Starlink was offered for free to those hit by Hurricane Helene. It is not entirely free • The Register

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And now SpaceX clarifies special promotion

Brandon Vigliarolo Tue 8 Oct 2024 // 17:07 UTC 65

Updated The free Starlink service Elon Musk and SpaceX so graciously promised for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene in the US is not actually entirely free, according to those living in the aftermath - and the internet satellite operator's own signup page.

There is a significant caveat: You are still expected to foot the bill for the hardware.

Starlink's Twitter account declared last week, in a post with tens of millions of views, that "Starlink is now free for 30 days." The world's richest man, with a net worth of approximately $260 billion, followed up by saying, in quite the PR coup, that all Starlink terminals would now work automatically "without [the] need for payment in the areas affected by Hurricane Helene."

But try to sign up for the ostensibly "free" service in an area Starlink has designated as a Helene disaster zone, and surprise: You still have to pay for the terminal (normally $350, but reportedly discounted to $299 for disaster relief, though that's not reflected in Starlink's signup page), plus shipping and tax, bringing the grand total to just shy of $400.

You can see for yourself in the video below; putting in the address of city hall in Boone, North Carolina, one of the areas wrecked by the lethal super storm, shows folks recovering from the disaster are still expected to pay hundreds for that that free, month-long Starlink service. Though better than nothing at all, it is not quite the humanitarian aid it was promoted and heralded as.

Read further into the details on Starlink's help page for Hurricane Helene, and one might think it's a ploy to bag new customers in far-flung places.

According to the Starlink Helene page, new customers who qualify for free access will be automatically moved to a paid $120-a-month residential subscription tied to the location the terminal was set up for after 30 days.

Existing customers who already have a dish and want to have their fees waived as a result of the disaster, meanwhile, have to create a support ticket that Starlink will evaluate for a waiver later. Not quite as clear cut as Musk's promise that all terminals in affected areas will get service "without the need for payment."

In the words of Boone resident Kinney Baughman, the offer appears more "a crafty, bait and switch ... meant to take advantage of people instead of helping them."

The Register interviewed Baughman - a philosophy professor and IT pro, whose power had just been restored in the wake of Helene - about what he's seen on the ground from SpaceX's Starlink. Spoiler alert: He's not impressed.

Baughman told us that after Musk made the free service offer, the North Carolinian started getting calls from friends asking whether it was worth signing up, and he said, yes, it is - in limited cases.

"There may be isolated scenarios when what [Musk] is offering will be a service," Baughman said. "But we're talking about cases where someone's way up a holler, doesn't have access to cell service, and where the flooding has broken their fiber. You're looking at months before you get service. In that case you might want to think about [Starlink]."

But that's an isolated case, Baughman noted. By the time Starlink arrives for others, general internet service may already be working, and thus someone is roped into paying for a satellite service they don't actually need.

"If UPS can drive a truck to your house [to deliver the Starlink receiver], you're not in that bad of shape," Baughman told us, so if you can get that terminal, you might not really need it by the time it gets there in Starlink's 2-3 week delivery window.

And that's not even including the need to power the thing.

"Assuming someone can get over the one or two, if not more, bridges that are down and physically get their hands on the device, you still need electricity to run the thing," Baughman noted. "Thousands of people are out of power still and hundreds if not thousands of those don't have a generator."

"He's pitching it to a broad audience that, hey, I'll give you free internet," Baughman concluded of Musk's offer. But it's not free at all, he said, making it nothing but "a play on the desperation" of North Carolinians still trying to recover, and a PR drive over little.

"When someone comes along and says I'm going to give you free internet, people start going nuts," Baughman said. "Starlink is pulling on the heart strings of people overwhelmed by disaster."

Fine print, and reality, get in the way

It's also tricky to sign up for a broadband internet service with no internet. And if you can get enough cellular signal to sign up now, you might wonder why you would wait weeks to be pulled into a paid-for satellite service.

Register editor Nicole Hemsoth Prickett took the "free" service for a spin on a wrecked, closed section of the Blue Ridge Parkway deep in Helene damage territory, clicked on the $0 offer, and ended up with a cart totaling nearly $400.

"Like everyone else using what little phone battery was left, I navigated with SOS bars and no connectivity to starlink.com/activate only to see that it wasn't actually free," she said. "I could connect to an active webpage in the middle of nowhere, which really says hey, data connectivity could actually be working again, but not for you with Starlink unless you pony up. It was insult to injury for many here who thought Free Internet Space Magic was real.

Musk said Starlink terminals were being deployed in public buildings, such as city halls, fire departments, and the like, and there's evidence terminals have been deployed in those locations.

That said, "there are a lot of people who still can't get [to those places]," Baughman told us.

Musk seemed to acknowledge the shortcomings in his earlier plan to ship Starlink terminals directly to some locations, telling conservative pundit Tucker Carlson that, when Starlink first wanted to distribute dishes in North Carolina, it wasn't allowed to land any of its helicopters to deliver the hardware because of temporary rules in place requiring any aircraft landing in the disaster area to know who it was meeting with.

"It's obviously impossible for people without internet communications to let us know who they are because they don't have the internet," Musk said, while giving credit to US transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg for fixing the situation, and presumably allowing Musk's helicopters in, after a phone conversation.

"No one is shutting down the airspace and FAA doesn't block legitimate rescue and recovery flights," Buttigieg said on X. "If you're encountering a problem give me a call."

The White House has described its efforts to help those affected by the hurricane here.

Sales drive

Interestingly enough, as Baughman pointed out, the Helene Starlink offer seems pretty close to the 30-day trial the SpaceX subsidiary offers new residential customers. But there are differences. That 30-day trial offer allows users to return the hardware for a full refund after that period. The $120 service charge for the trial is not returned. The marketing around that has led someto believe, wrongly, it's 30 days of free service with the option to back out entirely, fully refunded, if unhappy with the connectivity.

The Helene offer, meanwhile, is 30 days of free service, provided one already has a dish or is willing to buy it knowing they'll be moved to a paid-for plan straight after.

"[Musk is] just building a customer base," Baughman concluded.

We note SpaceX is also working with the FCC to get its direct-to-cellular satellite service available to those in North Carolina, though it's not yet known whether the service will be practically usable for anything beyond getting emergency push alerts.

"The satellites have already been enabled and started broadcasting emergency alerts to cellphones on all networks in North Carolina," SpaceX said on X. "In addition, we may test basic texting (SMS) capabilities for most cell phones on the T-Mobile network in North Carolina."

However, "SpaceX's direct-to-cell constellation has not been fully deployed, so all services will be delivered on a best-effort basis," the aerospace giant added.

We've reached out to SpaceX and Musk to get their sides of the story, and we haven't heard back from either despite numerous emails.

"If [Musk] was really interested in helping us up here he'd be giving the devices, letting folks use them for 30 days, collecting them, and sending them to Florida," Baughman said, referring to Hurricane Milton, currently gathering its strength in the Gulf of Mexico and predicted to be one of the most devastating storms to ever hit the state of Florida.

Floridians, take notice: Beware geeks bearing gifts in the coming days. ®

Updated to add at 1830 UTC

It appears since we published this article, the Starlink help page for Helene communities has been updated with the following caveat:

Please note: A Starlink kit is required to access this free service. If you do not already have a Starlink kit, you will need to purchase one from starlink.com/residential or an authorized retailer such as Best Buy or Home Depot.

Yesterday, that notice was not on that page, as captured by the Internet Archive. We've also clarified in our coverage the terms of the residential trial offer. We're happy to help.