France has almost finished wiring itself with fibre, and Orange is switching off the old copper network commune by commune. That leaves a stubborn minority of homes in an awkward spot: the ADSL line is being closed, fibre has not reached the hamlet, and the 4G signal dies behind the hill. Starlink is the answer many of them are reaching for. This guide looks at the French situation specifically: the price rise this spring, what the dish adds to an electricity bill on the Tarif Bleu, the end of the state’s satellite subsidy, the rules on balconies, façades and protected sectors, and the cases where a 5G box or a few months’ patience beats a €349 kit.
Eight Straight Answers Before You Order
These are the questions people in rural France ask most often when an ADSL closure letter lands or a new house turns out to have no fibre. Short answers first; the reasons and exceptions follow.
Since the price rise in May, Résidentiel 100 is €35 a month, Résidentiel 200 is €45 and Résidentiel Max is €65. Travel plans (Itinérance) are €45 for 100 GB and €95 unlimited. The standard kit is around €349 to buy. Older guides quoting €29, €39 and €59 are out of date.
No. The Cohésion numérique des territoires scheme, which paid up to €300 (or €600 for low-income households) towards satellite or 4G/5G equipment, has been closed since September 2025, according to the ANCT. Plenty of websites still advertise it.
Your line keeps working until your commune’s technical closure date. Check whether fibre is planned at your address first. If it isn’t arriving in time, Starlink or a 4G/5G box are the realistic replacements; satellite wins where mobile signal is weak.
Ookla’s crowd-sourced tests put France’s median Starlink download at about 132 Mbps in late 2025. That is far better than old ADSL, but fibre still wins on upload and latency, which matter for video calls and gaming.
Only for a serious and legitimate reason. French law has given tenants and co-owners a “right to an antenna” since 1966. Notify in writing first, and expect extra steps if the dish goes on the façade or in a protected sector.
At the regulated Tarif Bleu of about €0.20 per kWh, a standard dish running around the clock costs roughly €11–€14 a month. The smaller Mini is closer to €4–€6.
No. Service is month to month, and Starlink offers a 30-day trial on kits bought directly. The flip side: Starlink can change its prices with little warning, as subscribers found out this spring.
Only if you can manage without broadband for a while. Amazon holds an Arcep authorisation for France and the Conseil d’État threw out the challenge to it in July, but there are no French prices and consumer sales had not opened at the time of checking.
What Starlink Really Costs in France
The plan price is only part of the bill. Hardware, a mount, delivery and the dish’s electricity all add up, and the spring price rise changed the arithmetic for anyone reading last year’s reviews.
- Unlimited data
- Download capped at 100 Mbps
- Lower priority than Max at busy times
- Was €29 until May
- Unlimited data
- Download capped at 200 Mbps
- Comfortable for a family evening
- Was €39 until May
- Unlimited data
- Up to around 400 Mbps
- Highest residential priority
- Reported to include a free Mini kit
All three home plans include unlimited data. You pay more for a higher speed ceiling and, on Max, for first place in the queue when your local cell gets busy. On 20 May, Starlink raised all three French tiers by €6 a month and doubled Standby mode (mode veille) from €5 to €10, with little advance notice to existing subscribers. The previous prices of €29, €39 and €59 still appear on dozens of French comparison pages and YouTube videos, so check the date before trusting any figure you read, including ours.
When we compared French pricing guides published after the change, they agreed on €35, €45 and €65 for the home plans, €45 and €95 for the two travel plans, and €10 for Standby. They diverged on the hardware. Most quote around €349 for the standard kit bought outright, one cites a catalogue price that can reach €449, and several mention a rental option of about €10 a month on some addresses. Your own checkout page is the only number that counts, and it can differ from your neighbour’s.
Buy the dish or rent it?
Renting makes sense for one group above all: people who expect fibre within a year or two. You avoid owning a dish you will stop using, and you hand it back when you leave. The catch, in every country where Starlink has offered rentals, is that the account comes with more strings. Pausing service, moving it to a different address or switching plans can be restricted, and you pay return shipping. Read the conditions on the order screen before you click.
Buying is the better deal when your house is far from any fibre plan, when you want to reuse the dish at a second home or on a Roam plan later, or when you might resell it. Used kits circulate on Leboncoin as fibre reaches more villages. If you buy second-hand, insist that the seller removes the dish from their Starlink account before you pay, or it will refuse to activate.
