Heads up to anyone getting Starlink!
If you're going to use Starlink, you'd better stick with it and not use it as a backup. I assumed I could put it on standby and turn it back on when I needed it. Nope. They say my area got "congested," so there's a 30k fee. That's basically the price of the dish. On top of that, they told me that if I stopped paying for standby, I'd have to buy the dish again. Absolutely insane. They really want to punish people who use it as a backup. I thought being in a congested area would just keep you off the best plans, but no. So basically, if you cancel in a congested area, they want a fat 60k on top of the monthly fees. I had no idea, so I'm warning everyone now. They use words like "maybe" and "might," so I'm not even sure if they just pick who to rip off. Really disappointed in the company. I expected better.
Edit: I looked into it more, and it's based on demand. The fee can go as high as 1500 dollars. Don't get Starlink in Manila, period. You'll pay around 1000 dollars just to activate it, plus 65 a month.
To those who think this is a lie: it isn't, and I've replied to a few comments with what they tried to charge me. In the end the fee was dropped, because they weren't charging new customers in my area this fee. I don't know what happened, but I think the company's leadership here needs to go. The woman who first helped me admitted there was no surcharge, then tried to argue that I'd been on roam so the surcharge still applied. I wasn't on roam before standby. It shouldn't have happened, and apparently it will happen, so keep that in mind.
Satellite internet comes from orbit, so the service regions are more like "North Philippines" (above Manila) and "South Philippines" (below Manila). You're thinking of wired regions, like a cable company in a town or city, or a single cell tower. From space, a service area is more like 250x250 miles... because every point in that area has to share the same (constantly changing) set of three satellites. And whenever you activate or deactivate... it triggers a check based on current conditions. Now think about the thousands of illegal PisoWiFi operators running commercial services (illegally, on residential subscriptions)... and how much bandwidth gets used across a region half the size of the Philippines as seen from space. People keep saying, "I moved to the middle of nowhere and they're claiming a surcharge based on demand." Well... we're not talking about your neighbors 10, 50, or 100km away. You're drawing a circle 125km in every direction around your location. As more people sign up anywhere in that area, the bandwidth available from the satellites goes down. So it's not a scam. It's a matter of perspective. You're thinking in political or everyday units like cities, islands, and provinces. These are geographic zones as seen from space. Huge difference.
Where we live, Converge runs its lines above ground, so I keep Starlink as a backup connection. I pay ₱605 a month to keep Starlink on standby, with the option to switch it on under the Roam plan if our fiber goes down. I've been doing this for the last couple of years and have never had a problem going from standby to roam and back again. They even prorate the roam service so it lines up with the regular billing date. Of course, everyone's experience is different, but for me, the peace of mind of having a reliable backup connection when the fiber goes down is well worth that small standby fee.
I use Starlink as a backup. And I use it every day, because PLDT has been unstable every afternoon for 4 or 5 months. PLDT ping times to Germany go up to 2000ms (no typo!), and packet loss climbs to 50% (before the PLDT router disconnects). When PLDT works, it's a little better than Starlink (more of a "feels faster" thing), but when PLDT becomes unusable, Starlink is there to fill the gap. Maybe Starlink isn't for everyone, but for me it's the perfect match for PLDT... until I can get Converge. Maybe Starlink becomes unnecessary once I can connect to Converge again, but for now... PLDT, the only fiber provider here, paired with Starlink as an everyday backup works great and is worth the money.
I've had zero issues. I've had Starlink for 6 years and a Mini for travel for 2 years. I keep the Mini on standby and turn it on every few weeks.
Where are you located? I'm in Bohol and on standby right now. To go back to residential, I only need to pay the monthly fee.
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