(Credit: Starlink.com)
SpaceX has fully removed the waitlist for Starlink in the US, although subscribers in high-demand areas will still need to pay a congestion charge.
The official Starlink.com map no longer shows any sold-out areas across the country. Large patches of Washington state and Florida were previously placed behind a waitlist.
As a result, interested users across the country can now subscribe to the Starlink residential tier; at $120 per month, it's one of the most affordable satellite internet plans. That said, SpaceX can still impose a "demand surcharge," which will reach $100 or even $250 if you subscribe in an area already full of customers, where capacity has been stretched.
In the US, SpaceX initially revived the waitlist for the Starlink residential plan in November before expanding it to more areas in February. The company didn’t explain the change, merely saying in a support page that “residential service is at capacity and residential service activations are currently not possible.”
(Credit: Starlink.com)Removing the waitlist suggests SpaceX has added more capacity to the network. The company currently has nearly 6,600 Starlink satellites in operational orbits, up from 6,000 in late November, according to astronomer Jonathan McDowell.
Still, the $100 and $250 “demand surcharge” for certain areas indicates that congestion remains a problem, which can slow down Starlink speeds for neighboring users. Allowing more customers to sign up risks exacerbating the issues if the capacity remains under strain.
(Credit: Starlink.com)SpaceX didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But satellite industry analyst Tim Farrar suspects the company removed the waitlist to “pressure” the Federal Communications Commission to relax rules that would let SpaceX increase the radio emissions from Starlink satellites, thus boosting internet speeds.
“Those waitlists were set at an average of ~5 subs/sq mile (about 5 subscriptions per square mile) in the US. In the near term, service will deteriorate in many areas,” he tweeted.
In the meantime, the FCC voted this week to review the satellite spectrum rules, giving SpaceX a win. In US areas without congestion, SpaceX is offering free Starlink dishes to customers who sign up for one year of service.
Caleb Henry, an analyst with Quilty Space, notes that US customer growth for Starlink appeared to slow last year. "Assuming US subscriber growth continued to stall or even plateau, removing growth barriers [waitlists] and offering free dishes where excess capacity is available gives Starlink new opportunities to jumpstart growth in a mature but still highly lucrative market," he says.
"The free terminal offering in particular may allow Starlink to compete more aggressively to steal customers from incumbent satellite internet providers Hughesnet and Viasat," he adds.