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From their ToS: Best Effort Service for RV Users. Network resources are always deprioritized for Starlink RVs users compared to other Starlink Services, resulting in degraded service and slower speeds in congested areas and during peak hours. Stated speeds and uninterrupted use of the Service are not guaranteed. Service degradation will occur most often in "Waitlist" areas designated on the Starlink Availability Map during peak usage hours. See the Starlink Specifications for expected performance of the Starlink for RV Services.


I'm not sure it could even work any other way. Either mobile users are subject to deprioritization or there is no such thing as guaranteed service for anyone, including mobile users still.


It’d kinda be a fun feature to implement paid priority - someone on mobile can pay $5 to be prioritized and someone fixed who offered to be deprioritized gets $4 or something.


Then implement auctions, spot markets, tradeable tokens, consultancies to help you optimize your purchasing strategy...


I'm going all in on Starlink prioritisation futures


"I'd be making a killing right now if I could get online!"


And then I start hogging usage to increase the odds that I get paid money to stop using it.


Also it is needed to prevent abuse.

I.e. If my area is in waitlist , I shouldn’t be able to go and buy in an easy location and then just use it in roaming in mine .


Okay, but the top comment as I’m writing this is someone saying they have already been using the standard service, in a mobile fashion, mounted to the top of their van.

So my question to Starlink would be, what’s the difference? If I want to get an RV and work remotely using Starlink, why wouldn’t I just get the standard service, and avoid these restrictions on the RV service? I suppose the more flexible monthly billing & the ability to pause service on demand are the killer features?

The language of that TOS is quite concerning to someone thinking of using this in a professional setting.


Presumably the standard Starlink service will be restricted to your registered address, or will switch to the de-prioritized RV mode when outside your registered service area.

People talking about using it while roaming currently also say they are switching their service address in their account for each new location.

I’m not sure how it ties in with roaming capability but they do have a Business offering for those needing higher reliability and allocated bandwidth.

https://www.starlink.com/business



> So my question to Starlink would be, what’s the difference?

Price.


This comment seems to make a lot of assumptions about the scarcity of bandwidth for Starlink. If there's enough bandwidth for everyone, why would deprioritization be needed?


Maybe the scarcity is temporary? According to wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starlink#Constellation_design_... SpaceX has launched 2091 satellites and has FCC approval to launch 12,000 and a has filed for 30,000 more after that.


IIRC each satelite has ~20 gbps capacity, which might not be enough to serve locations with a dense number of subscribers such as big cities.


If there were enough resources for everyone then by definition there couldn't be deprioritization as there is nobody to deprioritize you for and vice versa.


This seems like an obvious rule, otherwise you would just get the RV plan and use it in waitlisted areas and skip the waitlist?


Verizon has the similar rules. Found out the hard way what unlimited and premium unlimited access gets you in terms of speeds.


I wonder how often someone in an RV will be in a congested area? At least in my mind most of the RV folks will be out in the sticks.




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