After a brief debut in September, Starlink’s Wi-Fi 7 router is now available to new customers.
The official Starlink account tweeted the news, revealing the next-gen “Router 4” is starting to ship for new sign-ups of the Residential 200 Mbps and Max plans in the US and Canada.
The change swaps out the older Router 3, which supported Wi-Fi 6, and came bundled with the standard V4 Starlink dish. Instead, new customers will get the Router 4, which has been designed for “faster peak speeds, faster client connections, and increased range,” SpaceX said on a support page in September.
Our own tests have found Wi-Fi 7 can reach speeds of 2Gbps at close range. However, Starlink can usually only deliver 100-300Mbps downloads. So the new router is more about better consistency over coverage and performance in congested environments.
(Credit: Starlink.com)
Router 4 is slightly larger than the Router Mini, which launched last year and comes bundled with the cheaper Residential 100Mbps plan for new sign-ups. Router 4 also features up to 3,500 square feet of coverage, an increase from around 2,000 square feet for the Router Mini. (Users can also use the “bypass mode” to hook up a Starlink dish to a third-party router if they prefer.)
For now, Router 4 isn’t available as a standalone product on the Starlink Shop, which sells accessories for existing customers. That said, SpaceX did invite a select few users to try it out. “It’s free, but the purchase price would be $115,” one Reddit user reported.
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Roger Entner, an analyst at Recon Analytics, also reported receiving a free Router 4, and wrote: “Swapped the cables, three minutes later, the new router was up and running. I had to redo the custom SSID Wi-Fi network.” Although the max broadband speed didn’t change, the gap between wireless Wi-Fi and cable-based Ethernet speeds was substantially smaller, he added.
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Starlink is bundling the Router 4 as the satellite internet service starts offering discounts of 30% to 50% in select areas of the US for the Residential plans. The new deals appear to be part of a holiday sales push as SpaceX looks to accelerate growth, which might also include the launch of a second-gen Starlink Mini dish for portable use.
About Our Expert
Michael Kan
Principal Reporter
Experience
I’ve been a journalist for over 15 years. I got my start as a schools and cities reporter in Kansas City and joined PCMag in 2017, where I cover satellite internet services, cybersecurity, PC hardware, and more. I’m currently based in San Francisco, but previously spent over five years in China, covering the country’s technology sector.
Since 2020, I’ve covered the launch and explosive growth of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite internet service, writing 600+ stories on availability and feature launches, but also the regulatory battles over the expansion of satellite constellations, fights with rival providers like AST SpaceMobile and Amazon, and the effort to expand into satellite-based mobile service. I’ve combed through FCC filings for the latest news and driven to remote corners of California to test Starlink’s cellular service.
I also cover cyber threats, from ransomware gangs to the emergence of AI-based malware. In 2024 and 2025, the FTC forced Avast to pay consumers $16.5 million for secretly harvesting and selling their personal information to third-party clients, as revealed in my joint investigation with Motherboard.
I also cover the PC graphics card market. Pandemic-era shortages led me to camp out in front of a Best Buy to get an RTX 3000. I’m now following how the AI-driven memory shortage is impacting the entire consumer electronics market. I’m always eager to learn more, so please jump in the comments with feedback and send me tips.
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