Upgrading STARLINK

I have a Residential Starlink Subscription. It would be to my advantage to switch over to a Business subscription for a fixed IP. Is this possible and would I need new hardware?

I googled and Gemini said:

To move your Starlink service from a residential plan to a business plan, you can simply log into your Starlink account, access the "Manage" section, and choose to change your service plan to the "Business" option; you can usually do this with your existing Starlink hardware, but depending on your needs, you might want to consider purchasing a dedicated business Starlink dish for potentially better performance in high-demand situations.

If the only reason to upgrade is for a static IP then there are lots of alternative options for this that are more cost effective, depending on what the static IP is needed for.

You can use the same hardware.

However it’s a big uplift to go from standard Residential @ £75 per month to Priority 1TB which gives you a public IP address @ £180 per month.

I’ve now downshifted mine to a more wallet and backup friendly £8 per month (Roam 20 GB) - I knit my networks together using ZeroTier so it all works seamlessly.

Edited by Pheasant (Mon 03-Mar-25 16:18:16)

In reply to a post by Pheasant:

You can use the same hardware.

However it’s a big uplift to go from standard Residential @ £75 per month to Priority 1TB which gives you a public IP address @ £180 per month.

I’ve now downshifted mine to a more wallet and backup friendly £8 per month (Roam 20 GB) - I knit my networks together using ZeroTier so it all works seamlessly.

The geographical location served remains connected with three PSTN lines each of which has an usable upload speed. We did think about bonding but at the time STARLINK became a viable alternative but frustrating without a fixed IP. DDNS comes with security concerns for the transmission of really sensitive information.

This remote site feeds back to a monitoring station at HQ a streaming feed from six security cameras and during office hours, a single computer requires access to cloud services for data transfers of quite large files. Also supported are four VoIP phones and an intruder alarm system. A remote POS service is also in the mix. Remote access is desired to maintain all devices instead of a round trip of 50 miles to visit the site.

Yes we currently use the basic STARLINK service, although out of preference, would love to have FTTP at 500/75, but that is unlikely to be an option available for many years to come, if ever. There is no mobile signal at this location. Current thoughts are to ditch two of the three PSTN lines.

Its just a necessary evil to pay £180 pm to give us what is needed. Alternative suggestions are welcome though.

How much data are you getting through on Starlink per month?

If the information is sensitive then you really should be running through an encrypted VPN site to site. You don’t need public IPs for this.

As said I use ZeroTier for this purpose and it’s great. My routers support it natively and failover across WAN connections is seamless as the ZT client will rebuild the connection as needed.

If you just need a static IP then a L2TP connection could give you that for £15+VATpm for a business service from AAISP.
I use their domestic service for £10pm and it works fine - IPv4 and IPv6. It works over any connection, so I can fall back from FTTP to 4G and keep the same addresses active with only a few seconds down time.
Other similar services exist.

Will wait to hear back from the OP on this one, but I think peeling away the onion layers on this one is that a public IP isn’t actually needed.

Another solution may do what he needs better, more securely and for gratis or at least much less than paying either Starlink very royally or an L2TP provider for a clunky solution that just does one thing, but doesn’t fully resolve the basic need.