One of the UK’s first AUTHORIZED STARLINK™ INSTALLERS.
One of the UK’s first AUTHORIZED STARLINK™ INSTALLERS.
It was reported yesterday that Starlink had suspended new service packages and the sale of hardware to new customers in Greater London. This includes both Residential and Business customers.
The update was discovered after changes to the Starlink availability map were reported by users on Facebook and Reddit
However, more areas across the south east of the UK now appear to be included. This morning. Spacelink Installations engineers reported that areas in Sussex and Kent are now also “sold out” and are not available to new customers.
This includes Brighton and Hove. As of this morning, new customers based here cannot register for the Starlink service. However, Starlink have assured us this is only a temporary measure.
We spoke with Starlink on the phone and via the support page yesterday:
“Hello Sean,
Thank you for receiving my call today.
As we spoke, unfortunately for Priority/ Residential services, we’re at capacity in London at this time.
Please note that our team is always working on improving our network, but unfortunately, at this time, we do not have an estimate of when the network will be available.
I kindly recommend to constant visit our website starlink.com/map to confirm availability before scheduling installations.
As I mentioned, the Roam/ Mobile service plans are still available at this region, and you can check the specifications for them through our Starlink Specifications.“
Starlink have said that this is a temporary measure for London and the South East due to being “at capacity”.
This comes after Starlink have been adding “congestion charges” to some new customers accounts in the UK. In what was a controversial move, it indicated that the UK was experiencing a difficulty in capacity and Starlink needed to work on increasing this for the UK. However, congestion charges are mostly refunded if you reach out to Starlink support to complain.
Therefore, the main reason being reported is that currently, Starlink users in the UK is growing so fast that they’re struggling to keep up. A good problem to have if you’re Starlink but very frustrating for new customers who are desperate to access high-speed internet with this innovative technology.
This comes as strange news to Spacelink Installations as we’re not entirely convinced that the UK is at capacity, and especially in London as our own data suggests otherwise.
We have our own data collected through our Starlink Speed Test Estimator tool. This data reveals that although we get a lot of people who are based in London searching for information about Starlink, this is actually a location that doesn’t get many installs or customers. It’s a high interest, low adoption area. This is because London already has a good existing infrastructure for fast, high-speed internet. Starlink, at this time isn’t a viable option for many in the capital city.
However, by now expanding the areas to cover more of the South East, Sussex and Kent, it would indicate that perhaps this is an area that has a particular capacity problem. There are a lot of rural areas that we service across Sussex and Kent. But, it still raises questions.
Despite Starlink’s response some people have suggested to Spacelink Installations that this could all be political.
Taking into account Donald Trump’s recent election win and Elon Musk’s involvement in that, speculation has risen to suggest that there could be some kind of political trolling going on.
In recent news, Elon Musk wasn’t invited to a UK investment summit. Musk himself has also been critical of the new UK Labour government in posts on X.
Following on from that, during the election, the Trump team accused Keir Starmer’s Labour party of election interference and the David Lammy remarks.
It has been reported that the relationship between Elon Musk and the UK isn’t great right now and this Starlink availability action could be the latest response in this political game of chess.
From what we can see, areas north of London as far as Milton Keynes and Oxford, parts of Cambridge. Then as far south as Andover, Bognor Regis, the south downs national park, Brighton, Worthing, Eastbourne and into Kent.
Dover looks like it’s currently NOT included as is available which is also interesting. Why is the whole of Kent included but NOT Dover and Folkestone? Two places with international transport to France and mainland Europe.
Follow https://x.com/SeannnCarroll and https://x.com/Spacelink_ for the latest updates.
We’ll update this page as soon as we have more information so keep checking back!
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