In Europe and Latin America, SpaceX is reducing the monthly fee for its Starlink satellite internet service by up to 50%.
On Wednesday night, numerous customers in Europe received emails from SpaceX notifying them about the price cuts. The company also posted the reduced pricing for various countries on Starlink.com.
In the UK, the monthly fee for the satellite internet system has dropped from £89 ($105) down to £75 ($88). In Germany, the price has fallen from €99 to €80($80) while In Italy, the cost has been reduced from €99 to €70. However, in Brazil, Chile, and Mexico, the monthly service fee has dropped by about half.
In the email sent out to users, SpaceX explains: “The price reduction factors in your local market conditions and is meant to reflect parity in purchasing power across our customers.”
“No action is needed from you,” the email says, noting the price cuts roll out immediately. There's no mention of reducing broadband quality or imposing high-speed data caps.
The change is certainly good news for overseas Starlink users. However, the company has yet to bring the price reductions to North America, as far as we can tell. For now, Starlink.com still says US users must pay a $110 monthly cost, plus a $599 one-time hardware fee, to access Starlink.
That said, one user based in Las Vegas said on Reddit they also received an email about their Starlink price dropping to $85 per month. PCMag's Brian Westover, who's based in Idaho and installed Starlink earlier this summer, says he has not received any notices about a price drop.
We reached out to SpaceX for comment and will update the story if we hear back. But in France, the company cut the monthly service cost for Starlink in half earlier this month. On the downside, SpaceX plans on imposing high-speed data caps for users there through a pilot program set to start in October.
Data caps will kick in if someone uses more than 250GB of data, and if the Starlink network is congested, internet speeds will slow down. Customers will have to pay €10 to receive an additional 100GB in high-speed data.