I'm considering using Starlink for an internet connection. I put in my address and found that the start-up charge would be $488, which includes a $100 "congestion charge." Starlink explains the congestion charge as "due to network congestion in your area, there is an additional one-time charge to purchase Starlink Residential services. Our intention is to no longer charge this fee to new customers as soon as network capacity improves."
Have others encountered this extra charge? Anyone heard anything about when it might go away?
Is Starlink slow because of congestion?
How could our area (whatever our area is) be congested?
Home Depot in Boulder sells the standard kit for $349. They might charge the congestion fee on activation, but its not part of the hardware purchase. I bought mine there 2 years ago and it was $500 I think.
Hi Joe,
We have had Starlink for about a year, and have not seen any congestion issues to speak of. Dina uses it for work for video calls and uploading/downloading decent file sizes, and we have streaming services that have not shown any issues. We did not have an extra charge for congestion when we signed up, but I think the initial startup fee for equipment was still around $500. Overall quality and reliability have been good.
Patrick
We are really happy with starlink - much faster and more reliable than Nedernet was. The congestion charge goes both ways, per Ars Technica (link below). There is a $100 discount where they have extra capacity. Sounds like you can get some promotional discounts to offset that charge as well.
People may not like Elan’s style, and no one is required to buy his products. But I’d like to point out that Elon Musk has been donating starlink kits where natural disasters have struck (North Carolina, California). And starlink has been a game changer for access in many remote areas where high speed internet is not available, despite government dollars and mandates to make it so. Appreciate leaving politics out of BB conversations, especially when his track record deploying this product when emergency services are needed is exemplary.
Hollis, I don't know how many people are on StarLink up here in the Bar-K. Got at least one response from a Bar-K neighbor.
Jsullivan, I have now read that StarLink does tack on the congestion charge for Starlink equipment bought from retailers (e.g., Home Depot).
Patrick, thanks for the details about the lack of congestion (i.e., connection speeds adequate for various typical uses).
calbeartara, thanks for the comparison of speed and service with Nedernet (that's what we've been using for quite a while). The Ars Technica article you linked does cite a "capacity crunch" for Starlink, and other tech sources commented about Starlink not being able to deliver on its promised speeds because of too many connections in some areas. The Ars Technica article (written in Sept 2024) stated that the monthly fee for congested areas is $90 instead of $120 -- that does not appear to be the case now -- Starlink now wants $120 per month in addition to the $100 congestion charge.
Part of deciding between Nedernet and Starlink (our only two options here in the Bar-K, I believe) is service. After one of the power outages last week, our internet connection would not come back on. I called Nedernet to check on their transmitter status, which they said was good, and when we couldn't resolve why we could not receive the signal, they sent a staffer over to check our antenna. He got here in about a half-hour, found that the problem was our router (somehow "died" at the same time as the power outage despite being plugged into a battery backup), and replaced and set up our spare router for no fee. I have read that Starlink would not provide that kind of service; indeed, that's it's hard to get a return email from Starlink. Any comments on Starlink service in case of a problem?
Hi,
We are in Bar-K also, and we actually have both. We use starlink primarily as it’s faster, but we set up failover to nedernet. We negotiated a reduced service cost on nedernet since we use almost no bandwidth. I think it failed over only once last year.
When we had nedernet (before starlink expanded), we had outages every month or two, and extreme slowdowns regularly.
Customer service with nedernet was no where near what you described - glad to hear they were so helpful. Normally they couldn’t even tell us when it was coming back up because they were dependent on the service provider they had. I believe they have invested in their service and now do have a secondary service provider. I’m sure competition from starlink is pushing them to differentiate themselves to keep their customers. Having high quality local service would make sense.
We haven’t needed service with starlink so I can’t comment on that. Probably plenty of reviews online since they are widespread now.
6 hours ago(This post was last modified: 6 hours ago by Hollis.)
Hi, Martha
I was thinking the congestion charge may be related to however many customers they had in your area, it may just be a blanket thing they're doing, their customer service bot is good with technical issues, but not with customer service. I never got my $120 referral credit, reached out to them, no reply.
Have you downloaded the Starlink app to your phone, you use it to scan the sky to find the best location for the dish, it looks for obstructions.
Here's a link to an unofficial/not related to Starlink website called Starlink Hardware, good info and they have a Youtube channel, you might check out their blog pages.
We’ve had Starlink for several years now, and I rely on it for work. I’m in Jamestown. The service has been very reliable and the bandwidth exceptional (attached a speed test from today). You will need to make sure you have a good spot for it, otherwise the reliability will suffer dramatically.
As far as service, I would expect absolutely no customer support. They definitely are not going to come out to troubleshoot for you. Even their online support system tries to respond to you with what appears to be a horribly trained GenAI based ChatBot. If you are determined enough to argue with it long enough, you can get a support ticket filed that will be answered by a customer support rep, but last time I had a basic billing question it took several days to get a response.
Overall Starlink has been an absolute game changer for us. However, if you are not comfortable setting it up and troubleshooting on your own, it may not be the best option. If you are able to couple Starlink with someone local that you could hire to help you setup and troubleshoot when necessary, that might be the best of both worlds.
Another benefit you’ll have with Starlink is that you are decoupled from any local switch. So, if the power goes out and you have a generator, you can still be online.
3 hours ago(This post was last modified: 3 hours ago by sbg.)
I was thinking of using nedernet as a failover but have never gotten around to it. What do they charge you for that option calbeartara? Thanks!
@joe ryan: you are pretty much on your own with respect to Starlink service. We have a very early model plugged into a (big) UPS out of concern that the power might go out while it updates its firmware. Since we got it in early 2021 it has come back after power interruptions without issues. Main worry now is hail. Luckily that tends to be smaller up here. Do keep it off the ground -- the moose were very curious about it the first few days we had it so leaving it outside on the ground at night when you first get it, while tempting, is not a great idea.
As to congestion: yes our area (foothills around Boulder) is very congested. IIRC, it was one of the most congested in the US, other than around some of the other tech hubs like in California. There was a period they weren't accepting any new signups at all because they needed to launch more satellites first.
