SpaceX has (finally) put its new generation of antenna on sale in France for its satellite Internet access offer (Starlink), after a few months of waiting. The company took the opportunity to reduce the price a little: it is offered for €350, while the previous one was worth €450. Furthermore, the old kits are still on sale for €250, a price which remains attractive.
Starlink sells its new antenna in Europe but not yet in France
The new antenna differs from the old one in a few points. The first is operation: it must be oriented manually, unlike the old model which is motorized. This is not really a concern for residential installations in practice: the orientation moves very rarely and the increase in the number of satellites makes it possible to maintain effective coverage even without tracking satellites in low orbit. For mobile use, the motorized version remains more practical if you move around a lot.
The second point obviously comes from the part related to the connection: the new generation kit includes an Ethernet socket to connect your wired devices, while the previous generation requires an optional adapter. In addition, Wi-Fi goes from version 5 of the standard (11ac) in 3×3 to version 6 (11ax) in 4×4. Feedback shows that this is an interesting development, even though it is notoriously Starlink’s weak point.
A new antenna for Starlink, a priori more economical
As a reminder, Starlink remains a solid and effective solution for those forgotten about broadband, with fairly good performance in reception (it is possible to reach 250 to 300 Mb/s) and correct in transmission (around 15 Mb/s). The price is measured (40 €/month in France for the residential offer) and the latency is acceptable (around 40 ms), unlike other satellite offers. Obviously, everything is not perfect: apart from the fact that the boss of SpaceX (Elon Musk) can irritate, sending thousands of satellites is a problem and there remain some small practical flaws that we noted in our test, such as slightly high consumption or location issues which can block certain websites.
Starlink on trial: everything you need to know about this new kind of satellite connection
