I suspect this will change, or not roll out in many places, or users will get the choice between up-front or rental. Router rental isn't tolerated by the market in the UK or AU from what I've seen.
For AU consumers it puts even more obligations onto starlink. Only Telstra does this, that I am aware of, and their rental device comes with full remote configuration support for the duration. Telstra of course is targeting "Sell this product to your in laws and you never have to give them router support again". Starlink on the other hand, are trying the old Wisp gamble of hoping that people keep paying for their hardware long after it has paid off, which is probably a poor decision at least where Australia is concerned.
This might be reflected in upcoming metrics reported on Friday if the IPO goes through. It seems aligned with improving subscriber growth metrics, smoothing out upfront hardware costs into predictable monthly revenue, and generally increasing adoption by lowering the barrier to entry. Curious if anyone closely following the IPO story has more context on this.
$199 is expensive hardware? to receive magic internet sent from orbit to wherever you are on the globe?
I feel like if I took my AT&T home internet router, drop-kicked it into the bay, then asked for a replacement, they'd charge me a heck of a lot more than $199. :)
I suspect this will change, or not roll out in many places, or users will get the choice between up-front or rental. Router rental isn't tolerated by the market in the UK or AU from what I've seen.
For AU consumers it puts even more obligations onto starlink. Only Telstra does this, that I am aware of, and their rental device comes with full remote configuration support for the duration. Telstra of course is targeting "Sell this product to your in laws and you never have to give them router support again". Starlink on the other hand, are trying the old Wisp gamble of hoping that people keep paying for their hardware long after it has paid off, which is probably a poor decision at least where Australia is concerned.
It will only change if it becomes illegal to rent a router.
Nah, it will just become untenable to rent a router, because of the added obligations.
This might be reflected in upcoming metrics reported on Friday if the IPO goes through. It seems aligned with improving subscriber growth metrics, smoothing out upfront hardware costs into predictable monthly revenue, and generally increasing adoption by lowering the barrier to entry. Curious if anyone closely following the IPO story has more context on this.
Don't forget "sudden price hikes" and "aggressively overselling"...
Agreed - this shifts large single time purchases into MRR which looks way better to investors.
I think it makes sense as their expensive hardware makes me much less likely to order their services.
$199 is expensive hardware? to receive magic internet sent from orbit to wherever you are on the globe?
I feel like if I took my AT&T home internet router, drop-kicked it into the bay, then asked for a replacement, they'd charge me a heck of a lot more than $199. :)
Let the price gouging begin.
power cable is extra $4.99/month
That's what my ISP does with the cable modem. Why not?
My ISP gives me the equipment for free and the same bandwidth at a lower price than my prior ISP.
I guess we are well into the enshittification phase of starlink. Here's hoping Amazon Leo comes soon so we can have some competition in this market.
I'm not sure it will be as much a competition as a cartel, two of the world's richest people playing space cowboy
[dead]
> Customers who rent Starlink hardware instead of owning it will not be allowed to pause their service.
Wow, get fucked!