TB per month

[Alex Atkin UK]

1 minute ago, ZetZet said:

Weird. It's like they're not actually using the capabilities fiber. 

Its to cling on to their business customers paying for dedicated fibre as long as possible.

 

As for Virgin, it seems be so they remain consistent across their coax network and their hybrid-fibre network.

[Alex Atkin UK]

2 minutes ago, yolosnail said:

What's even weirder is with Virgin Media, because they're a 'cable' provider, in new areas like mine that have FTTP they convert it from fibre to coax at the wall then run it into the router!

I do understand why they do that, it means they can continue to use the same equipment in the house across their entire network.

 

It also makes splitting the coax for multi-room TV services a lot easier.  Though personally I haven't watched live TV channels in years.

[yolosnail]

Just now, Alex Atkin UK said:

I do understand why they do that, it means they can continue to use the same equipment in the house across their entire network.

 

It also makes splitting the coax for multi-room TV services a lot easier.  Though personally I haven't watched live TV channels in years.

 

I don't even have a TV license so I can't watch live TV,

 

My reason with going with Virgin was a weird one, I didn't need the extra speed as, like I say, I'm limited by the download speeds of the services I use, and I also have Three 5G, I get faster speeds than I'm paying for anyway! The reason I went with them was because the line would come into the living room, whereas the BT line comes into the kitchen!

[wanderingfool2]

Honestly saw this coming, I thought they would actually have done this sooner.  Then again I thought they might have grandfathered people.  I suspect (even though you aren't supposed to) that some people have been using it for business purposes as well...it's a cheap solution compared to what you can get in some of the more rural areas.  I wonder how many people also use it to torrent and such (so a constant stream of traffic that doesn't stop).

 

At the very least they are only throttling after you pass your cap, and only if you are in a congested area,,,but I would like to know how much they throttle you (guess it would depend on the area though).  Still thought they would offer a grandfather clause for the people (although maybe they are, I haven't really read the TOS yet)

 

2 hours ago, ZetZet said:

Interesting, over here data caps are only for mobile data. 

 

But then also the caps don't make sense, if the average user doesn't exceed the cap then why implement the cap to hurt a minority of users, it's not like it's going to help you much. 

It actually makes a lot of sense.  There is limited bandwidth in a region, if you have a few people who constantly download/upload and send a large amount of smaller packets as well you could effectively clog it up for everyone else.  If you throttle them though during congested periods, you now minimize the impact on those who don't utilize it fully.

 

Hypothetical (I've bent this to make the numbers easier but show exactly why throttling one person helps):

e.g. Lets say Starlink can support 1gbps (and has 100 mbps speed).  They could support then 10 people per sat...now it's not practical to have only 10 people, so you actually sell it to 40 people knowing that at any peak times typically 10 people will be using it.  You also know that if everyone goes on the connection speed will drop to 25 mbps [but you again know that is very very rare].

 

Now in one area you lets say have 2 user that is constantly saturating their connection, lets call him hog 1 and hog 2.  That means you would only be able to support 8 people at full speed (excluding hog).  If the ratio is still the 4:1 then that means you can only support 32 customers, if you have hog 1/2 in the area.  It also means during peak times your chances of being over saturated have greatly increased.  It gets worse if it's a lot of smaller packets and they can more easily saturate the sat.  (Consumes the same bandwidth, but from my experience smaller packets at a greater interval can cause more like a DOS than large packets can).

 

Now lets assume throttling, if you throttle hog 1 and hog 2, you now can limit them to only a few mbps during those peak times when you are almost saturated.  You now have maybe an extra 190 mbps capacity that you can share amongst the other 10 users...so the other users effectively get a bump in speed of 19mbps.

 

 

The above example, while a bit contorted is the reason why throttling can actually help the average user and why you target the ones that are using the service the most.

[Doobeedoo]

Not surprised by this. It's cap at faster speeds. Same like 5G unlimited* mobile or home 2TB cap my ISPs offer. After cap speeds are reduced for basic functions at least.

[sazrocks]

3 hours ago, ZetZet said:

But then also the caps don't make sense, if the average user doesn't exceed the cap then why implement the cap to hurt a minority of users, it's not like it's going to help you much.

The idea is that the people that go over the cap often will go *way* over the cap, like 10s of TB. In this instance deprioritizing those users will likely result in a substantial increase in speed for other users in the same cell.

