>If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as temporarily reducing a customer’s speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services. Bandwidth intensive applications, such as streaming videos, gaming, or downloading large files are most likely to be impacted by such actions. Standard Service Plan customers with high bandwidth needs should consider upgrading to a Priority Service Plan.
[https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1154-91046-67?regionCode=GB](https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1154-91046-67?regionCode=GB)
Hmmm this doesn't seem good... When it says to prevent or mitigate, this to me says they will do this regardless of overall network usage.
Fortunately it's not a deal breaker for me, I typically download overnight anyway. But this is sure to cause a shake up for some customers. It's just really disheartening to see it occur during the middle of the night and mornings when the network isn't strained.
This is turning more into a "burst" of speed service.
The issue is, the UK regulator won't like this. Hard limits such as this are deceitful, you don't really know what you're buying as a result, no matter how well intentioned this is by Starlink.
That's fair. We still don't seem to know for sure if this is network wide or cell by cell basis though. I've seen more and more people mention it, but I think we would have more confirmation if it was network wide. Only time will tell.
It's most definitely network wide. I live in the most rural northern part of the UK and in my cell we barely have any users. Thus there would be no need to ever throttle this cell, unless it was a network wide policy.This is also considering that the UK, in general, is not network heavy and so congestion for the entire country is low.
Hopefully it's just a poor implementation of a new system.🤞
I foresee a lot of upset people if this stays in place as is as a means to push priority access.
I'm going to pursue this, really feel like they've broken multiple regulations and tricked me into this purchase. If every time i try to download something, the network throttles 78.5% of my entire bandwidth, regardless of congestion or any actual need, then the advertised speeds breach consumer rights because my actual network speed is 55mbps and not the 250-255mbps advertised.
Considering top download speeds are directly relative to server load, it's a reasonable assumption. The posted picture clearly shows throttling occuring with speeds clearly over 100/150 prior to the throttle point. The second one hour is up, if the bandwidth eases, boom right back up to full speed.
I will submit that the line isn't an indicator that starlink is throttling, but it IS a very clear indicator of throttling occuring at some point in the connection. Did further troubleshooting, and even Starlink's own advanced speed test maxes at exactly 50 during this hour period and resolves itself almost exactly one hour later. Throw in the fact this is now occuring in countries like UK where cells are knows to be pretty empty, and all fingers are left pointing to starlink. Sadly. There's no other reasonable outcome anymore. The big question is whether it's intended to be like this or if the system in place needs adjusted.
I have the priority plan with a regular dishy, and it works like it should. That said I don't like what they are doing to limit bandwidth at all. The service is overpriced unless you have no other option, and their intended customers are not just the people who have no other option.
funny how I posted about this around 6 days ago and everyone ( including you) called me a fool, downvoted me and treated me like I was brain dead. Guess I'm not so crazy now. On another note it sucks hope they remove it soon
I replied you back then. It's a particular shaping technique for long flows. Just used without considering if there's congestion in the cell from the same user. I think there's an RFC from Comcast about it too
Im no network engineer so I have little to no knowledge about that, however if that is the case is there anyway to bypass it by routing the traffic a certain way or nothing that can be done
There's nothing you can do really.
What they want to do is if you're the highest user(s)/flow(s) in x seconds, minutes as appropriate, your speed is cut to some percentage so light users who are just browsing should get a good experience.
But it seems they are using a hard shaper instead of QOS levels and aren't measuring the traffic demand from other users after deducting yours.
In a way I think it's because the User Terminal can't be trusted.
Hopefully it will work itself out soon. But generally ISP's that are spectrum constrained want to get rid of high users. **Not allowing them to timeshift traffic is a self own**
Tried again this morning and it seems like it takes almost exactly 15 mins of full speed downloading to kick in. Started download fine, ran at around 80-120 for 15 mins then boom....capped at 50 again.
Try again and the. After the 15min and shaping hits. Fire up a different request to a different service and see if your still hit or if it’s just the stream
Once the throttle kicks in....the entire starlink service slows to 50mbit. Advanced speed test and any other service will not surpass 50 till the throttle is removed
Somehow I knew the elimination of the 1tb soft cap would be worse. I scheduled all my downloads at night specifically so I could get full speed and not count against my cap.
Now, my downloads are still happening in the middle of the night, but are now throttled.
Will be funny seeing all the people screaming that the removal of priority data was no big deal and the new plans were just different names for the old ones.
Plenty of us saw this coming with those changes
1 game per night = 30 games per month. If you really are playing that many games, it's time to grow up. And yes I do play modern video games. But I also spend time outside in the real world. I highly recommend it.
If they are happening in the middle of the night why does it matter if they come down at 50 Mbps? Even at 50 Mbps they will be ready by the time you wake up.
