Elon Musk’s Starlink, which delivers the internet by satellite, has received a formal warning from the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA).
The service signed up its first Australian customers in 2021, after launching in 2019, and its popularity grew rapidly due to the continent’s remote geography.
In many places outside of cities and sizeable towns, traditional delivery by fibre optic cables or Wi-Fi is impossible, and remote areas that do have alternatives usually have to rely on the slower copper wire network.
According to the Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development, as of early 2025, Starlink has over 350,000 customers in Australia, representing approximately 4.2 percent of homes.
Telecommunications companies with more than 30,000 active customers are required to report to ACMA on the number and nature of complaints they receive, no later than 30 days after each quarter.
But Starlink failed to do so on four occasions between October 2023 and July 2024.
“Starlink’s failure to submit the required complaints reports in a timely way hampered the ACMA in its role of monitoring whether Starlink is meeting its obligations towards consumers,” authority member Samantha Yorke said.
ACMA says the company has since rectified the issue by providing the outstanding complaints reports and cooperated throughout the investigation.
The growing uptake of Starlink has led to speculation that it could become a competitor to Australia’s National Broadband Network (NBN), but there are concerns about the risks this may pose.
In July 2023, Optus announced a partnership with Starlink to deliver outdoor direct-to-home (DTH) mobile connectivity in areas without existing mobile coverage, providing near 100 percent coverage of the Australian continent where the user has line of sight to the sky.
Optus has indicated it plans to initially roll out SMS capability. Voice and limited data capabilities will be available about a year after the initial deployment, once more Starlink DTH capable satellites are launched.
However, some submissions to the review pointed out that the high upfront equipment costs, ongoing subscription fees and self-install model make it inaccessible for some households and businesses, especially in rural and remote areas.
“Starlink requires the installation of a $599 terminal and a monthly fee of $139 for a residential service. This is out of reach for lowest income households,” according to a submission from ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision-Making.
