(Credit: Starlink)
The newest Starlink dish, model V4, is now available to all residential subscribers in the US. However, SpaceX is retiring its older standard dish.
The company quietly made the change on Starlink.com, which had previously limited sales of the next-generation Starlink dish to subscribers on the roam and business tiers and to select users on the residential plan.
A support page on Starlink.com now says the dish is “Available to Residential, Roam and Business customers,” for all customers within the US. As a result, if you try to sign up for a Starlink residential plan today, the site will automatically offer the V4 dish, instead of the older dish model, dubbed the “Standard Actuated.”
(Credit: Starlink.com)The same support page notes: “Starlink Standard Actuated is no longer available as an option for purchase in the Starlink Shop for customers in the United States. Replacements for Standard Actuated Kits will continue to be supported at this time.”
(Credit: Starlink.com)The company opens the sales after US retailer Best Buy began selling the V4 dish, giving customers another way to buy the hardware. For subscribers outside of the country, SpaceX says the new dish will arrive to more markets over time.
Officially, SpaceX says the new V4 dish offers “the same reliable, high-speed internet you can expect from Starlink.” But early users have told PCMag the next-generation dish excels at consistently offering faster download speeds while also boosting upload rates. The new dish also comes with a Wi-Fi 6 router that can expand the wireless coverage at a home. But it lacks built-in motors that can move the dish when facing the sky; instead, the hardware is designed to lay flat on its back using a kickstand or mount.
The V4 dish also seems to cost less for the company to manufacture. Earlier this month, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told his employees in a speech: “We’ve now shipped our next-gen hardware. That’s version four of the user terminal. So that allows us to lower the cost of Starlink.”
Still, the older Standard Actuated dish may have been Starlink’s best-selling model, helping the satellite internet system attract legions of users across the globe. The company first introduced the model in November 2021, when Starlink had around 140,000 users. The satellite internet system now has over 2.3 million users globally.
Although SpaceX has pulled US sales of the older dish from the Starlink site, users can still find it on Best Buy and Home Depot.