Verizon 5G Home vs Starlink

Which Verizon home internet do you have: 5G Home, LTE Home or Lite?

Verizon sells three 5G Home plans: 5G Home, 5G Home Plus and 5G Home Ultimate (plus Home Internet Lite plans where 5G Home isn't available). Some homes are still on the older LTE Home. These services behave very differently, so check your bill or the Verizon app for the plan name before you compare anything.

• 5G Home (and Plus, Ultimate) uses Verizon’s fastest 5G network. Data is unlimited. This is the version that competes head-on with Starlink.
• LTE Home uses Verizon’s older 4G LTE network. LTE Home is closed to new sign-ups; existing LTE Home customers can stay or switch plans. If you have it, ask Verizon whether 5G Home now reaches your address: that may be the cheapest upgrade.
• Home Internet Lite is for addresses where 5G Home isn’t offered. Verizon Home Internet Lite costs $60 a month before discounts ($35 with Auto Pay and a Verizon phone plan) for up to 25 Mbps (typically 10–25 Mbps) on the first 150 GB each bill cycle, then up to 10 Mbps; Lite Extra costs $80 and keeps full speed for the first 200 GB.

Lite is where Starlink most often wins. A household that streams in the evening can use up a monthly allowance well before the bill date, and from then on the connection is slow until the next cycle. Starlink lists unlimited data on every Residential plan.

How much is Verizon 5G Home compared with Starlink?

Verizon’s three 5G Home plans cost $60/mo, $70/mo and $85/mo before discounts. The discounts: $10 a month off with Auto Pay and paper-free billing, and $15 off with a Verizon postpaid phone plan (business, data-only and Verizon One accounts excluded). That second discount is what brings 5G Home down to $35/mo. If your phones are on a Verizon One account, it doesn’t apply.

• Taxes: taxes and fees are included in Verizon's advertised home internet price. Starlink is the other way round: Starlink may add taxes and legally required fees on top of service, kit and accessory charges.
• The price lock covers less than it sounds: the base monthly rate is locked for 3 years (5G Home), 4 years (Plus) or 5 years (Ultimate); discounts, promotions, perks and equipment charges are not locked. So the phone-plan discount can change even while the base price is locked.
• Offers: Verizon is also running a limited-time offer of bill credits on new 5G Home plans. Count it as a one-off, not as part of the monthly price.

Starlink sets its price by address: US Residential prices vary by region, and starlink.com hides Residential prices until you type in an address. For reference, with no address entered, Starlink’s US national order list showed Residential 100 Mbps at $49.50, 200 Mbps at $76.50 and Max at $143 a month on Nov 3, 2026; prices vary by address, and starlink.com shows yours once you enter it, while starlink.com still quoted $55, $85 and $130 monthly for those plans that day on the order page of one public test address, a courthouse in Broken Bow, Nebraska (the national prices until about Oct 25, 2026). Then the kit: buying costs $349, and renting, where Starlink offers it, starts with a one-time $0, $99 or $199 set by address and plan (the $99 adds professional installation; the $199 is a rental kit that includes it). For most Verizon phone customers who can get 5G Home, Verizon will cost less each month. Every cost of switching, added up

Does Verizon 5G Home slow down in the evening?

On busy evenings, Verizon sounds more confident than most. Its 5G Home page offers unlimited data; Verizon says even the basic 5G Home plan keeps high-speed data when the network is busy, subject to its customer agreement. Starlink is more cautious: it names its peak hours as 6 pm to 11 pm local time, and its plan terms say speeds can slow during network congestion and peak hours, Residential 100 and 200 Mbps slow down sooner than Residential Max, and Starlink may cut the speed of households that use far more than a typical home.

Promises aside, every wireless service shares capacity with its neighbors. If your 5G Home or LTE Home is fine late at night and slow every evening, the tower near you is busy, whatever the plan page says. Test at 8 p.m. on several evenings, and judge by that.

Download speeds were close. Lag was 53 ms for Verizon and 39 ms for Starlink, both fine for video calls. The bigger gap is upload, the speed of what you send: video calls, work files, photo backups. If someone at home works on video calls, compare uploads at 8 p.m. One more number from the same Ookla report: in Q2 2026, fewer than 40% of fixed-wireless Speedtest users in 48 states got the FCC's 100/20 Mbps broadband standard.

