Starlink

Mrs.Z and I are (still) trying to move.

Decent internet is a requirement, my wife works from home. We have spotted a property that is ticking many boxes … BUT … the available broadband is awful. VDSL 20 down 2 up. FTTP is not shown as in the next year or less.

Starlink, is it a usable service ? It is expensive in comparison. I have a strong dislike for Mr.Musk, and am loathe to line his already replete pockets. But beggars might have to be choosers.

Does anyone have any genuine relatable experience of using the product ?

Yep. It's very good in my experience.

The worst aspect is the unpredictability in the pricing model.

Sadly also they seem to still be on a rental model with the hardware (they adopted this approach a few months ago). I've had all three main hardware generations; the OG round dish, the motorised and v4 fixed rectangular and also a Mini.

No comment on Musk. He's an (expletive deleted), but Starlink is very good for those that need it.

Fire off any specific questions you want or shoot me a PM

Thank you for a thorough answer Pheasant. 😊

How is 5G coverage?

You're very welcome.

That was the short and sweet version.

As said if you want specifics on anything I'll do my best. I currently have this V4 rectangular hanging off the top of a pole on the side of the house and also a Mini which I keep for travel. Both are kept on Standby Mode (currently £9 a month, was £4.50 a month not that long ago. See what I'm saying about pricing). The fixed V4 is our backup connection and the Mini gets fired up for when there little no mobile signal (which seems too be a lot of rural places these days) on trips and holidays.

I've successfully run VoIP over it. No problems with WiFi Calling on mobile here in the UK or just using a SIP client for fixed line telephony. The latency is perfectly respectable - I average around 30ms. Throughput is on par with a decent fibre connection.

I saw a little note somewhere the other day that heavy users were being throttled to 10mbps so if Mrs Z works from home it might be a consideration.

In reply to a post by Banger:

I saw a little note somewhere the other day that heavy users were being throttled to 10mbps so if Mrs Z works from home it might be a consideration.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/09/starli...

"However, according to feedback on social media (examples here and here – credits PC Mag), some customers who have frequently been exceeding around 5 TeraBytes (TB) of data usage in a month (sometimes up to 8-9TB), as well as somebody else who had daily usage exceeding 500GB for several days, have recently found their download speeds capped to c.10Mbps (Megabits per second) after receiving a “Terms of Service Violation” notice."

That's really caning it...

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

In reply to a post by Banger:

I saw a little note somewhere the other day that heavy users were being throttled to 10mbps so if Mrs Z works from home it might be a consideration.

https://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2026/09/starli...

"However, according to feedback on social media (examples here and here – credits PC Mag), some customers who have frequently been exceeding around 5 TeraBytes (TB) of data usage in a month (sometimes up to 8-9TB), as well as somebody else who had daily usage exceeding 500GB for several days, have recently found their download speeds capped to c.10Mbps (Megabits per second) after receiving a “Terms of Service Violation” notice."

That's really caning it...

Yep, I seriously doubt she’s horsing through it like that.

Poor. 😔

whats the mobile like around the house you are interested in? I know this is a hard Q, because as you know you need check every room and ty multiple providers..

Also if you are in a tourist area - then that will cause variability in speeds (note that just like vdsl the speeds can change anyway)

Mobile is poor.

bums.......

20/2 won't cut it, i was on 16-18/1.2 and it became painful over time. Even 40/10 was usable.

musk-link maybe the only sane solution. Sadly oneweb is expensive.

I was on 30/4 for a long time, and that wasn't great. FTTP 300/50 was a big joy in comparison.

Depending on location, you might be able to get a 3-year leased line contract for around £300 per month, i.e. £11K in total. which may not be too bad in the big picture of buying a house. It's cheaper than many rail season tickets, and there's a reasonable chance that FTTP may come along during that time, and/or improved ground mobile coverage or other satellite networks.

IIRC, the older Starlink terminals used around 100W which could cost around £20 per month in electricity alone. But I suspect the newer ones are more efficient.

Power draw on my V4 is averaging around 29 watts at the moment.

In reply to a post by candlerb:

I was on 30/4 for a long time, and that wasn't great. FTTP 300/50 was a big joy in comparison.

Depending on location, you might be able to get a 3-year leased line contract for around £300 per month, i.e. £11K in total. which may not be too bad in the big picture of buying a house. It's cheaper than many rail season tickets, and there's a reasonable chance that FTTP may come along during that time, and/or improved ground mobile coverage or other satellite networks.

IIRC, the older Starlink terminals used around 100W which could cost around £20 per month in electricity alone. But I suspect the newer ones are more efficient.

Thanks …. a bit steep, but thanks.

Starlink are doing referrals again (or maybe they had started again and I just failed to notice) - but anyway - if you do decide you want to give them a go, PM me and I'll send you my referral code.

You get a free month of service and I get the equivalent.

I know it's not my thread, but Starlink has been on my list as a possible option if I can't get fibre here. I also work from home, but I am a heavy user. I will consider your and Pheasant's comments about the throttling of heavy users. Thanks.

We've had Starlink since approx last August/September (with fttc of 20 down 1 up) it arrived quickly, was easy to setup and install. £75 fixed price deal for 12 months which is now £85 out of contract.

In use it has been next to faultless, I think there have been 2 global outages in that time.

Reliably see 300+ down 20/30 up with around 20ms latency. Family of 4 no issues.

As loathe as I am to make Elon richer Starlink has been good for us while the 6 year wait for fibre continues (though it is creeping ever closer and I am hopeful of being able to order before the end of the year).

£85 a month ?

