Starlink users in France exceeding 250GB/mo data usage could see slower speeds come October

Humza

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What just happened? Network throttling is coming soon for Starlink users in France. In a recent email sent to customers, the company revealed a Fair Usage Policy going into effect in October that will prioritize users with less than 250GB/mo data consumption. Those going over this limit can expect slower network speeds, which they can address by paying €10 for 100GB of additional data and reclaim priority access.

As part of Starlink's new pilot program for users in mainland France, the company's monthly service fee is being essentially halved, going down from €99/mo to €50/mo. While this change - which is now in effect - has been made to add as many users onto the network as possible, Starlink has also announced an upcoming Fair Usage Policy to prevent network congestion and maintain service quality.

This policy, which will be implemented in October, is designed to give priority access to customers with a monthly data consumption of less than 250GB. Those who cross this limit can expect their connection to throttle during times of network congestion.

Starlink says that such users will still have access to unlimited data (despite the slower speeds), and that they can reclaim priority access on the network by paying €10 for 100GB of additional data.

The company's email, as shared on Reddit, also reveals that this user prioritization is solely based on data usage and doesn't factor in the content provider.

Starlink's upcoming Fair Usage Policy could potentially mean more high speed data caps and/or throttling measures in the future that can be expanded to other countries once the company gains enough feedback from users in France.

The latter, particularly heavy internet consumers, are likely going to be upset at this development since the limit wasn't in place when they originally signed up for the service. Now, they will have to cough up extra for additional blocks of data once their connection has been deprioritized.

As PCMag notes, Starlink's support document for the French market states that this measure is meant to prevent Starlink 'Power Users' from hogging the network, and will instead prioritize other users during peak times. These power users will have their speeds slowed down 'in proportion' to network usage, and their connection won't be throttled during periods of non-congestion.

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So, if I'm getting this right, their monthly fee went from €100 to €50, and heavy users will be deincentivized from hogging bandwidth, or can pay €10 per 100GB over for priority again.

If those heavy users really cared, they could pay for an additional 500GB of data by paying their old rate :p
 
Haha..American company exporting its BS internet data usage capping, by the back door, to Europe.

Lets party likes its the Dial-up Internetz in 2001.
Considering Starlink is still a fledgling ISP and still in the early stages of building out their infrastructure, I don't blame them. While a 250GB data cap for data usage is pretty low, you have to remember that even the satellite internet their customers had before is probably still slower than the times that Starlink is throttled. Plus for existing Starlink customers, they're able to pay €50 a month to up their data cap to 750GB and have the same price as currently. If a customer uses 1TB/month, then that means they could be affected by throttling due to network congestion one week a month, and that likely means 7 hours a month of noticeable throttling.

Besides, if Europe has so good Internet and doesn't need an ISP with data usage capping, then surely Starlink would have no customers right? Or maybe this "dial-up" is an improvement in some places and what you're saying is the real BS? 🤔
 
Haha..American company exporting its BS internet data usage capping, by the back door, to Europe.

Lets party likes its the Dial-up Internetz in 2001.
I would say this is different than land line data caps. It's extremely expensive to expand network capacity in space, it isn't like Comcast or Verizon giving you a data cap when they already have the infrastructure in place to handle far more demand than what is on the network. The logistics of Starlink make network capacity a pretty hard limit.

I would like to point out that if starlink can give you 250Gigs FROM SPACE there is no reason to have a 20GB data cap on cell usage when there is a tower a mile from my house
 
I would say this is different than land line data caps. It's extremely expensive to expand network capacity in space, it isn't like Comcast or Verizon giving you a data cap when they already have the infrastructure in place to handle far more demand than what is on the network. The logistics of Starlink make network capacity a pretty hard limit.

I would like to point out that if starlink can give you 250Gigs FROM SPACE there is no reason to have a 20GB data cap on cell usage when there is a tower a mile from my house

The main problem is the limited spectrum and hardware of each mast which means only a limited amount of bandwidth available per device per mast.
 
All I can say is that in my region, people who are served by the FTTH provider are lucky we don't have to put up with this data cap crap, and I'm glad that I have a vastly superior option to Musk's Starlink. IMO, its more typical Musk BS that he's spreading over the Earth.
 
Every satellite Internet company has bandwidth caps/limitations. Its shared bandwidth/limited technology for those that can't comprehend what that means. If you want unlimited move to a FIOS or ground based ISP serving area.
 
All I can say is that in my region, people who are served by the FTTH provider are lucky we don't have to put up with this data cap crap, and I'm glad that I have a vastly superior option to Musk's Starlink. IMO, its more typical Musk BS that he's spreading over the Earth.
"I don't need this service, so it must be crap!" How ignorant a stance. Go live somewhere more remote and get back to us on how convenient other services are compared to this.

Like, it should be stupid obvious that if people had better alternatives, they'd use them instead of using starlink 😂
 
Starlink is the biggest scam of the century...!
A bigger scam than HughesNet? Than ViaSat? ViaSat will happily charge residential customers $300/mo for a 300GB data cap before throttling, and offer only 35Mbps with a non-throttled connection. And HugesNet will charge $160/mo for a 75 GB data cap and a 25Mbps download rate. (Looked up rates for Annapolis, MD.) For customers of these companies with no wired Internet options, Starlink may be the biggest invention of the century.
 