[Kisai]

3 hours ago, Fasterthannothing said:

Not bad considering most isp providers have 1TB already and this is satellite 

I don't see why anyone should praise this. This is just a cash grab.

 

Now I'm sure there are a few people who might actually be "abusing their bandwidth" in some way. But let me show you something.

 

This is just streaming to twitch for 140hrs/mo at 1080p 6mbits. It's entirely possible to use 3TB of bandwidth if you were doing work that you had to stream.

 

Now I'm also going to point out, that, wired access is imperative if the internet is a core part of  your job, because relying on wireless access subjects you to all the random elements like weather, signal strength and congestion problems. So if someone could actually use 3TB of Starlink, they likely have a very good reason for it.

 

In my opinion, it's extremely difficult to use 2TB unless part of your work/business process involves handling client data, or streaming video. 

 

[CarlBar]

5 hours ago, yolosnail said:

What's even weirder is with Virgin Media, because they're a 'cable' provider, in new areas like mine that have FTTP they convert it from fibre to coax at the wall then run it into the router!

 

Yep can confirm. Only high speed avalibile in my area. It's Virgin or its 1.5Mb on a good day over pure copper.

[Quackers101]

if its 1TB.

can be little for some users and what they do, if that is their only option. Also my complaints about how SpaceX/Elon handled starlink, hopefully they know how to handle the future of it, dont have too much trust in them. From how they did things without permission and to the recent twitter drama/"layoffs" and lawsuit, with elon trying to meme his way out and for profit.

[TetraSky]

1TB a month, eh...

Honestly, it would be enough for the great majority of people who don't download a bunch of stuff or don't spend their entire day watching streamed content.
Netflix 4K streams are about 7GB per hour. You would need to watch 4 and a half hours, every single day, of 4K Netflix content for 31 days to use 1TB

Reducing this to 1080p gets you a LOT more.
If you live some place where high speed internet via cable isn't available, you're probably not a big internet consumer to begin with.

 

That said, personally, in the past month, I've downloaded 314GB on my PC. On my phone, that's another 50GB on average per month. If we include my roommate, this number doubles. So while I could see this being an issue for big families, it can likely be fixed simply by lowering streaming quality to 720p and by having other hobbies than watching streams online.

[Dabombinable]

7 hours ago, yolosnail said:

Wait, $50 just for going over the cap? How much were you paying for just the 250GB?

I know prices over the pond are ridiculous, but that seems a bit excessive

Not if you've ever had to deal with Telstra's mobile internet - which until NBN was the only option even in some urban areas (where they had the monopoly because ex government owned). Their prices made ISP in the states look like saints (still kind of do).

7 minutes ago, Caroline said:

$1k for the hardware plus $100+ per month for a capped service

LOL, LMAO said me.

 

But his fanboys will prolly say something like "it's to protect the network" or something.

As someone who at one point paid $150 for less than 50GB of prepaid mobile internet (they've bumped that up to 80GB since - still very shit pricing) - what Starlink would cost is actually quite good. Got to remember that the 1TB "cap" is only counted towards during certain hours, and then the connection is only throttled within those hours (if not within those hours...I pay 4 cents per MB of prepaid mobile data once my data recharge runs out so 25 cents/GB "priority access" is fantastic).

[AnonymousGuy]

By myself:

 

[Gamer Schnitzel]

9 hours ago, ZetZet said:

I can't imagine living with a 1TB limit, but I guess for "mobile" internet it's pretty good. Personally I go over 2TB every month. 

I am curious what you do with 2 TB a month as I don't even go over 1 which I know since my ISP sends me an email monthly to tell me how much GB I used.

By any chance do you also  have 5x4TB HDDs in your PC?

[AnonymousGuy]

2 minutes ago, Gamer Schnitzel said:

I am curious what you do with 2 TB a month as I don't even go over 1 which I know since my ISP sends me an email monthly to tell me how much GB I used.

By any chance do you also  have 5x4TB HDDs in your PC?

Streaming video easily can exceed 2TB a month nowadays.  2TB was "a lot" like 10 years ago...not today.  I think my ISP has had the same 1TB limit since like 2010 when the fastest plan was 100MBps.  Shocking they only increased it to 1.2TB when they added 1Gbps.