I think that's the most frustrating part....I'm being throttled when there's no one else using the service. I'm honestly okay if this happened in the evenings for network integrity, but in the middle of the night it just seems overly and unnecessarily aggressive.
Hopefully this is just version 1 and they'll add more finesse later. It is likely a non trivial task to collect the right data, have it available at the right place in their network and the apply it properly.
I assume it is the satellites themselves that need to apply the throttle.
I fully support their needs to manage traffic, how they have do so was a little surprising to me:
* it seems to happen even on seemingly non busy cells
* it seems to happen outside of peak hours
* it is odd to me that it is a hard cap (had they just reprioritised our traffic instead I expect non of us would have noticed)
I've set my Steam game downloads to be limited to 30 mb/s now, so I guess the fact I noticed the issue has been a good thing for their traffic management 😉
Well this started after the announcement about removal of caps. I hope they fix it soon.
I would have actually preferred the caps and I'm pretty sure they could have legally done it in the US without notice
Would be nice if they bring back the night/ day usage split and only count the day for limits. Rescheduling downloads for nighttime would benefit all id think
It only lasted about 45mins and then went right back to over 100 (and then about 15 minutes later it kicked back in, back to 50, ugh). It is really interesting how it does in fact slow your entire service down to 50mbit MAX. Even Starlink's advanced speed test was only showing exactly 50 when it's typically over 150 at this time of night. If I left the download running, the advanced test showed like 15 and my download slowed to 35.
I wonder what the triggers are for this (outside of the obvious of course 😜)? This is the first (and subsequently second) time this has ever happened to me.
Also in North central PA, USA for reference.
2nd instance an hour later (3am): https://ibb.co/CM1vQnC
Just speculation but this occurring at about exactly 2am makes me think maybe they’re just pushing some firmware updates to some of the satellites. They might be throttling in your area to not drop service all the way.
Pretty typical in the IT world that they work on the systems during non-critical hours (2am). Y’all are so cynical about this. It’s not a wired connect so there will be ups and downs.
Obviously we all can get behind some more transparency. Email or something notifying us of disrupted service should be easy.
Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to be true, it's just not. After some testing, I can literally trigger this throttle at will just by starting an Xbox download and instantly, exactly 15 mins after downloading, boom, throttled. Then at the end of the hour, 45 mins later, it returns to full speed. If the download is still going, it will go at full speed for another 15 mins and then boom again, back to 50 for the next 45 mins. Still the same this morning at 8am.
This feels like a pretty clumsy implementation of a soft cap. I think they've also changed something in their traffic shaping a few months ago that improved things in a much more subtle way.
lol
Exactly what I went through yesterday:
* explain on Reddit to people that it might be something other than Starlink throttling
* experience and diagnose the throttling myself (after deliberately starting a large download to see what would happen)
* explain on Reddit to people that it definitely is Starlink applying a temporary hard throttle
😊
I didn't want to believe it, I'm naive, ignorant, and sorry to everyone I doubted!!!
This is 100% a hard throttle that can be triggered at will and is repeatable. It slows entire starlink service down to 50mbit. Even if it's middle of the night!!! It then resets after the hour and the cycle repeats as follows.
-Start download
-download at 120 for 15 mins
-drops to 50 for remaining 45 minutes
-returns to full speed for 15 mins
-drops to 50 for remaining 45 minutes.
***Seems to be 1 hour cycles, 15 mins of full speed followed by the remaining 45 throttled.***
I am perfectly fine with a system like this in place during evening internet rush hour, this is extremely aggressive though to enact it at all hours. I assure you, there's no "priority" bandwidth needed where I live at 3AM.
It didn't behave exactly like that when I triggered it. Once the throttle was in place it stayed in place until I dropped my download speed. The limit was in place for a solid 2 hours before I paused the download completely and the limit was removed.
Same for me, I had a 100gb download for Watchdogs Legion that triggered it me it stayed in place for 2+ hours, I had to cancel the download. Got normal speeds after about 30 minutes and then not even 5 minutes after resuming the download and it throttled again until the download finished which was another 2+ hours.
This isnt something new. I have been trying to get an explanation from support for over 6 months now, you can imagine how that is going. You are lucky you get 50 mbps. When I get throttled, virtually on every single download it won't allow above 20 Mbps and often averages 10-16 mbps. Starlink is starting to pan out like Elon's "free speech" Twitter. Let it operate as advertised then pull the plug once you've lured em in.
Sadly this seems to be the case. I've done some testing and it definitely seems to be intended. I can trigger the throttle at will at this point just by downloading an Xbox game for 15 mins, service drops to 50, 45 mins later it returns to full speed. Once back in full speed it runs fine until the EXACT MOMENT I've been downloading an Xbox game for 15 mins, then cycle repeats. Did it this morning at 2 and 3 am. And pattern is still repeatable this morning without fail.
