This might be reflected in upcoming metrics reported on Friday if the IPO goes through. It seems aligned with improving subscriber growth metrics, smoothing out upfront hardware costs into predictable monthly revenue, and generally increasing adoption by lowering the barrier to entry. Curious if anyone closely following the IPO story has more context on this.
I suspect this will change, or not roll out in many places, or users will get the choice between up-front or rental. Router rental isn't tolerated by the market in the UK or AU from what I've seen.
For AU consumers it puts even more obligations onto starlink. Only Telstra does this, that I am aware of, and their rental device comes with full remote configuration support for the duration. Telstra of course is targeting "Sell this product to your in laws and you never have to give them router support again". Starlink on the other hand, are trying the old Wisp gamble of hoping that people keep paying for their hardware long after it has paid off, which is probably a poor decision at least where Australia is concerned.
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