[GOTSpectrum]

9 hours ago, ZetZet said:

I can't imagine living with a 1TB limit, but I guess for "mobile" internet it's pretty good. Personally I go over 2TB every month. 

It is not unusual for me to use 10+TB per month 

[BabaGanuche]

As someone using it I don't see this as too big a deal. Even with this change it is way better than any other option I have. Before Starlink I had 15 GB a month at 20 ish Mb and 600 kb there after.

[wanderingfool2]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

$1k for the hardware plus $100+ per month for a capped service

LOL, LMAO said me.

 

But his fanboys will prolly say something like "it's to protect the network" or something.

Dishy only costs $600, and compared to other satellite options yea it's still a great value.

 

Like honestly, the price of the competitor (ViaSat for Washington state), is $100/month for 12mbps 40GB of prioritized data (after that it's like Starlink and you get throttled down based on congestion).  You are paying $400/month...$300 if you get it on sale for 30 mbps 300GB of prioritization.

 

The whole concept to balance out network congestion has long existed before Starlink entered the field, common across cable as it's shared bandwidth.  There isnt much of a reason to hate on the service itself for what they are currently offering.  The only thing is is if they are grandfathering in people to the plans with unlimited (or what the throttling looks like)

 

3 hours ago, Quackers101 said:

From how they did things without permission

I'm curious, what are you referring too?  There's a bunch of stuff that comes out that when you look into it later you realize there's a secondary story to it.

[ComradeIT]

This means Starlink is now a complete non-starter for anyone who is hosting a blockchain node. I dunno if that's a big deal, but it seems relevant for the people who really care about decentralized internet and stuff like that. Starlink was supposed to be part of that story. Seems like a big part of the dream was the ideal off-grid person who lives on a yacht in international waters and verifies every blockchain transaction using Starlink because they are free and their money is free. Though I think that dream died already when Elon decided to play the war profiteering game.

[Roswell]

Caps are always a money making endeavor and nobody should be giving it a pass. Bandwidth isn’t a quantifiable limited resource.

[wanderingfool2]

27 minutes ago, ComradeIT said:

Though I think that dream died already when Elon decided to play the war profiteering game.

You are aware that they are bleeding money with the war?  They are giving away a lot of the service there and a lot of the terminals

[GOTSpectrum]

17 minutes ago, Roswell said:

Caps are always a money making endeavor and nobody should be giving it a pass. Bandwidth isn’t a quantifiable limited resource.

I mean... It kinda is when rocketry and sats are involved... 

[ravenshrike]

31 minutes ago, Roswell said:

Caps are always a money making endeavor and nobody should be giving it a pass. Bandwidth isn’t a quantifiable limited resource.

Given that it's a time constrained priority cap and not a hard cap, it very much is quantifiable. Also, unless the people in this thread only use their connection they're hitting the cap on between 11AM and 7PM, their usage isn't comparable.

[Arika]

50 minutes ago, ComradeIT said:

This means Starlink is now a complete non-starter for anyone who is hosting a blockchain node

[GhostRoadieBL]

Considering telus fibre and starlink are pretty close in $/month in BC and useful speeds are close (not like YouTube loads at 300Mbit) now they have the same 1TB limits, it's getting to be a tougher choice staying with telus's extrotion prices.

Unlimited would be nice and if they ever release mobile satellite links so you can bring your internet with you, I'd switch

[Roswell]

2 hours ago, GOTSpectrum said:

I mean... It kinda is when rocketry and sats are involved... 

 

2 hours ago, ravenshrike said:

Given that it's a time constrained priority cap and not a hard cap, it very much is quantifiable. Also, unless the people in this thread only use their connection they're hitting the cap on between 11AM and 7PM, their usage isn't comparable.

It’s not quantifiable, it’s not a limited resource. Data transferred isn’t lost from a magic limited pile of GBs. Examples of actual limited resources are things like oil and precious metals.

 

If bandwidth was so saturated, they wouldn’t be letting people pay to go over the cap. 
 

Caps exist to skim more money from the consumer, justified by tricking said consumers into thinking that the internet is a limited resource. In reality, the providers simply don’t want to invest in the required infrastructure to serve their customer base.

 

Comcast uses the same strategy with their cap, yet… magically in the Northeast where competition exists, they somehow find themselves able to operate without a cap.