{"id":66592,"date":"2025-08-14T02:51:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-14T02:51:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/66592\/"},"modified":"2025-08-14T02:51:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-14T02:51:09","slug":"starlink-cuts-the-cost-of-its-satellite-dish-in-half-for-new-customers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/66592\/","title":{"rendered":"Starlink Cuts the Cost of Its Satellite Dish in Half for New Customers"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the biggest barriers to entry for prospective Starlink customers has always been the price: $349 upfront for equipment and $120 every month for service. That\u2019s now starting to change as Starlink<\/a> is offering its lowest monthly prices ever<\/a> and slashing the cost of equipment in half.<\/p>\n

You can now get the Starlink standard kit for $175, down from its usual $349 price tag. Unlike previous deals, this one is available to new customers anywhere in the country. Most Starlink deals in the past have been limited to areas with fewer users.<\/p>\n

Like the plan discounts, Starlink hasn\u2019t said how long the equipment deal will last. In the past, promotions have generally been around for several months.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Is Starlink your best option?<\/p>\n

Starlink has been a game changer<\/a> for many people living in rural areas but I generally only recommend it as a last resort. That\u2019s partly because of its high price tag — its standard rate of $120 per month is still far higher than the $78 average price<\/a> in the US — and partly because of its performance.<\/p>\n

According to a recent report<\/a> from the speed test site Ookla, Starlink users receive median speeds of 105Mbps down and 15Mbps up. That\u2019s plenty of bandwidth for many households but it still falls short of what the Federal Communications Commission defines as broadband. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)<\/p>\n

\"graph-of-starlink-median-download-speeds-over-time\" <\/p>\n

Starlink’s median download speeds have nearly doubled since 2022, according to Ookla. <\/p>\n

Ookla<\/p>\n

The speeds you get from Starlink are also dependent on how many users there are in your area. One recent study<\/a> from Penn State University found that Starlink’s satellites can handle just 6.66 households per square mile before service starts to dip below the FCC\u2019s minimum standard. That doesn\u2019t mean you won\u2019t have enough speed to do everything you need online — a Zoom meeting only requires about 4Mbps, for instance — but it does give you an idea of how network congestion impacts Starlink.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If there\u2019s a cable or fiber internet connection available at your address, I\u2019m always going to recommend one of those over Starlink. They might come with their own frustrations, but they\u2019re almost always faster and cheaper than satellite providers.<\/p>\n

Read more: Choose the Best Internet Provider for Your Home With Help From an Expert<\/a><\/p>\n

To see what\u2019s available to you, enter your address on the FCC\u2019s broadband map<\/a>. You\u2019ll see a list of providers, the type of technology they use and the speeds they say they can deliver.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the biggest barriers to entry for prospective Starlink customers has always been the price: $349 upfront…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":66593,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[64,63,237,105],"class_list":{"0":"post-66592","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-internet","11":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66592","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66592"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66592\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/66593"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66592"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66592"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66592"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}