A bigger scam than HughesNet? Than ViaSat? ViaSat will happily charge residential customers $300/mo for a 300GB data cap before throttling, and offer only 35Mbps with a non-throttled connection. And HugesNet will charge $160/mo for a 75 GB data cap and a 25Mbps download rate. (Looked up rates for Annapolis, MD.) For customers of these companies with no wired Internet options, Starlink may be the biggest invention of the century.

Don't feed the obvious troll posts. You can tell the "wokeness emotional" posts compared to the educated. All they want to accomplish is to bait members, get posts removed and or the thread closed.
 
All I can say is that in my region, people who are served by the FTTH provider are lucky we don't have to put up with this data cap crap, and I'm glad that I have a vastly superior option to Musk's Starlink. IMO, its more typical Musk BS that he's spreading over the Earth.

I've said it before and I'll say it again:

If you have fiber or cable near your house you are blessed and this service IS NOT for you.
This service is for people WHO DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to such wonderful things like fiber, or cable.

Starlink is generally better than DSL though!

I've used starlink since it was in beta, I live on a farm in the middle of amish country west michigan.
This service was designed exactly for my needs.

I highly doubt I will ever have fiber at my house.

The nearest fiber line is 1.5 miles from my house and I was considering asking someone on that line if I could beam internet from their barn to my house with a 900mhz link.

I would have had to pay for the install to their barn, bought the equipment and I priced it out at around $3000 minimum plus the constant upkeep required.
 
Haha..American company exporting its BS internet data usage capping, by the back door, to Europe.

Lets party likes its the Dial-up Internetz in 2001.
It is called fair use. Do you really need to download more than 8 gigs a day, every day of the month? Really?

I typically consume that much bandwidth in a WEEK (download + upload combined). And no, not because my internet sucks, I have FTTH 1 Gbps.
 
Don't feed the obvious troll posts. You can tell the "wokeness emotional" posts compared to the educated. All they want to accomplish is to bait members, get posts removed and or the thread closed.
I’ve never had a post removed, I respond with facts and logic. But yeah I normally don’t respond because they are obvious like you said.
 
I would like to point out that if starlink can give you 250Gigs FROM SPACE there is no reason to have a 20GB data cap on cell usage when there is a tower a mile from my house
I mean, are there any mobile carriers in eu who have data cap? Really do not know. In Three, without any contract in 'pay as you go' I have unlimited data for 20 eur a month. It's pretty standard here. I guess other countries have similar standards.
 
So it's already dead , coz we don't have any limitations on data since at least 20 years , and I think very few would pay an extra for more data ..they have currently only 90k subscribers here... it's absolutely nothing.... the only ones I see still using this service may be the guys lost in remote rural areas if they have no other choice... but almost all the territory is planned to have optic fiber in a few years maximum ( if the bureaucracy don't make this time longer ... and it will lol)
 
"I don't need this service, so it must be crap!" How ignorant a stance. Go live somewhere more remote and get back to us on how convenient other services are compared to this.

Like, it should be stupid obvious that if people had better alternatives, they'd use them instead of using starlink 😂
I've said it before and I'll say it again:

If you have fiber or cable near your house you are blessed and this service IS NOT for you.
This service is for people WHO DO NOT HAVE ACCESS to such wonderful things like fiber, or cable.

Starlink is generally better than DSL though!

I've used starlink since it was in beta, I live on a farm in the middle of amish country west michigan.
This service was designed exactly for my needs.

I highly doubt I will ever have fiber at my house.

The nearest fiber line is 1.5 miles from my house and I was considering asking someone on that line if I could beam internet from their barn to my house with a 900mhz link.

I would have had to pay for the install to their barn, bought the equipment and I priced it out at around $3000 minimum plus the constant upkeep required.
My my! The opinion police are out in full force today! 🤣 I used to have another provider, and even when I had them I considered their service crap even though it was the only thing available to me at that time. While it did not have a data cap, their customer service and willingness to provide faster speeds while I was on their service, even though they could have, was total crap. Even if I had starlink with nothing else available to me, I would likely still think its :poop: So, whether either of you like my opinion or not, I've been where you are and know your pain.

How about you go live where there is better internet service? It is not my problem that you are envious of the internet service I have. I expressed my gratitude for the service I have and reflected back on the days when the service I had was total crap.

Don't like my opinions? Feel free to block me. :p
 
From what I recently read, Starlink is simply not competitive with ANY local service. For those in the country out of reach of any cable or digital link it might be a great thing but for people with various local services it is simply WAY overpriced in any configuration ....
 
My my! The opinion police are out in full force today! 🤣 I used to have another provider, and even when I had them I considered their service crap even though it was the only thing available to me at that time. While it did not have a data cap, their customer service and willingness to provide faster speeds while I was on their service, even though they could have, was total crap. Even if I had starlink with nothing else available to me, I would likely still think its :poop: So, whether either of you like my opinion or not, I've been where you are and know your pain.

How about you go live where there is better internet service? It is not my problem that you are envious of the internet service I have. I expressed my gratitude for the service I have and reflected back on the days when the service I had was total crap.

Don't like my opinions? Feel free to block me. :p
Don't like getting called out on poorly thought-out opinions in a public forum? Learn and don't make them.
 
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