Telstra goes live with Starlink for homes

Telstra has kicked off its Starlink-powered home broadband service after months of “comprehensive testing”.

The telco first announced its tie-up with Starlink in June last year, and at that time said it expected to launch services before the end of the year.

The $125 a month (plus $599 for hardware) Telstra Satellite Home Internet service targets customers in the NBN Sky Muster footprint with a low-latency, high speed service.

Telstra is offering unlimited data on the service and claims typical peak speeds of 50/10 Mbps.

Both prices and speeds on Telstra are below what a customer pays for, and gets, if they buy direct from Starlink: for $139/month, Starlink offers around 140/30 Mbps typical speeds.

According to Starlink’s service map, latency is location-dependent: it’s typically 25-34ms in Western Australia, 30-38ms in NSW, the ACT, Victoria and Tasmania, 36-42ms in South Australia and Queensland, and 53-76ms in the Northern Territory.

Telstra will supply the service with its standard Smart Modem 3, and if the customer has 4G coverage, that will be used as a backup connection if satellite service is lost.

Any installation involving permanent cabling – on a roof, for example – will also require a licensed cabler for the install.