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Starlink is delaying its daytime data caps

Starlink is delaying its daytime data caps

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Starlink’s data caps were set to kick in this month, but now they’re scheduled to go into effect in February instead.

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A Starlink Dishy McFlatface satellite dish on a rooftop.
A Dishy McFlatface satellite dish.
Image: Starlink

Starlink’s upcoming daytime data caps will be going into effect in February instead of December, according to revised language on the company’s website (via CNET). When Starlink first announced the caps in November, the company had said they’d kick in sometime this month. Now, they’ll be in place a little bit later than originally planned.

The terms of the data caps otherwise seem to be the same. As part of Starlink’s new “Fair Use Policy,” customers will have a dedicated amount of “Priority Access” data every month. Any data used from peak hours, which Starlink defines as 7AM to 11PM, will be pulled from that Priority Access pool. If you go over your Priority Access allocation, you can pay for more data or fall back on “Basic Access” data, which is deprioritized and may be slower, for the rest of your billing cycle.

Residential customers will have a 1TB data cap and can buy additional data at 25 cents per GB. Other plans have different allocations and costs per GB, and you can see those details on Starlink’s website. Priority Access data isn’t available for Starlink’s RV, Portability, or Best Effort tiers.

Starlink isn’t the only internet service provider to delay data caps. Comcast has delayed planned 1.2TB data caps for its Northeast US customers a few times, with the most recent delay meaning they wouldn’t be implemented this year. (Those data caps are already in place for some other Comcast customers.)