What are the downsides to Starlink?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll likely have heard of Starlink, a worldwide satellite internet service provided around the globe by one of Elon Musk’s companies, SpaceX.

Intended for rural connectivity around the World in locations where Fibre isn’t available, it’s been warmly received by millions of customers around the world, who previously have been either unable to get internet access, or who in some cases have been paying extremely high prices for incredibly slow and laggy wireless or satellite services.

As of January 2024, Starlink is comprised of a network of 5289 small satellites in low Earth orbit, effectively forming a moving mesh of satellite coverage the world over. Because they are in low earth orbit (LEO), this means that the latency, or Ping time, is able to be much lower than alternative satellite internet offerings – though still not as low as Fibre can provide.

All-in-all, Starlink can be an excellent service for those out in rural areas who cannot get Fibre connectivity.

We’ve looked at the main pros of Starlink – what about any cons?

So what are the downsides to Starlink anyway?

Let’s break it down…

Higher cost

The standard Starlink service costs NZD$159/month, and requires the purchase of a Satellite dish which costs NZD$399. There is now also a refurbished satellite dish option available for NZD$199.

In comparison, the much faster Fibre broadband service can be connected for substantially less per month, and most New Zealand customers already have a router laying around their house that is capable of being used for the service, meaning no hardware purchase is required for most people also.

Higher latency

While Starlink IS a lot lower latency than old satellite services, it still is not able to beat the ultra low latency, and consequent low ping times of Fibre broadband. This is of particular importance for gaming especially, where higher latency against competing players usually makes things much more difficult.

Variable speeds

Because of the nature of satellite services, the speeds achievable can vary greatly.

This can depend on how many Starlink subscribers are in your area, essentially as a single satellite has to communicate with all of those customers simultaneously.

Peak times will often also cause major slow downs in connectivity speeds for customers.

Starlink speeds can also be impacted by weather, and positioning of your satellite dish, surrounding trees and so on – again, unlike Fibre which essentially provides a direct fibre-optic connection between your equipment and your internet provider and the wider internet.

Complicated DIY install

With Starlink you’re shipped a satellite, router, and cables in a box, and it is up to you to install this in a location that has adequate uninterrupted wide field of view of the sky in order to reliably connect to the satellites as they fly over regularly. Your dish will automatically connect to whichever Starlink satellite it can “see”, but if your dish is too close to trees, buildings, or other items that get in the way of that line of communication, you can face issues with dropouts in your connectivity and so on.

If installing your satellite dish yourself proves too difficult, you’ll need to find and hire a contractor to install it for you.

Weather and atmospheric conditions

As mentioned, as your Starlink satellite dish needs to communicate back and forth with high speed satellites travelling through space around the planet, it can be adversely affected by bad weather, or atmospheric conditions such as snow, heavy rain, dust and the like. This can cause dropouts in connectivity, and slower speeds than normal.

Customer service

As Starlink is rapidly scaling it’s worldwide service to serve millions of global customers, they obviously can’t dedicate the sort of resources to customer service that would mean you could quickly and easily speak to someone if you’re needing assistance or advice with your internet service.

As a result most customers report needing to do their own problem solving on online forums, or wait for extended periods of time to hear back from someone regarding their query.

In addition, they don’t seem to have any means of contacting them at all until you have signed up as a customer. Voyager on the other hand prides ourselves on answering most calls from customers (and potential customers!) in less than 60 seconds, and can easily be reached via email also if you prefer.