To cut down on congestion, SpaceX's Starlink satellite internet system is preparing to introduce high-speed data caps for users in France that can force them to pay more. But on the up side, the company is halving the monthly subscription cost.
On Wednesday, SpaceX sent out messages to French users about the impending change, which will occur through a pilot program. "Effective August 3, 2022, Starlink is reducing your monthly service fee in mainland France from €99/month to €50/month," according to the message, which was shared on Reddit’s Starlink forum.
But starting in October, the company plans on implementing a "Fair Use Policy," which may involve slowing down users' internet speeds once they exceed a 250GB monthly cap and if capacity over the network has been stretched. For more high-speed data, users will need to pay up.
"Users who consume 250 GB/month or less of data will be prioritized. Users who exceed 250 GB/month will still have access to unlimited data, but may experience slower speeds during times of network congestion,” the message reads. “Users can also choose to purchase additional data to recover priority at €10/100GB.”
The company’s goal with the upcoming change is to connect the “greatest number of people without degrading the quality of service,” SpaceX says. Still, the new policy may upset paying subscribers, especially if they're heavy users of the service.
Since Starlink first launched as a beta, SpaceX has not imposed any data caps. But in recent months, some customers in North America have been experiencing drastically slower speeds, likely due to congestion from too many neighboring Starlink users using the satellite network.
SpaceX plans on solving the network congestion problems by launching thousands more Starlink satellites into Earth’s orbit to improve the capacity. But that’ll take time, and will require regulatory approval. Hence, the company’s decision to introduce high-speed data caps seems like a stopgap measure to alleviate congestion problems.
We reached out to SpaceX for comment, and will update the story if we hear back. But a company support document for the French market notes SpaceX is trying to ensure “Power Users” don’t hog all of the network capacity over Starlink.
“During times of network congestion, the network prioritizes other users over ‘Power Users,’ which may result in slower speeds for ‘Power Users’ in proportion to their network usage. However, during non-congested periods, Power User speeds are not throttled," it says.
We spoke with one Starlink user in France named Mark Harris, and he doesn't anticipate the high-speed data caps to be a problem, for now at least. "As I read it my service may get deprioritized when I go over 250GB if there is any network congestion," he said in a message over Reddit.
He also hasn't experienced any congestion problems in France, which currently only has 4,000 Starlink users. "My household routinely downloads 450 to 550GB a month, so should it become necessary to pay an extra 30 on top of my 50 Euros a month I'm still better off than I am now," he said.
Other Starlink users in France also received a message from SpaceX about the price cut. However, the same message mentioned nothing about the 250GB high-speed data cap. So it's possible not all subscribers in the country may be affected.