Verizon’s own speed figures are maximums: download speeds of up to 100 Mbps (5G Home), 150 Mbps (Plus) or 300 Mbps (Ultimate). Starlink’s: Starlink's Specifications expect 80–100 Mbps download on Residential 100 and 80–200 Mbps on Residential 200, 15–35 Mbps upload on both, and send you to the coverage map for Residential Max.

Verizon pays up to $500 of your old provider’s fee

Leaving HughesNet, Viasat or another provider before your contract ends? Verizon gives new home internet customers a credit toward that early termination fee (the fee for leaving a contract early), up to $500. The conditions, in short: for new Verizon Home Internet customers who paid an early termination fee to their old provider in the last 4 months; send proof within 90 days of setup; paid as a bill credit; taken back if the Verizon service is cancelled within 90 days; you still pay the old provider yourself.

Two things to know. It’s a credit on your Verizon bill, not cash, and only up to the fee you actually paid. And you pay the old provider first. For scale, a HughesNet customer can owe up to $400 to leave early. T-Mobile has a similar offer of up to $750 as a prepaid card (T-Mobile vs Starlink). We haven’t seen Starlink offer anything like it. Your own fee: fee calculator.

On LTE Home or Lite? Check for 5G Home and a better spot first

Before you replace Verizon with anything, rule out the cheaper fixes:

1. Check 5G Home at your address. Put your exact address into Verizon’s home internet checker. Address-based: not every area with Verizon 5G Ultra Wideband phone coverage can get 5G Home, so a neighbor’s answer doesn’t count.
2. Ask about switching plans. LTE Home customers can move to another Verizon home internet plan. If 5G Home is offered, ask for its price with your discounts.
3. Move the Verizon box. A window on the side of the house facing the tower, upstairs if you can, often helps a weak signal. Test at 8 p.m. and late at night after each move.

Verizon 5G Home vs Starlink, side by side

The same rows, in the same order, are on our T-Mobile and AT&T Internet Air comparisons. Lite and LTE Home aren’t in the table because Verizon sells them only where 5G Home isn’t available.

How to compare Verizon and Starlink at your house

1. Write down a week of Verizon evenings

   5 minutes a day

   Run a speed test near the Verizon box at about 8 p.m. and again late at night. Note download, upload and ping (lag). On Lite, also note how many days into the bill cycle your full-speed data runs out.

2. Check your sky with the Starlink app

   15 minutes

   The Starlink app helps you pick an install spot and check for obstructions that could interfere with service. Do it before you order, at every spot where a dish could go. How to check your spot

3. Set up Starlink while Verizon is still on

   day 1

   Pick a spot with open sky, plug in, and the dish finds satellites in a few minutes; current kits don't point themselves, so you rotate the dish the way the Starlink app's alignment screen tells you. Then run the same 8 p.m. tests on both services for at least three evenings, from the same device in the same room. Day-one setup

4. Decide with the numbers in front of you

   10 minutes

   Steady ping and upload in the evening matter more than a big download number. If Starlink doesn’t work at your house, a kit bought on starlink.com and sent back undamaged inside 30 days of your Payment Due Date earns a full refund, first month's fee included.

Not on Verizon yet and choosing between the two? Verizon has a 30-day money-back guarantee on service charges (not equipment, setup or add-ons). Send the equipment back on time, because that refund doesn’t cover it. The switch planner puts every date on one list.

Leaving Verizon home internet

• No contract fee: no annual contract, extra fees or equipment charges.
• Return every box. Send the router and any Wi-Fi extenders back within 30 days, or Verizon can charge up to $300 for each one. Photograph each part in the box and keep the tracking number. Returning old equipment
• Phone discounts: your Verizon phone plan stays, but ask what changes on the bill when home internet goes.

Checking method: each price, fee and rule here links to the provider’s or regulator’s own page, dated the day we read it. No internet provider pays for a place on this site; the only income is the Starlink referral explained on our money page. Our fact-checking · How we make money · Corrections