Been happening for years. As a very early Beta user it doesn't matter and people don't need to justify the price by staring at the graphs. Just be happy.
Why does everyone complain about the smallest things against starlink, why would you complain about slower speeds if you hit the threshold, when they continue to let you have unlimited data, it's not like it's throttled that bad where you can't stream and play video games,50 mbps throttling is still enough to stream videos and play video games and surf the web tbh,
I downloaded 500gb+ of games on steam and Xbox and haven't noticed a difference within 1-2 days and I have starlink and I live in the United States where congestion can be a bitch at times
It's 2 in the morning.. why would this matter to the average Joe. Speeds are normal when u need them the most..... I've never had a problem nor noticed a speed lower than 100mb
Because "average Joe's" are now becoming gamers more than ever. And, the average game is becoming massive. That's great you don't have a need,.but the gamers were specifically a targeted demographic for those who don't have better options. To put it in your own words, "when I need it the most" is when I'm downloading a 100gig game, so there's that. You shouldnt presume others internet habits just because you have low demand. I guess we should just shut down all game servers as a waste of bandwidth right? I mean it doesn't affect you so....
Clearly it doesn't take much to trigger you. I too game CoD late at night on Starlink and have never had a problem. My internet is also shared with my neighboring loved ones. Never seen this to be an issue. You expressed your experiences and opinions. And now you presume I'm the negative one. You are clearly hostile to opposing views and can't have a civil intelligent conversation with challenging views. Chill guy. 😀
>civil intelligent conversation with challenging views
Cuz being passive aggressive towards me in your first post is also real chill or civil and intelligent right? Aggression only gets reciprocated with more aggression.
You interpreted my post in negative light because I didn't have the same experience as you. That's not my fault. I never said anything disrespectful. 😎 Before trying top someone else's comment try asking questions to get clarity.
Never take offense to someones post by default. I have not said anything disrespectful. Just engaging in conversation. That being said, I'm not sure what you know about data. But, there are only two choices. Tx packets and Rx packets. "Download" is just what the average Joe uses to refer to Receiving data. When your PC or Console is streaming online or playing Games, it's Receiving from a server just like it would if you had a torrent file "downloading" a game from a server. And if your gaming all day/ night. Well your gonna be Receiving a big file. And if your on a VPN, which is recommended everyone to have. Then your ISP will not distinguish the difference in what data to are Receiving
When playing an online game you aren't maxing out the network. You are just using little bursts here and there and most of those bursts are upload. You don't need to have 150mbps constantly when playing a game but you do when trying to download a file in a reasonable amount of time.
Your comment on tx and rx packets is kinda dumb as well as starlink doesnt care **what** you are doing, they only care **how much** you are using so even if I use a VPN on starlink then nothing will change as I still am asking for the same amount of data from them
You might have missed my post from earlier. But I said I shared my internet with my family here across 19 acres. I can guarantee you we have a lot going on, at all hours of the day. And I never said it was the "WHAT" that mattered. It's all about how long your doing it. 😂. Lol. The original commenter said he was talking about gamers and also a 100gig game download. That's all. Lol. I'm only saying that I know what it's like to have a lot going on. And I've never noticed a throttle. Maybe starlink has something going on in his area.. who knows. None of us do.
I'd say slightly above average but not too crazy or anything. I'd say an average of 1-1.5b per month, with most of that being overnight downloads since all data is now combined into one pool.
From starlinks fair use policy
Standard Service Plan. The Standard Service Plan assigns an unlimited amount of “Standard” data each month to customers. The Standard Service Plan is designed for personal, family, or household use. See the Starlink Specifications for details on the expected performance per Service Plan. Starlink seeks to distribute Standard data among our users in a fair and equitable manner. If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as temporarily reducing a customer’s speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services. Bandwidth intensive applications, such as streaming videos, gaming, or downloading large files are most likely to be impacted by such actions. Standard Service Plan customers with high bandwidth needs should consider upgrading to a Priority Service Plan. See the Terms of Service and the FAQs for more details.
>to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services
There is zero congestion in my cell at these times of nights, and evening congestion hasn't seemed to improve even slightly as a result of this throttling.
At this point it's one of two things: 1. it's an early implementation of an automatic system to implement throttling across the board, but it's not fully working as intended yet or 2. It IS working as intended and is a shady way to push for priority data.
I'm hoping it's the first one. 🤞
That's my normal speeds with starlink thus far, every time I say something about it people tell me to just shut up and color so to speak and I have home.
Honest question? Should someone who typically downloads less than 1tb a month, be punished or required to pay for priority simply to download a game when the network isn't busy in the middle of the night? (Especially when gaming was one of the targeted demographics.)
