Starlink to Introduce Daytime Data Caps Starting in December
Elon Musk's SpaceX will limit Starlink's Internet speeds during peak hours for those users who consume more than 1 TB of traffic per month. The changes will take effect next month.
SpaceX's Starlink satellite Internet service provider will begin limiting home Internet speeds during peak hours for customers consuming more than 1TB of "Priority Access" data per month. The restrictions will go into effect in December as part of a "Fair Use policy" in the United States and Canada.
Starlink claims its satellite Internet is a "finite resource," so the company needs to "manage the network to balance Starlink supply with user demand."
From now on, residential customers will start each monthly billing cycle with a 1TB "Priority Access" bucket of data, which tracks how much data they consume between 7 AM in the morning and 11 PM at night. If a user exceeds the 1TB limit, the account will be switched to a "Basic Access" package with deprioritized data during heavy network congestion until the end of the billing cycle. Simply put, once the data is depleted, users will have slower data speeds and reduced performance during peak hours.
Consumers also have the option to buy "Priority Access" data for 25 cents per 1GB.
Starlink notes that less than 10% of its users manage to exceed the established limit and utilize more than 1TB of data per month.