If you plan to temporarily pause SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet service, you may encounter some trouble reactivating it.
Following a price hike, Starlink now costs $110 per month, so there's good reason to halt the service if your account is registered to a vacation home or secondary location, and you want to save on cash. But doing so risks being kicked off the network and replaced with someone on Starlink's lengthy pre-order list.
According to CEO Elon Musk, SpaceX issues “unsubscribe warnings” to customers who move to stop their Starlink subscription. But not everyone is seeing them.
Earlier this week, the Tesla Silicon Valley Owners fan club brought up the issue in a tweet. “Hey @elonmusk customers for Starlink should be able to turn on and off service once the hardware is purchased? I had to delay my service and now I cannot get back in,” the club wrote.
The tweet included a screenshot from SpaceX that said: “Once your service is cancelled, capacity in your locale is provided to newly interested parties. We cannot guarantee the option to reactivate once your Registered Service Address has been changed or service has been terminated.”
In response, Musk tweeted back: “You may be in an area that is at maximum capacity. Did SpaceX not provide an unsubscribe warning?” The Tesla Silicon Valley Owners fan club said it did not. “I would have love to keep paying if needed and not lose my spot,” the club added.
The issue underscores the high demand for Starlink. The service works by beaming high-speed broadband from over 1,600 satellites orbiting the planet to users on the ground. However, the network only has enough capacity to support a limited number of users within each cell area.
So if you decide to cancel your Starlink subscription, SpaceX can effectively hand over your spot to an eager new subscriber, denying you a chance to immediately return.