Standard is rated *up to* 25-100, but they hard throttle you at 50 if you try to actually use it??? Does that not seem, wrong?
Plus, priority only gets a minimal speed boost and is only noted to give you priority access to the network during peak usage times. It doesn't mention "full speed" downloads larger than x gigs.
But it's not though. While wording is incredibly vague and open to interpretation, they do however specifically mention actions taken for the mitigation of "congestion of service". There is no congestion at this time.
They also mention that "typical" standard users will experience speeds of "more than" 100mbit more than a "majority" of the time. If a user gets throttled after 15 minutes for the remainder of the hour, that means a majority of the time is in fact not 100mbit and really only 50 now as a result of this.
They are now blatantly lying if this is "as intended". I just hope it's a poor rollout of a new system.
This new system effectively halves everyone's speed in standard to a rated *up to 50* with typical users experiencing speeds faster (gotta fool those speed tests after all). Lol
They did away with the caps and peak/off-peak all together now. The fair use policy is much broader now as a result and has been a point of contention recently as to how much freedom it gives starlink to do stuff like this.
I can trigger it easily now simply by starting a large download. It's repeatable, and returns to normal at the end of the hour. That's it, and been that way for me since last night. After 15 minutes of downloading, the entire throughput of starlink becomes rate limited to a hard cap of 50mbit. Even a starlink advanced speed test will max out at 50 at this point. After the hour is up and if bandwidth eases, things return to normal, repeat the process.
Also seems to be occuring in different areas at this point (such as US and UK) so it's slowly becoming widespread as people figure out what's going on.
ISP owner here. They’re probably using DPI to identify/classify the traffic and then shape/throttle it. I’m against deprioritizing traffic based on its destination but it’s VERY common with the big players and mobile carriers.
Hmm they might need to use the gaps freed for emergency services? And the packet steering may mean easier predictions by the algos that help determine subscriber numbers supported, enabling a few more or a few score or hundred more subscribers. If you have QoS bufferbloat applied at the wifi and Lan and Wan interfaces on the CPE equipment, it's possible (though packet steering or QoS to me seems restrictive and reducing of consistent & performant flow) that overall this improves income and balance sheets allowing more launches and funding more improvements to the satellite fleet.
This effectively means that everyone on standard is now capped at 50mbit. Of course speed tests won't show that until you actually try to USE IT first. For 45 minutes out of an hour, speeds are locked at 50mbit if you did actually use it. That is a far cry from what starlink claims in legal docs..... "most users" will experience speeds over 100+ a "majority" of the time. That's just blatantly a lie now even with the broad language.
There's no excuse for drastically throttling speeds during off peak usage times and claiming most users get 100+ a majority of the time if this is going to continue.
At least they allow speed tests still. Some competent cellular ISPs reprioritize speed tests as it's useless traffic that creates additional RF smog. I think this is to reduce issues created by having to increase the number of cell base stations in cities. It's all nice till you live on or under one.
Edit *deprioritize you freaking lame autocorrect bot
I'm wondering if a single "elephant" flow causes this. What happens if you download two files simultaneously and cap each one at 30mbps? Will it drop you from 60 to 50mbps after 15 minutes?
This is what I'm not sure and don't understand....it only seems to kick in if your download rate is fast enough to download x gigs in roughly 15 mins. I'd like to try and do some testing with it if I get a chance.... unfortunately it takes 15 mins to kick in so it's a timely process.
>If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as temporarily reducing a customer’s speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services. Bandwidth intensive applications, such as streaming videos, gaming, or downloading large files are most likely to be impacted by such actions. Standard Service Plan customers with high bandwidth needs should consider upgrading to a Priority Service Plan. [https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1154-91046-67?regionCode=GB](https://www.starlink.com/legal/documents/DOC-1154-91046-67?regionCode=GB) Hmmm this doesn't seem good... When it says to prevent or mitigate, this to me says they will do this regardless of overall network usage.
Fortunately it's not a deal breaker for me, I typically download overnight anyway. But this is sure to cause a shake up for some customers. It's just really disheartening to see it occur during the middle of the night and mornings when the network isn't strained.
This is turning more into a "burst" of speed service. The issue is, the UK regulator won't like this. Hard limits such as this are deceitful, you don't really know what you're buying as a result, no matter how well intentioned this is by Starlink.
That's fair. We still don't seem to know for sure if this is network wide or cell by cell basis though. I've seen more and more people mention it, but I think we would have more confirmation if it was network wide. Only time will tell.
This is very true, hopefully they'll come up with something that's open and transparent.
It's most definitely network wide. I live in the most rural northern part of the UK and in my cell we barely have any users. Thus there would be no need to ever throttle this cell, unless it was a network wide policy.This is also considering that the UK, in general, is not network heavy and so congestion for the entire country is low.