The costs that decide your real monthly figure
Starlink publishes average power draws of roughly 75–100 watts for the standard dish and 25–40 watts for the Mini. Running the standard dish all day uses about 54–72 kWh a month. On the regulated Tarif Bleu Base rate of €0.2001 per kWh from 1 August, that comes to roughly €10.80–€14.40 a month, or €130–€173 a year. On Heures Creuses pricing the cost falls slightly, since part of the dish’s draw lands in off-peak hours. France’s nuclear-heavy grid keeps this far below Irish or German levels, but it still adds about a third to the cheapest plan.
The standard kit ships with a kickstand designed for open ground. That suits a field in the Beauce and fails behind a row of chestnut trees in the Limousin. Wall brackets and poles cost extra, and a local installer will charge for running the cable cleanly through a stone wall. Ask for a fixed quote. If you need a pole, read the section on permits before buying a long one, because height and visibility from the street are exactly what triggers paperwork in France.
Starlink sells French service without a commitment period (sans engagement), which is rare for a box offer. You can stop at the end of any month. But the May increase landed on existing customers too, and Starlink’s terms let it adjust prices as it sees fit. If you receive a price notice, it is a prompt to compare: by then the fibre or 5G situation at your address may have changed. You also keep the 14-day withdrawal right (droit de rétractation) that French law gives online purchases, on top of Starlink’s own 30-day trial.
Travel and second-home plans
The Itinérance (Roam) plans cover camper vans, holiday houses and anyone moving the dish between addresses. A home plan is tied to one fixed address.
| Plan | Monthly price | Fast data | After the allowance | Twelve months | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Itinérance 100 GB | €45 | 100 GB | Unlimited low-speed data | €540 | Weekends, a few weeks at a maison de campagne |
| Itinérance illimitée | €95 | Unlimited | Not applicable | €1,140 | Full-time van life, remote work on the road |
| Mode veille (Standby) | €10 | None | Very slow, messaging only | €120 | Months when the house or van sits empty |
Here is the second-home calculation that most French guides skip. Say you use a house in the Ardèche for four summer months. Itinérance 100 GB for those four months is €180; Standby for the other eight is €80. That is €260 a year, against €420 for Résidentiel 100 left running all year. The 100 GB cap is the trap: a family streaming every evening will use it up within a fortnight, after which the dish crawls. If the house fills with grandchildren every August, budget for the unlimited plan in that month.
Speed, Latency and French Weather
Starlink’s own speed claims run higher than independent tests show. This section uses Ookla’s Speedtest data, collected from real customers’ connections.
France is one of Starlink’s oldest European markets, and its customer base is large, which is why its median sits in the middle of the pack rather than the top. Ookla’s Europe-wide report for the first quarter of this year found Starlink’s median across 27 countries had risen to about 166 Mbps, a 45% gain in a year. The same report adds the necessary caveat: fixed networks had lower latency in every one of those countries and better upload in 26 of them. In France, where most fibre subscriptions sold today run at 500 Mbps or more, the gap with fibre is wide.
What that means at home: downloads are good enough for several 4K streams, big game downloads and normal family use. Upload is the weak point. If you send large files, stream video or rely on cloud backup, you will notice the difference from fibre straight away. Latency of roughly 20–60 milliseconds is excellent for satellite and fine for video calls, but competitive online gaming still favours fibre’s lower, steadier ping.
Rain, snow, mistral and the tree problem
Heavy rain can slow a satellite link, and research groups in northern Europe have measured the drop. Day to day, owners mostly notice weather during violent Mediterranean storms (épisodes cévenols) or heavy, wet snow. The dish has a heating mode to melt snow, which works but pushes power use well above the averages quoted earlier; in the Alps or the Massif Central, expect a higher electricity figure in winter. Wind matters more than rain. A dish on a loose pole that sways in the mistral or a tramontane gust will drop out, so mount it rigidly.
The most common cause of a poor Starlink experience in France is not weather at all: it is a hedge, a line of poplars or a steep valley side blocking part of the sky. Mountain hamlets in deep valleys can lose a large slice of the view, and no plan upgrade fixes that. Run the obstruction check in the Starlink app before ordering, from the exact spot and height where the dish will sit.
The Copper Switch-Off and What It Means for You
This is the uniquely French part of the story. Orange is closing the copper network that carries ADSL and traditional landlines, in batches of communes, with the last lines due to go by the end of 2030.
Two dates matter for each commune. The commercial closure is when you can no longer order a new ADSL line; Arcep says most lines nationally were commercially closed in January this year, with the rest due in January 2027. The technical closure is when existing ADSL service and the old switched landline network actually stop. Until your commune’s technical date, an existing line keeps working. Orange and the other operators must ask you to switch beforehand.
