Quote:
Originally Posted by mrf0151
This speed of UP TO 200mbps seems quite slow by today's standards. A $100 for that speed?
With Xfinity we are paying $79 a month with average speed of 800mbps. What am I missing here?
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Not a good comparison. Xfinity, Comcast, Spectrum, and others are combinations of Internet (the data pipe) plus TV in most cases and telephone in most cases.
Starlink is ONLY the Internet (data pipe) service. If you want TV, you need to add another service such as YouTube, HULU, Sling etc. Same for telephone service too, although telephone service is in their plans for later this year.
For most, the value of Starlink is providing data streaming access to remote places that have no other options; deserts, oceans, under-developed towns and countries, etc. Yes, much more expensive than the quoted Xfinity ... unless there's no Xfinity (Comcast, Spectrum, etc.) service available. More reliable too. When that winter ice storm, erm hurricane, knocks down the electricity and cable goes dead, Starlink is still working.
As for speed, it is more marketing than reality. That is, 800 sounds better than 200 in the sales literature, but an extreme minority of customers actually use more than 200. You can stream video to 2-3 TVs and 3-5 computers, and 3-4 phones with 200mbps. You don't really know, nor can you easily measure accurately, how much of that 800mbps service you're really consuming.
Additionally, Starlink's 200mbps service is likely a short term capability. Knowing how Musk's businesses advance, after there's a globe covering cloud of Starlink coverage, they'll probably start cranking up the bandwidth.