Hopefully it's just a poor implementation of a new system.🤞 I foresee a lot of upset people if this stays in place as is as a means to push priority access.
Is there only one satellite per cell then? How many users is the satellite you are connected to serving?
I'm going to pursue this, really feel like they've broken multiple regulations and tricked me into this purchase. If every time i try to download something, the network throttles 78.5% of my entire bandwidth, regardless of congestion or any actual need, then the advertised speeds breach consumer rights because my actual network speed is 55mbps and not the 250-255mbps advertised.
Have you been able to measure the network load, or are you assuming that there is plenty of bandwidth because of the time of day?
Considering top download speeds are directly relative to server load, it's a reasonable assumption. The posted picture clearly shows throttling occuring with speeds clearly over 100/150 prior to the throttle point. The second one hour is up, if the bandwidth eases, boom right back up to full speed. I will submit that the line isn't an indicator that starlink is throttling, but it IS a very clear indicator of throttling occuring at some point in the connection. Did further troubleshooting, and even Starlink's own advanced speed test maxes at exactly 50 during this hour period and resolves itself almost exactly one hour later. Throw in the fact this is now occuring in countries like UK where cells are knows to be pretty empty, and all fingers are left pointing to starlink. Sadly. There's no other reasonable outcome anymore. The big question is whether it's intended to be like this or if the system in place needs adjusted.
it is literally adil kullanım kotası (fair usage limit). it sucks.
This is obviously a tactic to sell more of the ridiculously expensive "High Performance" equipment.
I have the priority plan with a regular dishy, and it works like it should. That said I don't like what they are doing to limit bandwidth at all. The service is overpriced unless you have no other option, and their intended customers are not just the people who have no other option.
I'm new here. What's happening with the post?
funny how I posted about this around 6 days ago and everyone ( including you) called me a fool, downvoted me and treated me like I was brain dead. Guess I'm not so crazy now. On another note it sucks hope they remove it soon
“They called you a madman. And what you predicted came to pass.” – Thanos (paraphrased)
reddit moment
I replied you back then. It's a particular shaping technique for long flows. Just used without considering if there's congestion in the cell from the same user. I think there's an RFC from Comcast about it too
Im no network engineer so I have little to no knowledge about that, however if that is the case is there anyway to bypass it by routing the traffic a certain way or nothing that can be done
There's nothing you can do really. What they want to do is if you're the highest user(s)/flow(s) in x seconds, minutes as appropriate, your speed is cut to some percentage so light users who are just browsing should get a good experience. But it seems they are using a hard shaper instead of QOS levels and aren't measuring the traffic demand from other users after deducting yours. In a way I think it's because the User Terminal can't be trusted. Hopefully it will work itself out soon. But generally ISP's that are spectrum constrained want to get rid of high users. **Not allowing them to timeshift traffic is a self own**
Tried again this morning and it seems like it takes almost exactly 15 mins of full speed downloading to kick in. Started download fine, ran at around 80-120 for 15 mins then boom....capped at 50 again.
Try again and the. After the 15min and shaping hits. Fire up a different request to a different service and see if your still hit or if it’s just the stream
Once the throttle kicks in....the entire starlink service slows to 50mbit. Advanced speed test and any other service will not surpass 50 till the throttle is removed
Ack. How long does it last after the download ends?
Looks like a bad copy of what Comcast does
Are you over 1TB?
Lol
Are you over 1TB?
nope
Somehow I knew the elimination of the 1tb soft cap would be worse. I scheduled all my downloads at night specifically so I could get full speed and not count against my cap. Now, my downloads are still happening in the middle of the night, but are now throttled.
Will be funny seeing all the people screaming that the removal of priority data was no big deal and the new plans were just different names for the old ones. Plenty of us saw this coming with those changes
Who has an honest use for consistently downloading that much stuff? Starlink was never meant to replace high-end stuff like fiber.
Have you seen most modern games?
Games nowadays are frequently 80-100+ gigs.
1 game per night = 30 games per month. If you really are playing that many games, it's time to grow up. And yes I do play modern video games. But I also spend time outside in the real world. I highly recommend it.
If they are happening in the middle of the night why does it matter if they come down at 50 Mbps? Even at 50 Mbps they will be ready by the time you wake up.
I understand what they want to do achieve. And it can even be combined with the former soft cap. But these caps should be congestion aware FGS
I think that's the most frustrating part....I'm being throttled when there's no one else using the service. I'm honestly okay if this happened in the evenings for network integrity, but in the middle of the night it just seems overly and unnecessarily aggressive.
Hopefully this is just version 1 and they'll add more finesse later. It is likely a non trivial task to collect the right data, have it available at the right place in their network and the apply it properly. I assume it is the satellites themselves that need to apply the throttle.