For most people, the replacement is fibre. At the end of March, Arcep counted 42.8 million of France’s 45.1 million premises able to order it, a coverage rate of 94.9%, with 27.7 million fibre subscriptions making up 84% of all internet subscriptions. That still leaves around 2.3 million premises that cannot order fibre yet. Many of them are exactly the isolated farmhouses, hamlets and mountain properties where Starlink makes sense. If your address is one of them, and your copper line has a closure date before fibre is due, satellite or a 4G/5G box are your realistic options.
For years the State helped households without good broadband buy a satellite or 4G/5G kit through the Cohésion numérique des territoires scheme: up to €300, or up to €600 for households on minimum social benefits or with a CAF or MSA family quotient under €700 a month. The ANCT says the scheme has been closed since September 2025, after funding around 240,000 connections. Many installer and comparison websites still advertise the aid. If someone offers to “deduct the State subsidy” from a new Starlink order, ask in writing which scheme they mean before paying anything.
Which Situation Are You In?
A star rating can’t tell you whether Starlink will suit a farmhouse in the Creuse, a chalet above a ski resort or a camper van on the Atlantic coast. These are the circumstances that most often decide how it goes.
This is where Starlink is easiest to recommend. Start on Résidentiel 100 or 200; at ADSL speeds of a few Mbps, even the cheapest tier is a transformation. Keep the old line running until you have used Starlink for a few weeks and confirmed it works at your house, then cancel. If you have a landline number you want to keep, sort that out separately: Starlink does not provide a fixed phone line, so you will need a mobile, a VoIP service or a basic voice offer from an operator.
Don’t buy a €349 dish for a short wait. Look at a 4G/5G box without commitment if the mobile signal is decent, or a Starlink rental if one is offered at your address. Fibre in France often lands months later than the first date announced on the Arcep map, so build in slack. Once fibre is installed and has worked for a week, cancel Starlink in your account and return any rented hardware promptly.
Mountains cut both ways. Mobile coverage is often poor, which makes Starlink attractive, but a north-facing slope or a narrow valley can hide a large slice of the sky. Run the obstruction scan before ordering, ideally from a roof or upper-floor window rather than the garden. In snowy areas, use a mount that keeps the dish clear of drifts and slides off the roof, and expect higher winter power use when the snow-melt heater runs. A chalet used only in ski season is a classic case for an Itinérance plan in winter and Standby the rest of the year.
Latency is low enough that video calls work well. Upload is the pressure point, so run an Ethernet cable from the router to your desk, schedule large uploads early in the morning, and keep a phone hotspot as backup for the day a satellite blip hits an important meeting. If your employer pays a télétravail allowance, check whether the Starlink subscription and electricity count towards it. If the connection is business-critical, Starlink’s business plans carry different terms from Résidentiel, which is sold for personal use.
Guests expect Wi-Fi, and a weak connection hurts reviews. But Résidentiel is a personal plan; giving Wi-Fi to paying guests is commercial use, and Starlink points business customers to its business plans. Price both and check the terms before you rely on a home plan. For a small gîte, the main practical issue is evening load: several guests streaming at once is exactly when the 100 and 200 tiers drop down the priority order. Put guest Wi-Fi on its own network, and keep the owner’s computer wired.
A home plan running all year for a house you visit a few months a year is the most common way people overpay. Use Itinérance 100 GB when you’re there, unlimited for the busy weeks, and Standby (€10 a month) in between. Bear in mind that the €10 Standby fee doubled in May and could change again. If the house is empty all winter, a Mini you take home with you is safer than a standard dish left bolted to a roof through the storm season.
Pair a Mini with an Itinérance plan. On a leisure battery, the Mini’s 25–40 watts is manageable; the standard dish at 75–100 watts drains a small system overnight. Full-time remote workers should budget for unlimited at €95. Starlink publishes limits for travel outside your home country, use in motion and use near the coast on Roam plans, so read them before heading to Spain or Italy for the winter rather than assuming the plan follows you indefinitely.
Storm Ciarán in November 2023 left over a million homes in western France without electricity, and mobile masts went down with the grid. Starlink’s satellites don’t care about fallen trees, but a dish without power is dead. Our rough figures: a 1,000 Wh portable power station runs a standard dish for roughly 10–13 hours before inverter losses, and a Mini for two to three times as long. If you already have fibre and only want storm cover, a Mini on a low-cost plan or Standby is the cheapest way to keep a lifeline open.
