At the beginning of November, SpaceX announced controversial news for its Starlink satellite internet service: Data limits for resident subscribers. However, the company has now quietly delayed the move, though the cap will still be imposed at some point in the near future.
According to SpaceX, the 1TB cap was supposed to be imposed on customers residing in the US and Canada between the hours of 7 am and 11 pm. Exceeding this limit will cause customers to pay additional gigabytes of data or experience reduced speeds.
While this change was scheduled to begin sometime in December, Cnet (Opens in a new tab) I noticed a change Starlink fair use policy. (Opens in a new tab) Now the new data won’t be implemented until February 2023. It’s not clear why this delay was imposed, but it does mean that customers have a bit more time to figure out how they can adapt their internet use.
Starlink Fair Use Policy – What’s Changing?
Starlink’s fair usage policy means that all customers based in the US and Canada will be subject to a daytime data cap. According to Starlink, each account will get 1 TB of priority access data each month, to be used between 7am and 11pm, and this will go into effect on an unspecified date in February 2023.
Priority access means that your usage is given preference over primary access users, so exceeding your 1TB limit will reduce your speeds by an indefinite amount. You’re basically at the back of the line when it comes to downloads. However, Basic Access is unlimited, meaning you won’t be cut off from the Internet to use a lot of data. The usability of this level has not yet been determined.
Additional priority access data can be purchased, with each additional GB costing $0.25, but you need to subscribe to this service. It’s supposed to be done automatically, until the user opts out again, so you have to be careful lest you end up with expensive bills at the end of the month.
Any data used between 11:01 PM and 6:59 AM will be unrestricted, and will not be deducted from your monthly allotment.
All Business, Martime and Mobility customers will also be affected by this change to varying degrees. Businesses will have caps of 500GB to 3TB, depending on their plan, with additional priority data access costing $1 per GB. Maritime users will have a 5TB cap, plus $2 for every GB they use after that, while Mobility customers won’t have any priority access data at all.
How Starlink’s new data cap affects you
1 terabyte may not sound like a small amount of data, and it isn’t. But as someone from a country where unlimited internet has been a standard for a dozen years or more, it’s crazy to think those caps still exist — especially given how data-heavy things have become in the past few years. Video games in particular are getting bigger and bigger, and it’s not uncommon to find games over 100GB in size.
Not to mention the required updates for games, consoles, smartphones, and all the other connected devices we have in our homes. It all adds up, that’s what I’m saying, and trying to limit them all to a seven-hour period in the middle of the night would be daunting.
Of course, Starlink isn’t the only internet provider with these kinds of data restrictions. There are many providers that offer similar (or worse) data caps that limit how much you can do in any given month. Then again, there are providers that offer unlimited home internet data, without any fine print that imposes discreet limits; Assuming it’s available in your area and within your budget, of course.
So it’s no surprise that data caps hit Starlink, but that doesn’t mean people have to be happy about it. At least you now have some time to figure out how you’re going to make the 1TB limit last as long as possible.
One thing you can do is make sure of that Turn off automatic updates in Windows, because it is famous for updating when it wants to. It’s also helpful to learn the basics How to update macOSand types Update settings available on Xbox Series X. and PS5. This way you can restrict data-intensive downloads to unrestricted hours – and avoid running out of data without even realizing it.
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