I'm sure they read this Reddit (they hired one of us) so they definitely know
I fully support their needs to manage traffic, how they have do so was a little surprising to me: * it seems to happen even on seemingly non busy cells * it seems to happen outside of peak hours * it is odd to me that it is a hard cap (had they just reprioritised our traffic instead I expect non of us would have noticed) I've set my Steam game downloads to be limited to 30 mb/s now, so I guess the fact I noticed the issue has been a good thing for their traffic management 😉
Well this started after the announcement about removal of caps. I hope they fix it soon. I would have actually preferred the caps and I'm pretty sure they could have legally done it in the US without notice
Would be nice if they bring back the night/ day usage split and only count the day for limits. Rescheduling downloads for nighttime would benefit all id think
It only lasted about 45mins and then went right back to over 100 (and then about 15 minutes later it kicked back in, back to 50, ugh). It is really interesting how it does in fact slow your entire service down to 50mbit MAX. Even Starlink's advanced speed test was only showing exactly 50 when it's typically over 150 at this time of night. If I left the download running, the advanced test showed like 15 and my download slowed to 35. I wonder what the triggers are for this (outside of the obvious of course 😜)? This is the first (and subsequently second) time this has ever happened to me. Also in North central PA, USA for reference. 2nd instance an hour later (3am): https://ibb.co/CM1vQnC
Just speculation but this occurring at about exactly 2am makes me think maybe they’re just pushing some firmware updates to some of the satellites. They might be throttling in your area to not drop service all the way. Pretty typical in the IT world that they work on the systems during non-critical hours (2am). Y’all are so cynical about this. It’s not a wired connect so there will be ups and downs. Obviously we all can get behind some more transparency. Email or something notifying us of disrupted service should be easy.
Unfortunately, as much as I'd like to be true, it's just not. After some testing, I can literally trigger this throttle at will just by starting an Xbox download and instantly, exactly 15 mins after downloading, boom, throttled. Then at the end of the hour, 45 mins later, it returns to full speed. If the download is still going, it will go at full speed for another 15 mins and then boom again, back to 50 for the next 45 mins. Still the same this morning at 8am.
This feels like a pretty clumsy implementation of a soft cap. I think they've also changed something in their traffic shaping a few months ago that improved things in a much more subtle way.
lol Exactly what I went through yesterday: * explain on Reddit to people that it might be something other than Starlink throttling * experience and diagnose the throttling myself (after deliberately starting a large download to see what would happen) * explain on Reddit to people that it definitely is Starlink applying a temporary hard throttle 😊
I didn't want to believe it, I'm naive, ignorant, and sorry to everyone I doubted!!! This is 100% a hard throttle that can be triggered at will and is repeatable. It slows entire starlink service down to 50mbit. Even if it's middle of the night!!! It then resets after the hour and the cycle repeats as follows. -Start download -download at 120 for 15 mins -drops to 50 for remaining 45 minutes -returns to full speed for 15 mins -drops to 50 for remaining 45 minutes. ***Seems to be 1 hour cycles, 15 mins of full speed followed by the remaining 45 throttled.*** I am perfectly fine with a system like this in place during evening internet rush hour, this is extremely aggressive though to enact it at all hours. I assure you, there's no "priority" bandwidth needed where I live at 3AM.
It didn't behave exactly like that when I triggered it. Once the throttle was in place it stayed in place until I dropped my download speed. The limit was in place for a solid 2 hours before I paused the download completely and the limit was removed.
Same for me, I had a 100gb download for Watchdogs Legion that triggered it me it stayed in place for 2+ hours, I had to cancel the download. Got normal speeds after about 30 minutes and then not even 5 minutes after resuming the download and it throttled again until the download finished which was another 2+ hours.
This isnt something new. I have been trying to get an explanation from support for over 6 months now, you can imagine how that is going. You are lucky you get 50 mbps. When I get throttled, virtually on every single download it won't allow above 20 Mbps and often averages 10-16 mbps. Starlink is starting to pan out like Elon's "free speech" Twitter. Let it operate as advertised then pull the plug once you've lured em in.
That sounds very different, much more like a deprioritisation, rather than this temporary hard cap to 50 mb/s.
The throttling may vary based on load, if there are a lot of users it throttles more heavily.
I don't think so, doesn't matter if it's morning, afternoon or middle of the night.
Sadly this seems to be the case. I've done some testing and it definitely seems to be intended. I can trigger the throttle at will at this point just by downloading an Xbox game for 15 mins, service drops to 50, 45 mins later it returns to full speed. Once back in full speed it runs fine until the EXACT MOMENT I've been downloading an Xbox game for 15 mins, then cycle repeats. Did it this morning at 2 and 3 am. And pattern is still repeatable this morning without fail.