We found no senior or social tariff on Starlink’s French plans, and the State aid has ended, so the savings come from choices: the cheapest tier your address offers, a rental if fibre is coming, and the electricity cost included in the monthly budget before you commit. Ask your mairie, département or region whether any local digital-inclusion help exists; some local authorities run their own schemes. If you install it for a parent, keep the account in a name you can manage, write the Wi-Fi details on the router, and agree a simple “unplug, wait thirty seconds, plug back in” routine.
Balconies, Façades, Syndics and Planning Permits
French law is unusually protective of your right to install an antenna, but urban planning rules and protected sectors can still get in the way. Here’s how the two fit together.
The right to an antenna. Since a law of 2 July 1966, amended in 1986, a landlord or co-ownership cannot simply forbid a tenant or co-owner from installing a receiving antenna. They can object only for a serious and legitimate reason: a collective installation that already provides the same services, a genuine safety risk, or in some cases a serious aesthetic harm. A neighbour disliking the look is not enough. Copropriété rules can regulate where and how the dish goes, but not ban it outright.
How to do it properly. Write to the landlord or syndic by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt (lettre recommandée avec accusé de réception), describing the equipment, its size, and how and where it will be fixed. French guides on the procedure note a three-month window for a reasoned objection. A dish on your private balcony that doesn’t alter the façade usually needs only that notification. Fixing it to the façade or to a common part such as the roof generally requires approval at the general assembly (assemblée générale). If you’re refused without a valid reason, the tribunal judiciaire is the route.
Planning rules. Under the Code de l’urbanisme, works that change the external appearance of a building can require a déclaration préalable at the mairie, and protected sectors near listed monuments bring in the Architecte des Bâtiments de France (ABF), who can impose a colour or position or refuse. A dish visible from the street is the case most likely to need paperwork. The Starlink dish is smaller than most old TV satellite dishes, which helps, but don’t assume. Your commune’s PLU may also set rules on equipment on roofs and façades. The urbanisme office at the mairie can tell you in five minutes; ask before you buy a tall pole.
Common Problems, Quick Fixes and How to Complain
Owners rarely blame the satellites. Most frustration comes from obstructions, Wi-Fi that won’t pass through thick stone walls, surprise price changes, and support that only works through tickets.
| What you see | Most likely cause | Try this first | Escalate when |
|---|---|---|---|
| Drops every few minutes | Trees, hedges or a hillside in the dish’s view | Open the app’s obstruction map; move or raise the dish | Map is clear and drops continue after a restart |
| Slow every evening | Busy cell and lower priority on 100/200 tiers | Test early morning and evening on a wired device | Morning speeds are also far below the tier |
| Wi-Fi dies two rooms away | Thick stone walls (murs en pierre) | Move the router central; add a mesh node or a wired access point | Wired devices are slow too |
| Bill went up | The May price rise, or a plan change | Check the price notice email and billing history | A charge matches no order or notice |
| Lost the landline after ADSL closure | Starlink does not include a phone line | Use a VoIP service or a basic voice offer | An operator cut your line before the closure date |
| Second-hand dish won’t activate | Still registered to the seller’s account | Ask the seller to remove it from their account | Seller can’t be reached |
Getting a complaint resolved in France
Starlink has no phone support. Everything goes through tickets in your online account and the app. Write one issue per ticket, with dates and order numbers in the first lines, and attach screenshots of the app’s speed test and obstruction map. That written trail matters later.
French consumer law gives you a mediation route that’s free for you. Every professional selling to consumers must offer access to a consumer mediator (Code de la consommation, article L612-1). For telecoms, the usual body is the Médiateur des communications électroniques, which covers the large majority of French consumer providers. Its standard procedure: complain to customer service, then in writing to the provider’s consumer-relations department; if you have no satisfactory answer, you can refer the dispute to the mediator, and you have one year from your written complaint to do so. Before you start, check whether Starlink is a member on the mediator’s site; if it isn’t, ask Starlink in writing which mediator it uses, as it is required to tell you.
For problems such as misleading information or unfair terms, you can also file a report with the DGCCRF through SignalConso. It won’t resolve your individual dispute, but reports feed into investigations. Local consumer associations such as UFC-Que Choisir can help you draft letters and escalate.
