Comment by cromka
1 day ago
This plan replaces "pause" functionality that allowed you to put your subscription on hold. Hence:
"Starlink also states that "Standby Mode is not intended for constant, maritime, or high-bandwidth use," although the terms do not explicitly prohibit this, and we don't know if or how Starlink would enforce this intention.
Additionally, Standby mode is only intended for use for 12 months or less. After that, Starlink can, in its discretion, require either a move to a standard plan or loss of all connectivity except for access to the user's Starlink account."
Nothing to get excited here about, then. It's not a plan, per se. It's an add-on. I would not resort to it for IoT, surveillance, etc.
It's also one of the many frequent changes they introduce to their plans, so I would especially not rely on this staying as is for long.
https://www.rvmobileinternet.com/starlink-drops-roam-10gb-pl...
Meanwhile, Garmin reorganized their (Iridium-based) inReach plans and took away a "suspend" option last year, and adding a lower "enabled" plan tier. They recently reintroduced the suspend option, so I guess they saw more uproar and customer loss than they anticipated.
Suspension is a total pause of service at zero recurring cost, for up to 12 months. The enabled rate is a new tier of service for about $8/mo that supports SOS and pay-as-you-go message pricing for any other use.
It is interesting to see that some competition in this area may actually start to redefine the offerings.
The Garmin change was pretty gross, they tried to market the change as "instead of suspending your plan when you don't need it, now you just cancel your plan anytime and renew when you want", but they didn't call attention to the fact that renewing after cancelling results in a $60 "reactivation" charge. Which, for the lower tier plans, is the equivalent of 4 months of service. So, if for example, you cancel for 6 months over the winter, then renew in spring/summer, they essentially charge you for 4 of the 6 months you were cancelled.
It's also fun since Garmin devices are safety-critical devices, and with those plan changes people are now more incentivized to hold off on having a plan in order to save money; they've created incentive for people to be less safe.