No wonder he is so damn wealthy.

How about you get a bit more philanthropic Elon ?

The pricing seems very fair to me. This is only aimed at people who have no other alternative.

If he priced it at £30 per month then everyone would switch from FTTC/FTTP to satellite, and then the earth-to-sky and sky-to-earth bandwidth would be swamped. Imagine running the whole of London off one XGS-PON. Capacity issues have already led intermittently to waiting lists in certain parts of the country.

This is only aimed at people who have no other alternative.

To me that would seem like reason enough to provide it for a reasonable price.

We shall agree to disagree on this matter.

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Starlink are doing referrals again (or maybe they had started again and I just failed to notice) - but anyway - if you do decide you want to give them a go, PM me and I'll send you my referral code.

You get a free month of service and I get the equivalent.

Many thanks. The house in question has slipped to ‘also ran’ status now, for other reasons .

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Starlink are doing referrals again (or maybe they had started again and I just failed to notice) - but anyway - if you do decide you want to give them a go, PM me and I'll send you my referral code.

You get a free month of service and I get the equivalent.

Many thanks. The house in question has slipped to ‘also ran’ status now, for other reasons .

No worries. Understood. House searches go like that.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

£85 a month ?

No wonder he is so damn wealthy.

How about you get a bit more philanthropic Elon ?

For completeness - other packages are currently available:

- £40 for the residential 100 Mbps service (unlimited data)
- £60 for the residential 200 Mbps service (unlimited data)

The £80 package is up to 400 Mbps with 'unlimited' data

Edit: for more thoroughness / completeness. I will also mention the "Local Priority Subscription" which in Starlink's words is:

"Priority, high-speed service for businesses and other high-demand users for in-motion use within one country. ALL plans include priority support, public IP, and a telemetry dashboard. The priority plans give you the flexibility to match your data needs. Choose from one of our preset plans, and adjust it to your needs by adding blocks of data in increments of 50GB or 500GB.'

That costs £20 per month and data is bought on top of that in either 50GB chunks @ £15 per chunk (£0.30 per GB) or 500GB chunks at £75 per chunk (£0.15 per GB)

Edited by Pheasant (Thu 10-Sep-26 11:24:28)

Its worth saying that its not just about affordability for some people, I have the means to pay far-far more than I do now for a broadband but I refuse to pay through the nose for it.

I know we all have different approach's to spending, I have friends who spends ever penny they have each month on the best of everything including duplicates of stuff they don't even use or need. I have the approach of being more frugal so I have a 900Mbps service from Plusnet rather than paying other providers a lot more for a similar level of service.

In reply to a post by Taras:

Sadly oneweb is expensive.

I missed this 😅 but you’d have to have an absolutely zealot-like hatred of Elon to use Oneweb. Even if you could buy it (through your Caymans registered tax efficient company) the plans start around $600 a month. There’s just no point even going there.

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Mrs.Z and I are (still) trying to move.
the available broadband is awful. VDSL 20 down 2 up. FTTP is not shown as in the next year or less.
Starlink, is it a usable service ?

A few random points:

1. A house without FTTP availability in 2026 should be appropriately (heavily) discounted - do not assume that FTTP will become available at a future date and resale value will be impacted
2. Starlink uses CGNAT IIRC make sure that is acceptable and you understand what services it has issues with
3. Many people "manage" with less than 20/2 - I wouldn't say it is awful especially if it is a reliable 20/2 which it probably isn't
4. Starlink as a stop gap is probably a very expensive acceptable alternative but I think the house would have to be something very VERY special if I was in your position

Edited by think26872 (Fri 11-Sep-26 19:45:15)

In reply to a post by think26872:

In reply to a post by Zarjaz:

Mrs.Z and I are (still) trying to move.
the available broadband is awful. VDSL 20 down 2 up. FTTP is not shown as in the next year or less.
Starlink, is it a usable service ?

A few random points:

1. A house without FTTP availability in 2026 should be appropriately (heavily) discounted - do not assume that FTTP will become available at a future date and resale value will be impacted

Alternative view: you may be able to get the house at a deep discount, which more than covers the cost of Starlink or a leased line for many years, and if you do keep it for a while there's a good chance that FTTP will come along and the price will bounce back up.

Starlink isn't really that expensive, if you compare £75 per month to a typical £35 broadband contract: £40 per month =~ £500 per year extra.

In reply to a post by think26872:

2. Starlink uses CGNAT IIRC make sure that is acceptable and you understand what services it has issues with

Mobile phone companies almost exclusively use CGNAT too, so it's no different to running your house off 4G/5G. And Starlink does provide IPv6, which not all mobile networks do.

In reply to a post by think26872:

1. A house without FTTP availability in 2026 should be appropriately (heavily) discounted - do not assume that FTTP will become available at a future date and resale value will be impacted

That may be wishful thinking, rather than borne in reality. Care to give us some evidence of this?

2. Starlink uses CGNAT IIRC make sure that is acceptable and you understand what services it has issues with

Not completely true. As I posted above there is a Starlink plan available in the UK that provides a public IP address.

4. Starlink as a stop gap is probably a very expensive acceptable alternative but I think the house would have to be something very VERY special if I was in your position

Again check the prices I quoted above, starting at £40 for an unlimited 100Mbps resi plan

In reply to a post by Banger:

I saw a little note somewhere the other day that heavy users were being throttled to 10mbps so if Mrs Z works from home it might be a consideration.

According to a similar article, Starlink have now reversed their stance on these ultra heavy downloaders…

https://uk.pcmag.com/networking/167264/spacex-backtr...