I’m sail from New Zealand into the South Pacific—probably Tonga and/or Fiji—in April this year. A few questions I couldn’t find answers to on Starlink site:
- Starlink made a big deal of switching on service after Tonga-Hapu eruption to help with relief efforts, but the Starlink site says Tonga/Fiji coverage “starting Q2 2023″… has anyone from this group successfully used Starlink in Tonga or Fiji?
- Is Starlink enforcing the two-month limit on out-of-country use?
- Has anyone sailed offshore within the “Oceania” continent and had service while in transit?
- Is Starlink enforcing/throttling/limiting in-motion use of the Standard dish on RV license? (Only Flat HP dish technically allowed for in-motion use.)
All excellent questions. This situation is still evolving, so any answers here probably have a short half-life, but here goes:
So the upshot is that there’s no service today once you leave NZ, & Starlink’s very tight-lipped about the future, so nobody really knows when the South Pacific’s going to turn on.
We were just in tonga and yes, starlink was working on a number of government buildings. Since the volcano took out the fibre optic cable, the phone companies have been struggling to get satellite service back up and running for the public. Parks and restaurants near the government offices have hotspots where you can get pretty fast Starlink WIFI service…
Starlink works in fiji