Starlink Against the French Alternatives
Before paying for a dish, rule out anything cheaper that already reaches your door. In France, eligibility at your exact address decides far more than brand loyalty.
| Option | Typical monthly cost | Speed and upload | Latency | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Starlink Résidentiel | €35–€65 | France median ~132 Mbps down; modest upload | ~20–60 ms | Trees, valleys, price changes |
| Fibre (Orange, Free, SFR, Bouygues and others) | From the low €20s on promotions | 500 Mbps to multi-gigabit; strong upload | Lowest | Prices that rise after year one; 12-month terms |
| 4G/5G box | Commonly €25–€45 | Excellent near a mast, poor in valleys | Varies | Signal varies by room; masts fail in storms |
| Other satellite (GEO, e.g. Nordnet) | Varies | Lower speeds, often data limits | Several hundred ms | Video calls and gaming struggle |
| Amazon Leo | Not announced | Not yet measurable | Not yet measurable | Authorised in France, but consumer sales not open |
The 4G/5G box is Starlink’s real rival in rural France. It is usually cheaper, needs no dish, and the four big operators sell versions without commitment. Its weakness is the signal: strong at the top of the garden, weak in the kitchen, and liable to fail when a storm knocks out a mast. Test any box at the exact spot it will live during the withdrawal period, and check the operators’ coverage on Arcep’s “Mon réseau mobile” map.
Amazon Leo is the competitor that could change prices. Arcep granted it a ten-year frequency authorisation in July 2025, and in July this year the Conseil d’État dismissed a union’s challenge, removing the last legal obstacle. Industry reports list France among the first five countries for consumer service. As of this check, it was still in a pre-commercial test phase with no French prices. If you need broadband this winter, it is not part of the decision; if you can wait, it is worth watching.
Final Verdict: Order, Wait or Skip
Your address can’t order fibre, your ADSL is slow or closing, mobile signal is weak indoors, and the obstruction scan shows mostly open sky. You’ll get broadband that handles streaming, calls and family use comfortably, for €35–€65 a month plus about €11–€14 in electricity, with no commitment holding you when fibre arrives.
Fibre is due within months, a 4G/5G box gets a solid signal indoors, your property sits in a deep valley or under heavy tree cover, or you’re in a protected sector where the only clear spot is on the street-facing roof. A cheaper bridge or a talk with the mairie beats buying a dish today.
Fibre is already orderable, you need fast uploads every day, you play competitive games online, or you need a landline and guaranteed support by phone. A business that can’t tolerate downtime should pair fibre with a separate backup rather than rely on a personal satellite plan.
Questions people still ask
Does Starlink include a landline number in France?
No. It provides internet only. To keep making fixed-line style calls after an ADSL closure, use a VoIP service over Starlink or a basic voice offer from an operator, and check how number portability works first.
Is there a data cap?
Not on the three Résidentiel plans, which are unlimited. Itinérance 100 GB gives 100 GB of fast data a month, then unlimited low-speed data. Itinérance illimitée has no allowance.
Can I use my home plan at my holiday house or in a camper van?
No. Résidentiel service is tied to one fixed address. Use an Itinérance plan for a second location or for travel.
Can my syndic or landlord refuse the dish?
Only for a serious and legitimate reason, under France’s 1966 right-to-antenna law. Notify them by registered letter first; fixing the dish to a façade or common area usually needs a vote at the general assembly.
Is the €300 state subsidy for satellite still available?
No. The Cohésion numérique des territoires scheme has been closed since September 2025, according to the ANCT. Ask your local authority whether any regional or departmental aid exists.
Can I cancel when fibre arrives?
Yes. Starlink in France has no commitment period. Wait until fibre is installed and working, then cancel in your account, and return rented equipment promptly.
How this page was checked. Plan prices were compared across French pricing guides published after Starlink’s May price change and Starlink’s own plan pages on 20 October. Speed figures come from Ookla Speedtest reports; fibre coverage and subscription data from Arcep; the copper-closure schedule from Arcep’s guidance on Orange’s plan; subsidy status from the ANCT; electricity prices from the regulated Tarif Bleu in force from 1 August; antenna and planning rules from the 1966 right-to-antenna law and the Code de l’urbanisme as explained in French legal guidance. Electricity and year-one figures are our own calculations and labelled as such. Starlink changes plans and prices often; your checkout page is the final word.
This page is independent and is not affiliated with Starlink, SpaceX, Orange or any provider mentioned. It is general information, not legal, planning or financial advice. For planning questions about a specific property, contact your mairie’s urbanisme department.
Key sources: Starlink France plan pages · Arcep (fixed broadband observatory, copper closure guidance) · ANCT (France Très Haut Débit) · Ookla Speedtest reports · Code de l’urbanisme · Loi du 2 juillet 1966 (droit à l’antenne) · Médiateur des communications électroniques