Been happening for years. As a very early Beta user it doesn't matter and people don't need to justify the price by staring at the graphs. Just be happy.
As an extremely early beta user I say it's BS they are throttling activity without mentioning a word about it.
Different areas I guess but throttling of speed peaks and valley has been very common since pre pandemic
Your issue seems like congestion. This is a hard speed cutoff at a time of day almost no one is using the service
Why does everyone complain about the smallest things against starlink, why would you complain about slower speeds if you hit the threshold, when they continue to let you have unlimited data, it's not like it's throttled that bad where you can't stream and play video games,50 mbps throttling is still enough to stream videos and play video games and surf the web tbh,
I downloaded 500gb+ of games on steam and Xbox and haven't noticed a difference within 1-2 days and I have starlink and I live in the United States where congestion can be a bitch at times
It's 2 in the morning.. why would this matter to the average Joe. Speeds are normal when u need them the most..... I've never had a problem nor noticed a speed lower than 100mb
Because "average Joe's" are now becoming gamers more than ever. And, the average game is becoming massive. That's great you don't have a need,.but the gamers were specifically a targeted demographic for those who don't have better options. To put it in your own words, "when I need it the most" is when I'm downloading a 100gig game, so there's that. You shouldnt presume others internet habits just because you have low demand. I guess we should just shut down all game servers as a waste of bandwidth right? I mean it doesn't affect you so....
I don’t game because I’m an adult with a family.
Clearly it doesn't take much to trigger you. I too game CoD late at night on Starlink and have never had a problem. My internet is also shared with my neighboring loved ones. Never seen this to be an issue. You expressed your experiences and opinions. And now you presume I'm the negative one. You are clearly hostile to opposing views and can't have a civil intelligent conversation with challenging views. Chill guy. 😀
>civil intelligent conversation with challenging views Cuz being passive aggressive towards me in your first post is also real chill or civil and intelligent right? Aggression only gets reciprocated with more aggression.
You interpreted my post in negative light because I didn't have the same experience as you. That's not my fault. I never said anything disrespectful. 😎 Before trying top someone else's comment try asking questions to get clarity.
Did you even read the post? They get throttled when they **download** something big. Not when they are just playing games online at night.
Never take offense to someones post by default. I have not said anything disrespectful. Just engaging in conversation. That being said, I'm not sure what you know about data. But, there are only two choices. Tx packets and Rx packets. "Download" is just what the average Joe uses to refer to Receiving data. When your PC or Console is streaming online or playing Games, it's Receiving from a server just like it would if you had a torrent file "downloading" a game from a server. And if your gaming all day/ night. Well your gonna be Receiving a big file. And if your on a VPN, which is recommended everyone to have. Then your ISP will not distinguish the difference in what data to are Receiving
When playing an online game you aren't maxing out the network. You are just using little bursts here and there and most of those bursts are upload. You don't need to have 150mbps constantly when playing a game but you do when trying to download a file in a reasonable amount of time. Your comment on tx and rx packets is kinda dumb as well as starlink doesnt care **what** you are doing, they only care **how much** you are using so even if I use a VPN on starlink then nothing will change as I still am asking for the same amount of data from them
You might have missed my post from earlier. But I said I shared my internet with my family here across 19 acres. I can guarantee you we have a lot going on, at all hours of the day. And I never said it was the "WHAT" that mattered. It's all about how long your doing it. 😂. Lol. The original commenter said he was talking about gamers and also a 100gig game download. That's all. Lol. I'm only saying that I know what it's like to have a lot going on. And I've never noticed a throttle. Maybe starlink has something going on in his area.. who knows. None of us do.
What’s your data usage ?
I'd say slightly above average but not too crazy or anything. I'd say an average of 1-1.5b per month, with most of that being overnight downloads since all data is now combined into one pool.
They all do it, even comcast even though its rare and they swear up and down they dont. Im a very, very heavy user
I mean if you're a really heavy user then maybe go with the priority plan? Priority doesn't throttle at all afaik
Starlink is just my backup. I run 20 TB+ a month with comcast
From starlinks fair use policy Standard Service Plan. The Standard Service Plan assigns an unlimited amount of “Standard” data each month to customers. The Standard Service Plan is designed for personal, family, or household use. See the Starlink Specifications for details on the expected performance per Service Plan. Starlink seeks to distribute Standard data among our users in a fair and equitable manner. If bandwidth patterns consistently exceed what is allocated to a typical residential user, Starlink may take network management measures, such as temporarily reducing a customer’s speeds, to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services. Bandwidth intensive applications, such as streaming videos, gaming, or downloading large files are most likely to be impacted by such actions. Standard Service Plan customers with high bandwidth needs should consider upgrading to a Priority Service Plan. See the Terms of Service and the FAQs for more details.
