In early 2019, Elon Musk’s SpaceX was approved to launch 12,000 satellites into space to create a low-orbit network of satellites aimed at bringing affordable high-speed Internet to the US and the rest of the world.
When Starlink Internet was first announced, SpaceX promoted it to be faster than current Internet services. In March 2020, Elon Musk gave a Q&A session at the Satellite 2020 conference and gave some more details about the service, sharing that it will be fast enough to play along.
“We are aiming for latency below 20 milliseconds so that anyone can play a video-response video game at a competitive level,” Musk commented.
When Musk shared on Twitter a rough timeline for private and public beta testing, the Internet began to look at the results of the tests and those numbers are now starting to come in.
Ars Technica first reported on a Reddit thread that showed results from 11 anonymous speed tests by Starlink users, with results compiled in the image below.
Image: User Reddit Snnackss
Beta users for Starlink satellite broadband service are looking at reported download speeds of 11Mbps to 60Mbps and upload speeds of 5Mbps to 18Mbps, with tests performed using Ookla’s speedtest.net tool. Ping rates ranged from 31ms to 94ms, with later reports showing latency of 20ms and 21ms. The FCC requires latencies below 100ms, while Ookla recommends 59ms or lower for gaming.
The speeds reported so far are below SpaceX’s original goal of offering 1Gbps speeds. However, the speeds shown in these early tests would be an improvement over most internet services currently offered in rural areas, which has been a priority for SpaceX from the beginning. Earlier this year, PC Mag reported that many rural areas had Internet speeds of 7 Mbps or lower.
As Ars Technica points out, beta testers were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, so we are unlikely to get the full details on beta test results.
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Jess Barnes 