Starlink Confirm No Standby Mode on New V5 Satellite Broadband Dish
In another annoying and somewhat perplexing development for fans of SpaceX’s popular Starlink broadband service in the UK, the company has revealed that their next generation V5 dish terminal for consumers will NOT support ‘Standby Mode‘. This is in addition to the lack of support for in-motion use, such as on top of a caravan or boat (due to lack of an integrated GPS).
In Standby Mode customers can remain connected to the service, even if they aren’t currently planning to use it for anything heavy, at a significantly reduced speed (0.5Mbps) for unlimited data at a cost of just £9 per month (originally it was free as a “pause” mode, but later reintroduced and initially priced at £4.50 before the recent hike to £9). The service can then be resumed via a normally priced plan when required.
The development was confirmed via Starlink’s Support Page (credits to PC Mag), which without any explanation merely states in a brief footnote that “Standby Mode is not available for V5 hardware“. At present consumers in the UK can’t yet buy the new V5 terminal kit (packages still use V4), but it is expected to become available via their cheapest 100Mbps residential plan very soon.
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So, keep this new restriction in mind if you plan to adopt it, although there is an alternative approach to Standby Mode. Customers can still just cancel the service and then restart it at a later date, but that process is a bit more laborious and Standby Mode can be useful if all you need is a basic backup connection. Still, we don’t quite understand why Starlink are doing this, as all it seems to do is limit how many users might be able to pay for the add-on.
Starlink currently has around 10,900 satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) – mostly at altitudes of between c.340-550km. Residential customers in the UK pay from £40 a month for the 100Mbps unlimited data plan, which also promises uploads of c.15-35Mbps and low latency connectivity (c.20ms). Faster packages exist at greater cost, while more restrictive (data capped) options also exist for roaming users (e.g. £55 per month for 100GB of data).
Perhaps one of these days Starlink might employ a marketing team that could actually help explain some of their decisions.
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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You can use any dish on a canal boat – it’s 10mph before detected as in motion. But this is slowly killing SL for me. Being able to have a mini strapped into the skylight of a Motorhome to use in motion was one of the main reasons I had roam in the first place. The first price rise was acceptable due to in motion, but now they have stopped it and it’s now £100 is just too much
Got kit here that gets updates, but that’s about it
We desperately need an alternative to this absolute rip off company
Amaon Leo is coming soon https://leo.amazon.com/gb/en/ hopefully they will be better than musk’s ripoff.
I doubt that – but if this forces Starlink to remove the in motion block it will be a good thing for us. (as well as price competition) They made 4.3Bn profit over the last 3 months and added 12M subs.
Amazin have ripped off the Dishy look.
I would love to know what cost you’re expecting for a company which has to maintain a satellite constellation of over 10,000 satellites and refresh and add additions on a frequent basis. I think too many people don’t think of the technical requirements to keep such a service on-line and reliable.
I’m no fan of Musk, but these businesses need to turn a profit in the long term, and while Amazon might have some introductory offers, you’d be crazy to expect prices comparable to terrestrial mobile and fixed line connections.
Price consistency is what I want. The price is up and down almost daily now.
Watched a video on YouTube, of a Scottish man, deploying Internet over the mobile phone network, with 25Mbps.
If you are in a fixed position, then his video with the guest house, explains the cost, the hardware including a aerial and the router, due to mobile coverage, some mobile networks are better than others.
He also sold his Starlink kit(on ebay if I remember correctly), as uploading of videos to YouTube was faster by mobile network that Starlink.
Musk is not our friend neither is Bezos (Amazon)