SpaceX Starlink Fair Use Policy for Canada and U.S. Delayed to 2023
upstart writes:
Starlink Introduces New TOS With Fair Use Policy - Data Cap Coming for Residential Customers:
Key Points:
- Residential users are now limited to 1TB Priority Access data, while data over that amount is deprioritized
- RV and Best Effort plans are not affected since all usage on these plans is already deprioritized
- Starlink introduces off-peak times for some plans from 11pm-7am that doesn't count towards Priority Access data
- Business & Commercial plans will have a hard throttle to 1 Mbps after reaching their cap
- Additional Priority Access data can be purchased
Starlink has updated its Terms of Service (TOS) which now references a new Fair Use Policy that will go into effect next month.
Up until this point, all Starlink data has been unlimited - only differentiated between Priority Access and Best Effort, depending on the particular service plan and where it was being used.
Essentially, SpaceX is acknowledging that "Starlink is a finite resource" and that it is not possible to deliver truly unlimited data plans without performance dragging to a crawl in too many places. To improve things, SpaceX is moving towards network management practices similar to what is commonly seen in the cellular industry.
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