Who would have thought that a company owned by the richest man on the planet might rip people off?
Is that a harsh take on what happens in areas where the Residential service for Starlink is listed as “on waitlist”? I don’t think so.
The issue faced
A customer that I was trying to assist was looking to take up Starlink services. This couple had recently moved into a house in South East Queensland, where the NBN service is typically sketchy (no Fibre to the Node or Premises options) and so Starlink seemed like the best option. There are plenty of people advocating for Starlink in various social groups, with impressive performance claims and for a lot of areas in SE QLD there is little choice.
The previous owners of the house had Starlink, with a Residential plan in place.
There are options as seen on the Starlink website to transfer the service to another person, which sound perfect for this exact scenario considering all the hardware was staying put.
The previous owner wasn’t even going to be using a Residential plan for themselves, as they were going to set off on a long trip so would be utilising their second Starlink account, which was on a Roaming plan.
Sounds like an easy swap.
But as a warning to people who may look to do something similar, just because you want to transfer account doesn’t mean you can sign up for the same Residential plan. Why? Because, as of January 2025, the entire area of South East QLD (and into northern New South Wales) is on a waitlist when it comes to Starlink’s Residential plan. As is Perth, WA.
There’s no telling how long the waitlist is for.
Isn’t it reasonable to wait for the service?
It might even seem reasonable that there is a waitlist, I mean the satellites can only handle so many customers at a time right?
Oh wait, but I can get a Starlink Roam service.
For $80 a month I can get a whopping (sic) 50GB of data.
Being on an unlimited NBN plan personally, I haven’t ever thought, or cared too much, about how much data my household consumes (4 family members, adults largely working from home, 2 children close enough to both being teenagers).
I decided to have a look and was mildly surprised as to just how much data we do consume, over a monthly basis; approx 800GB per month (averaged out over the last 12 months). The Starlink Roam plan would last us 2 days.
For $195 / month I can get unlimited data on the Roam plan.
So for about $70 more a month, compared to Residential, I can get the Roam service on unlimited data; as long as I am also happy with poorer speeds or as it has been described, “lower priority performance”.
Are the Roam satellites different satellites than those used for Residential plans? Maybe they are, but also maybe people are getting shafted. What I really don’t get is why, if transferring the service, there is still a waitlist. The limitations shown against transferring a service referrences a different service plan name as well, adding to the confusion.
At any rate, hopefully Starlink can quickly provide more Residential plan options to those living in or near South East QLD, and at time of writing Perth WA.
I am happy that at least I can connect to the NBN service, via Fibre to the Premises, but not everyone in these areas is as lucky.
Let me know if you have had similar issues trying to sign up to Starlink, or what your service is like connecting to their Roam plan, or indeed if you use something else such as Fixed Wireless (and what that performance is like).