(Credit: Starlink.com)
If you subscribe to Starlink’s Roam plan in the US, brace for a potential price increase.
On Wednesday, SpaceX sent emails to users about raising the monthly fee for the Mobile Regional plan on the Starlink Roam tier from $150 to $165. The company is also rebranding the plan as “Roam Unlimited." But on the plus side, SpaceX is bundling some new features that were previously only available in the more expensive Roam plans.
(Credit: Starlink.com)Most notably, the Roam Unlimited plan now supports "in-motion" use on cars traveling up to 100 miles per hour. Before, the company restricted subscribers to 10mph, although the limitation was often loosely enforced.
The other change is that subscribers can use their Starlink dish internationally in supported foreign countries for up to two months. Users can also run Starlink on coastal waters, when before the Roam plan was limited to land-based coverage. Specifically, subscribers can receive Starlink access “up to 12 nautical miles off the coast and for a period of up to 2 months,” according to SpaceX’s new terms of service.
“To support these enhancements and our ongoing network improvements, your monthly service price for Starlink Roam will be $165,” SpaceX’s email says in justifying the price increase.
(Credit: Starlink.com)On social media, some Starlink users were annoyed by the price hike. “I don’t even use in motion, but apparently now I have to pay for it anyway,” wrote one customer on Facebook. In addition, a few Roam users are considering switching to the cheaper Starlink residential plan, which costs $120 per month, but constrains the usage to a single address.
“Starlink is clearly pushing us out and shifting its focus to businesses and wealthy people,” added another user on Reddit. “We were just the beta testers, and our time is up.”
The price increase appears to also be rolling out to users in Europe, although at different costs.
SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But for users on a budget, the company has expanded the more affordable "Roam 50GB" plan as an option for all Roam subscribers when it was previously only available to Starlink Mini dish customers. The plan costs only $50 per month, but caps the data to a mere 50GB.
SpaceX announced the changes when it previously offered a global roaming plan for $200 a month, giving subscribers access to Starlink in supported countries worldwide. But in May, the company raised the plan’s cost to $400 a month when some customers were exploiting the global roam tier to access Starlink in unsupported markets, like those in Africa. The company has since stopped offering the global roam plan to new customers.