Starlink shifts hardware from one-time purchase to $10/month rental

danpalmer

I suspect this will change, or not roll out in many places, or users will get the choice between up-front or rental. Router rental isn't tolerated by the market in the UK or AU from what I've seen.

infocollector

This might be reflected in upcoming metrics reported on Friday if the IPO goes through. It seems aligned with improving subscriber growth metrics, smoothing out upfront hardware costs into predictable monthly revenue, and generally increasing adoption by lowering the barrier to entry. Curious if anyone closely following the IPO story has more context on this.

doctoboggan

I guess we are well into the enshittification phase of starlink. Here's hoping Amazon Leo comes soon so we can have some competition in this market.

laughing_man

That's what my ISP does with the cable modem. Why not?

daft_pink

I think it makes sense as their expensive hardware makes me much less likely to order their services.

7e

Let the price gouging begin.

bdangubic

power cable is extra $4.99/month

jauntywundrkind

> Customers who rent Starlink hardware instead of owning it will not be allowed to pause their service. Wow, get fucked!

olyjohn

They're becoming just another shitty ISP. Just a few months ago they offered me a Mini for no monthly cost, as long as I kept a service plan on it. Standby mode was $5/mo. I was looking forward to using it this summer, and activating a roam plan for a few months. 3 months later, standby mode goes up to $10/mo and they jacked up my regular rates again to $120/mo. I sent the fucking mini back. Talk about bait and switch. So then I heard they came up with this 200mbit plan that was only $85/mo. I have a gen 1 dish, which can only do about 140mbits anyways. So why am I even on this fucking 'max' plan? But the cheaper plans are "not available in my area". I'm guessing that's because I have no other options in my area.