FWIW - I was fortunate to be an early “beta” user of the original Starlink since November 2020 and love it. During Beta (ended last October) there was a non-disclosure clause, so didn’t say much about it. But compared to cellular, which is all I had before, Starlink is a huge improvement. More than ample for streaming in HD. Very low latency (suitable for gaming). In a heavily wooded area, so needed a roof mount which I did myself. Has a motor which automatically points it at the satellites. And the dish is heated to remove snow and ice. The kit cost $500 and than $99 a month. Steep. But cancelled a $120 monthly DirecTV package the next day - no longer needed.
The price of the new premium Starlink is nuts ($500 monthly). I don’t know who could afford it other than an institution or business.
https://www.cnet.com/home/internet/spacex-launches-starlink-premium-internet-plan-and-its-not-cheap/
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Add: However, additional "research" shows that there is in fact a new offering as you mention. Apparently it is aimed at commercial/business/government entities which might benefit from the increased bandwidth and speeds of the premium version.
Seems to me I’ve heard there’s a considerable backlog now. Maybe long wait. They would ask for a zip code and wouldn’t enroll you if there wasn’t adequate area coverage. Plenty of information online about coverage which has been expanding steadily.
CAUTION - These satellites are quite low in the northern sky (moving W - E). It is paramount you determine that angle to the sky from the ground and the general area of the sky before committing $$. Lots of information online. They have an app that would do this for you, but requires internet to operate. (Duh.) As I mentioned, I needed to roof mount mine on southern edge of home in order to hit their satellites to the north.. Otherwise trees would have interfered.
(Sorry for all the detail - but others likely reading this and I want to be sure I don’t mislead anyone.)
I only checked out the Starlink site to see what they were up to at the moment. Evidently their internet site, supposedly updated only three days ago, hasn't yet been "re-updated" to mention the "premium" service option.
Actually, I think that it's not a bad option for high-traffic users located in remote areas. Starlink likely doesn't really want a whole bunch of such users, because that would take a pretty good bite out of their total bandwidth capacity. But if they are able to add a few high-capacity users to their customer base, why not?
Ok. Got it. I never visit their site. Do have an app installed on my ipad where I can request help if needed. But haven’t used it in many months. Billing automatic of course. I’m sure you saw the related news article I posted.
You are correct that Starlink doesn’t do as well in high density population areas for the reason you stated. That new service was mentioned on Bloomberg TV Tuesday as an almost comical aside. First I heard of it. What got me thinking about it again Wednesday (and than posting) was they launched their second rocket in 2 days. One from the west coast Tuesday with a classified govt. payload and than another from the East coast with 40+ Starlink satellites Wednesday. Amazing!
I’m thinking that premium service would be ideal for a cruise ship.
Solar Storm Destroys 40 New SpaceX Satellites in Orbit