According to SpaceX, that could result in speeds closer to 5–100Mbps down and 1–10Mbps up when used in congested areas or during times of high usage.
The big disadvantage is that Starlink RV users are “always de-prioritized” compared to Residential subscribers. That can save subscribers a bundle of money if they’re only traveling a few months each year.
One big advantage of Starlink RV is the ability to pause the service (and fees!) at any time and then resume it at a later date when you need it again. Each service comes with heavily caveated performance “ goals” of 50–250Mbps downloads and 10–20Mbps uploads with 20–40ms of expected latency and “no data caps,” although it does warn against misuse and abuse. The Starlink RV monthly subscription costs $135 / €124 compared to $110 / €99 per month for the Residential service (adding Portability costs an additional $25 / €25 each month). Starlink RV is SpaceX’s most flexible offering. Each service starts with the same dish and Wi-Fi router kit ($599 / €639) but differs in terms of expected speeds, monthly fees, the ability to use the service when traveling, and the option to easily pause the service.
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There’s also the Residential Starlink plus Portability option, which is a jumbled hybrid of the two. SpaceX currently offers two flavors of Starlink services: Residential Starlink and Starlink RV. For me, Starlink RV’s performance was an epiphany and cause to get serious about leaving the shackles of my urban existence behind. I’ve been testing Starlink RV for the last two weeks in a variety of locations: from atop a Ventje T5 camper van parked in a German forest where tall trees block satellite visibility at a crowded festival in Bavaria with overloaded cell towers at a Dutch beach where the prospects of mobile data are bleak and in a severe thunderstorm at my home in central Amsterdam. Unlike the fixed Starlink Residential service, which requires a perfect line of sight to the sky to be useful, subscribers to Starlink RV can move their Dishy at will, and likely be much more forgiving when the choice is between degraded service and no service at all. As such, Starlink RV is competing against pricey unlimited mobile data plans and signal boosters that attempt to fill holes in coverage, not home internet services. Importantly, Starlink RV targets people on the go, be it weekend campers, overlanders and vanlifers who live and work in their rigs year-round, or retirees with an RV or vacation home where they reside for months at a time. You can even pause and unpause the $135 / €124 per month service so that you’re only paying for the months you need it. Starlink RV allows owners to take their $599 / €639 Dishy McFlatface anywhere (on the same continent) there’s coverage, which now means large swaths of North America and nearly all of Western Europe. The service has steadily improved ever since we tested it in May 2021, when we found it to be “unreliable, inconsistent, and foiled by even the merest suggestion of trees.” The latest advancements include the release of a smaller rectangular dish and sanctioned support for portability, most expressly with the launch of the Starlink RV service. SpaceX launched its internet from space service in public beta in October 2020. Few do so, however, because change is hard, and going truly remote often means being out of range of cell towers - but not satellites. The pandemic only accelerated it, fueled by social distancing rules, office closures, and flexible remote work policies that enable more people to set up shop from any location they choose. The urge to get away from it all without losing access to Slack and Instagram was a #vanlife trend long before COVID-19. The problem with going off-grid is the lack of connection.