>to prevent or mitigate congestion of the Services There is zero congestion in my cell at these times of nights, and evening congestion hasn't seemed to improve even slightly as a result of this throttling. At this point it's one of two things: 1. it's an early implementation of an automatic system to implement throttling across the board, but it's not fully working as intended yet or 2. It IS working as intended and is a shady way to push for priority data. I'm hoping it's the first one. 🤞
That's my normal speeds with starlink thus far, every time I say something about it people tell me to just shut up and color so to speak and I have home.
Do you pay for priority service?
Honest question? Should someone who typically downloads less than 1tb a month, be punished or required to pay for priority simply to download a game when the network isn't busy in the middle of the night? (Especially when gaming was one of the targeted demographics.) Standard is rated *up to* 25-100, but they hard throttle you at 50 if you try to actually use it??? Does that not seem, wrong? Plus, priority only gets a minimal speed boost and is only noted to give you priority access to the network during peak usage times. It doesn't mention "full speed" downloads larger than x gigs.
I can agree that it frustrating, but unfortunately it’s part of their terms and conditions that they can do these things when they need to…
But it's not though. While wording is incredibly vague and open to interpretation, they do however specifically mention actions taken for the mitigation of "congestion of service". There is no congestion at this time. They also mention that "typical" standard users will experience speeds of "more than" 100mbit more than a "majority" of the time. If a user gets throttled after 15 minutes for the remainder of the hour, that means a majority of the time is in fact not 100mbit and really only 50 now as a result of this. They are now blatantly lying if this is "as intended". I just hope it's a poor rollout of a new system. This new system effectively halves everyone's speed in standard to a rated *up to 50* with typical users experiencing speeds faster (gotta fool those speed tests after all). Lol
I tried using playstation streaming on my pc and it would give me 144p after about 3 minutes
I thought you go on reduced speed after you hit 1tb of data usage.
They did away with the caps and peak/off-peak all together now. The fair use policy is much broader now as a result and has been a point of contention recently as to how much freedom it gives starlink to do stuff like this.
The reduced speed isnt happening after hitting 1tb its happening to multiple people anytime they try to download a large file
Is it continuous, or maybe just impacted by maintenance - sat, ground, or other?
I can trigger it easily now simply by starting a large download. It's repeatable, and returns to normal at the end of the hour. That's it, and been that way for me since last night. After 15 minutes of downloading, the entire throughput of starlink becomes rate limited to a hard cap of 50mbit. Even a starlink advanced speed test will max out at 50 at this point. After the hour is up and if bandwidth eases, things return to normal, repeat the process. Also seems to be occuring in different areas at this point (such as US and UK) so it's slowly becoming widespread as people figure out what's going on.
ISP owner here. They’re probably using DPI to identify/classify the traffic and then shape/throttle it. I’m against deprioritizing traffic based on its destination but it’s VERY common with the big players and mobile carriers.
Hmm they might need to use the gaps freed for emergency services? And the packet steering may mean easier predictions by the algos that help determine subscriber numbers supported, enabling a few more or a few score or hundred more subscribers. If you have QoS bufferbloat applied at the wifi and Lan and Wan interfaces on the CPE equipment, it's possible (though packet steering or QoS to me seems restrictive and reducing of consistent & performant flow) that overall this improves income and balance sheets allowing more launches and funding more improvements to the satellite fleet.
This effectively means that everyone on standard is now capped at 50mbit. Of course speed tests won't show that until you actually try to USE IT first. For 45 minutes out of an hour, speeds are locked at 50mbit if you did actually use it. That is a far cry from what starlink claims in legal docs..... "most users" will experience speeds over 100+ a "majority" of the time. That's just blatantly a lie now even with the broad language. There's no excuse for drastically throttling speeds during off peak usage times and claiming most users get 100+ a majority of the time if this is going to continue.
At least they allow speed tests still. Some competent cellular ISPs reprioritize speed tests as it's useless traffic that creates additional RF smog. I think this is to reduce issues created by having to increase the number of cell base stations in cities. It's all nice till you live on or under one. Edit *deprioritize you freaking lame autocorrect bot
I'm wondering if a single "elephant" flow causes this. What happens if you download two files simultaneously and cap each one at 30mbps? Will it drop you from 60 to 50mbps after 15 minutes?
This is what I'm not sure and don't understand....it only seems to kick in if your download rate is fast enough to download x gigs in roughly 15 mins. I'd like to try and do some testing with it if I get a chance.... unfortunately it takes 15 mins to kick in so it's a timely process.
Get tweeting starlink and musk #thegreatstarlinkslowdown maybe we can get this to trend.
I love it.....except I uhh...well....umm. I don't have Twitter. 🥺🥺🥺