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If you try to subscribe to Starlink in the Pacific Northwest, brace yourself for an extremely long wait to receive your satellite dish.
After imposing a $1,000 "demand surcharge," SpaceX is making it even harder for new customers in parts of Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to adopt Starlink by adding a new hurdle: Delaying hardware shipments by up to six weeks.
The official Starlink website has been updated to mention the long shipping time. "Due to high demand in your area, there is an additional one-time charge to purchase Starlink services. Please allow up to 6 weeks for shipping,” the site now says.
(Credit: Starlink.com)The tactic is surprising since SpaceX usually ships the dish hardware to US customers within four to five days. But the company has taken extraordinary measures to discourage new users from signing up for Starlink in the Pacific Northwest, where capacity for the satellite internet service is stretched. This comes as Washington state appears to have slower Starlink speeds compared with other US states.
Initially, the company required new customers in certain areas to pay an extra $100 or $250 "demand surcharge" to buy Starlink. But last month, SpaceX raised the demand surcharge to $500, then $750 before finally escalating it to an eye-popping $1,000.
The extra fee can bring the starting cost to own and start using Starlink to $1,349. That’s especially high when SpaceX has offered the dish hardware for free in other parts of the US, including in southern Oregon and Idaho, meaning new customers only have to pay for shipping.
Customers in the affected areas can bypass the extra fee and long shipping time by subscribing to the Starlink Roam tier. However, doing so requires paying a $165 monthly subscription fee, up from the normal $120 per month for the Starlink Residential plan. SpaceX can also throttle a Roam subscriber's access or impose extra fees if their Starlink dish is used in a highly congested area.
Retailers including Best Buy and Home Depot have also been selling Starlink. But if you live in an affected area, we wouldn’t be surprised if you encountered the demand surcharge upon the dish’s activation.