Pricey Starlink Broadband Dish Launched for Moving Vehicles
SpaceX has informed customers that they’ve launched a new variant of their Starlink for RVs (Recreational Vehicles / Motorhomes) product via their constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband ISP satellites, which includes new hardware that enables the service to be used while in-motion.
Starlink’s network currently has around 3,200 LEO satellites in orbit around the Earth (altitude of around 550 kilometres) and their initial plan is to deploy a total of 4,425 by 2024. Customers in the UK normally pay from £75 per month and £460 for the regular home kit (standard dish, router etc.). But for that you can expect unlimited usage, fast latency times of 20-40ms, advertised downloads of c. 50-200Mbps and uploads of c.10-20Mbps (speeds may change as the network grows).
By comparison, the Starlink for RVs product was launched in May 2022 and costs a bit more at £95 per month (full details) and there are some tradeoffs with performance due to it being considered a “Best Efforts” service. The other caveat is that it wasn’t designed to be used while in-motion, only while stopped.
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In response, the provider has launched an optional ‘Flat High Performance‘ variant of this product, which essentially bundles in a bigger dish (antenna) and mount – able to see 35% more of the sky and connect with more LEOs at the same time – that is specifically designed to be attached to the top of a moving vehicle. The terminal kit is also more rugged and weather resistant.
Naturally, there’s a catch or two, which comes in the form of its $2,500 price tag (we’re not yet sure how much they’re charging for this in the UK). On top of that, the new terminal kit needs to be permanently attached to your vehicle, so you won’t be able to move it around like the normal unit.
Starlink is currently taking pre-orders for the new terminal kit in selected markets and expects to start shipping it during December 2022. But we suspect that most people with motorhomes in the UK would probably prefer to save money and just use mobile broadband (4G / 5G) while moving (excluding the vehicle driver, of course), where available.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook, BlueSky, Threads.net and Linkedin.
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This is good – Sure pricey but if you live in the road this is invaluable. Nothing worse than being in remote Scotland and the best you can get is 2mbps on Vodafone!. The dish would just be mounted like a solar panel I would imagine. i am definitely going to be getting this when I can
How sad. Why not look out the window and enjoy the scenery.
All depends on what you are doing, would be invaluable if you are a working while travelling.
@JHo1
How would gg share all those epic scenes on insta or twitbook without descent connectivity?
Tbf how performant is starlink at those latitudes?
@JHo1 – yeah, agreed, the scenery is nice, but could be after dark, or (as pointed out) making use of travel time on a route frequently travelled.
I wonder if this might also see deployment on public transport like inter-city coaches, or trains. Most of these use cellular for their onboard wifi, with some of the more advanced installations backhauling via several different SIMs on different networks to ensure ‘some kind of good’ service, as the speeds/signal from different providers will vary along the way. Adding Starlink to the blend of providers wouldn’t be outside the realm of possibility.
@JHo1
Good Point – although the world is my back garden because I am a full timer.
@Chris
I don’t use either of those however again fair point – I don’t need to glamourise my life it’s no more difficult or easy as anyone else’s. But I do work remotely and this would give me more of a n option to move around – Right now the current Starlink works well for me as I have it on a little shelf bolted to the back of the Moho – Just outside of Lochinver I am getting 200 down and 41 up.
@JHo1 Looking at the scenery is very nice, but it doesn’t pay the bills if you’re trying to work from home.
@BlueAcid
That would be good – it’s woefully lacking on Trains and busses – although I can see the former being more interested than the latter due to the cost of deployment.
Yeah bolting one of these to the top of each train is going to be alot cheaper than installing trackside 5g everywhere
Rumours are going around that they’re about to introduce caps, at least in the USA.
They’ve apparently updated their terms to allow them to do this (not in the UK currently).