Since its inception, SpaceX‘s Starlink internet has offered consumers unlimited bandwidth. While this feature will theoretically remain available, users who use more than 1 TB of data in a single month will now experience throttling once they hit this limit.
The new “Fair Use” policy, explains how residential users will start out each month with “Priority Access” and then continue to receive coverage with “Basic Access” for the remainder of the monthly billing period if they cross that 1TB threshold, was detailed in an email sent out by Starlink on Friday to users across the U.S. and Canada.
When the network is heavily used, Basic Access users will experience “deprioritized” use, which results in slower speeds than Priority Access users. The 1TB monthly Priority bucket won’t be applied to data consumed during off-peak hours, namely between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m., according to Starlink.
In order to allow users to follow their progress toward the soft cap, the business is also implementing data consumption monitoring through user account pages.
The media speeds of Starlink fell during the previous year in every nation where it is now offered, according to independent network research company Ookla. User increase is cited by Ookla as the main cause of the overall reduction. Starlink claims that high-volume customers account for fewer than 10% of its existing subscriber base, but it is evident that the company wants to rectify the situation by restricting their use.
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