Starlink's evening congestion drops speeds from 200 Mbps to under 25 Mbps in oversold cells

Starlink residential users in densely subscribed cells experience severe speed degradation during peak evening hours (5-11 PM), with download speeds dropping from 200+ Mbps off-peak to under 25 Mbps during congestion. Starlink's deprioritization system means that Standard plan users (the $120/month residential tier) are automatically throttled when cells are oversold. The real pain: a rural family that switched from a 10 Mbps DSL line to Starlink expecting 200 Mbps finds that during the hours they actually use the internet most -- evening homework, streaming, video calls with family -- speeds can crater below what their old DSL provided. They cannot predict when congestion will hit or how severe it will be, making it impossible to schedule important video calls or uploads during peak hours. The only fix is upgrading to Priority data at $250+/month, which is unaffordable for most rural households. This persists because Starlink has no per-cell subscriber caps and continues selling residential plans in already-congested cells, since turning away customers hurts revenue.