Starlink for the Enterprise Part 1—Where It Fits and Why It’s Different

Tony: Hello, I’m Tony Mangino from TC2, and this is Staying Connected—where we talk about what really matters to enterprise buyers navigating today’s technology and sourcing decisions.

I’m joined today by my colleagues Frank Zagrodnik and Brent Knight from TC2. 

Today we’re starting a two-part series on Starlink in the large enterprise networking space. Part 1 is the strategy conversation: where it fits, where it doesn’t, and why enterprises are paying attention beyond remote locations.

In Part 2 we will get practical – how you operationalize it at scale, what to demand commercially, and how to avoid building a shiny new failure mode.

So, this 2-part series on Starlink is ultimately about making better decisions, not chasing hype.

Let’s kick it off with you Frank, and give us a quick background on what Starlink is.

[Starlink in enterprise terms]

Frank:

Thanks, Tony.  Starlink is a broadband transport delivered via low-Earth-orbit satellites, or LEO. So compared to legacy satellite, latency is better. But the more important point is: it’s a different physical dependency chain than your fiber, cable, broadband, or fixed wireless.

What an enterprise needs to answer is: does it give you meaningful path diversity, and can it serve as a reliable failover option when you actually need it?

And to be clear, Starlink isn’t automatically a replacement for every terrestrial circuit. But it is a credible alternative path that can reduce correlated outages if you design it correctly.

Tony:  Brent, what other considerations are you seeing with our clients?

[Why this is showing up in enterprise conversations now]

Brent:

The timing of this conversation makes a lot of sense.  We’ve been having a lot of conversations with our customers about Starlink as a strategic transport option and we’re seeing a lot of the service in our sourcing work.  Enterprises have more apps at the edge, more dependency on connectivity for revenue, and less tolerance for outages that used to be ‘acceptable.’

And at the same time, a lot of “backup” designs aren’t truly diverse. You might have primary fiber DIA and backup broadband—but they likely share the same trench, the same local power, the same middle-mile, or even the same upstream carrier relationships.

So when there’s a regional event—construction cut, storm, power, or a carrier core issue—both paths can fail together. Starlink’s appeal is that it can break that correlation.

I’ll add that, Starlink service outages have been rare so far, but there was one in September 2025 that knocked out thousands of connections globally for a short period of time.   It’s all or nothing—not like regional outages that sometimes can occur with terrestrial services. 

Tony:  Frank, are you seeing any distinct buying patterns with our clients?

[Three enterprise patterns we’re seeing]

Frank:

Yes, Tony, we tend to see three patterns.

The first is the classic one: remote primary. If you’ve got a location where fiber is impractical because build out costs are astronomical and lead times are brutal, Starlink can be the difference between “open the site now” or “wait six months.”

Second is rapid turn-up. M&A integration, temporary sites, construction trailers, pop-up locations, disaster recovery. It’s a way to get connectivity fast while the long-lead circuit catches up—or while you decide what the permanent design should be.

And lastly, is the one driving the most executive interest: a diverse backup for mainstream sites. The store or branch already has a good primary, but leadership is asking for better resiliency than a second terrestrial line that can fail at the same time as the first.  

Tony: That third use case is where people can get the business case wrong—because it’s not just ‘add Starlink’ and call it a day. But strategically, it’s compelling: it creates a path that doesn’t depend on the same local last-mile, or middle mile, infrastructure.

Tony: Brent, what are large enterprises doing today?

Brent:

At scale—think hundreds or thousands of sites—most enterprises will conduct pilots and then phased rollouts. You’ll see clusters: a region with repeat outages, a subset of critical sites, or a high-loss business segment where downtime is expensive.

It’s a rational approach. Enterprises don’t deploy a new transport to 2,000 rooftops without proving the operational model—install standards, monitoring, spares, failover behavior, and how it performs in production.

Also, the maturity of your SD-WAN and monitoring stack matters. If your tooling can’t cleanly manage failover and failback, you can turn a resiliency improvement into an operational headache.

So the question isn’t ‘is Starlink good?’ but rather ‘can Starlink be good in our environment, with our constraints, and our operating model?’

Tony: Great point, Brent.  Frank, pulling this all-together how do you see an enterprise making these decisions? 

[A practical decision framework]

Frank: Here’s a simple way to evaluate fit. Start with the outcome: what problem are you solving—coverage gaps, lead time, resiliency, or all three?

Then ask: what is the failure you’re trying to defend against? Local last-mile cut? Carrier core event? Because if your outages are mostly “router died” or “power at the site,” Starlink won’t fix that by itself.

Next: can the site physically support it? Roof rights, line of sight, mounting options, power, grounding, and who will be accountable for installation quality.

And finally: what traffic should use it during failover? Some enterprises want full-site continuity. Others only need payments, voice, and a handful of critical apps. That choice drives cost, design, and testing.

Tony: Brent, let’s close with some of the buyer misconceptions.

[The biggest misconception: the service fee is not the business case]

Brent:

I’ll start with the biggest misconception. Enterprises often only compare monthly service charges and stop there. But the real cost—and the real risk—shows up in scaling it across many sites.

The cost model isn’t only recurring service. It’s the one-time equipment, roof work, truck rolls, safety and compliance, spares, and then the ongoing operational burden: monitoring, ticketing, and routine failover testing so you trust it when it matters.

You need to decide if you want the provider to finance the hardware and implementation costs over the initial term or pay for these one-time costs up front.   Lots of financial implications.    For example, what happens to your recurring service cost after the initial term?

Lastly, If you can’t test it without disrupting the business, you won’t test it. And if you don’t test it, chances are it won’t work when you need it. That’s why Part 2 is where the value is—how you operationalize this like a real enterprise network product.

Tony: So, the takeaway from Part 1 is simple: Starlink can be a meaningful resilience and agility tool, especially where terrestrial diversity is weak. But it only pays off if you treat it like an engineered service, not a gadget.

In Part 2 we’ll get into the reality of installing and supporting this at scale, what to demand in SLAs and support models, and how to structure an RFP—direct versus reseller, managed service wrap, and total cost of ownership.

To our listeners, if you would like to learn more about Starlink and how to approach these technology decisions, or if you’d like to discuss other technology strategy, sourcing and cost reduction needs with Frank, Brent or me, or any of our TC2 and LB3 colleagues, please give us a call or shoot us an email. 

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