Free Starlink satellite Internet offer aims to boost uptake of expensive maritime tier

While standard residential Starlink satellite Internet service one can get at Best Buy or Home Depot is priced rather reasonably, the commercial roaming tiers that SpaceX offers can be in the thousands. Last year, it made Starlink available on moving trains, planes, boats, RVs and the like, at a price.

The residential Starlink tier costs $120 a month with an upfront hardware cost of $599 that often gets on sale in regions like Australia or New Zealand where SpaceX wants to grab market share. The next Roaming tier level costs $150 a month and allows subscribers to take their satellite Internet dish on the go.

The high-end Boat tier, however, starts from $250 a month for 50GB of data, and can go up to the whopping $5,000 for the 5TB needed for "boats with crews, supporting streaming, video calls, and more." That's not even counting the $2,500 equipment needed to provide Starlink satellite Internet on moving ships or boats.

As if to soothe the upfront costs somehow, and present the service to wider maritime audience, authorized resellers like Anuvu, Aage Hempel, Castor Marine, IEC Telecom, Navarino, Station Satcom, Clarus Networks, or Totoheo now offer a Starlink subscription promo.

The free Starlink satellite Internet service they provide is of the most expensive 5TB tier and costs $10,000 for the two months gratis available to ships with a registered IMO number. The promo will only run until March 1, so those who'd like to try Starlink for free in the high seas have until then to sign up for a test drive of SpaceX's up and coming satellite Internet service.