Starlink Is Throttling Certain Users, With Little Explanation

Starlink has long advertised "unlimited data" for customers, but it's reportedly throttling the internet speeds of subscribers who use huge amounts of data per month.

Affected customers have been posting about the sudden restriction on Facebook and Reddit, and sharing images of the warning message that Starlink will send. 

"Your Residential or Roam service plan is intended for personal, family, or household use only," the company told one affected user in Malaysia via email. "Business or Enterprise use is prohibited, as outlined in our Terms of Service. We've identified activity on your account that violates these terms."

That customer was hit with a speed cap. "Your service has been restricted for the remainder of your billing cycle. To restore high-speed service, you must switch to a Priority plan, which permits Business or Enterprise use," the email says. Starlink usually offers download rates of around 200Mbps or more.

According to a Starlink subscriber in Texas, the restriction has capped their internet speed to 10Mbps or less. PCMag spoke to three affected users, all on the Residential plan, who say they were caught off guard because their Starlink data usage hasn't changed. 

The Texas Starlink customer, who's been with the company for about a year, also told PCMag there's been "no resolution. It was escalated to the next level up [in customer service], but [I] have had no response from that level. They completely fail to provide a reason. Looking for alternative solutions now."

The company's messages are vague about the exact violation. But all three customers reported using more than 5TB of data per month. One user in Mexico said they've been subscribing to Starlink for the past three years, topping 8-9TB per month without issue.

The data use is relatively high. On average, a broadband subscriber will use about 711GB per month, according to a Q2 report from OpenVault, a provider of broadband network management. Only 0.23% of OpenVault's aggregated data of subscribers logged over 5TB of data per month, while 23.5% logged over 1TB. 

PCMag's Starlink reviewer, Brian Westover, says he averages around 1.5 TB per month. "I imagine you'd need to be a pretty heavy user to hit 5TB. Substantially more than you'd need for the average family using it for streaming and working from home," he says.

Still, it can be easy to consume data if you're downloading a lot or have a large household. The Texas Starlink customer noted they have 19 devices connected to their home network, including cameras, Alexa devices, a garage door, a thermostat, and a smart bed. "My cable box downloads movies that I watch, and also downloads segments of live TV at a time," the user added. "Then there's our phone usage, social media, videos, and such."

So far, SpaceX hasn't responded to a request for comment. However, the company's warning message suggests that Starlink has flagged the data usage as excessive, comparing it to a business's data consumption. The warning message urges the user to switch to Local Priority 50GB or 500GB, which cost $55 per month and $155 per month in the US, respectively. But for 1TB or 2TB of data, the costs jump to $280 and $530 per month. 

Although Starlink has long advertised unlimited data, the company has had a " fair use policy " in place for years that warns it can reduce speeds to preserve network integrity. "If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as reducing a customer's speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services," the company says in another service agreement document. 

In the meantime, one affected user in Europe reports speaking with Starlink customer support about the throttling. "In short, what the support agent said is that 'We have noticed that your current data usage is significantly high'... so there goes the 'Unlimited data' they advertise,'" they wrote on Reddit. 

The user added: "My average has been 2 to 3TB monthly, this month is around 5TB due to several game releases and 'file rechecks' I had to do through Steam, which basically re-downloads the games as well as their DLCs and I got 'hammered.'"

In May, another user also reported receiving a data-usage warning from Starlink for exceeding 8TB of data, but a customer service agent later said the warning was sent in error, citing a software bug.

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