Starlink speeds are all over the map — here’s how the company is responding

Starlink speeds are all over the map — here's how the visitor is responding

(Image credit: Shutterstock)

Starlink, Elon Musk'due south satellite internet company, has seen speeds dip in the by ii months, simply recently, operation has began to climb up.

These results come via a report from PCMag in collaboration with speed test website Ookla. Recent information shows that the median download speeds for Starlink saw a refuse from 80 Mbps to fifty Mbps between February and early on March. The reason for the drop isn't entirely clear, but speeds have begun to normalize.

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Using Ookla isn't an exact science — not all Starlink users may cheque their internet speed with the service — but it tin still exist a decent indicator as to where things are. Ookla did non reveal to PCMag how many users it was pulling speed exam data from, simply "the sample count hither well exceeds our brightline for statistical significance," a company spokesperson said.

Looking the graph below, we tin can see that in January, at launch, Starlink was giving solid functioning, with speeds then slowly abaft off, only for performance to normalize at the end of March.

Stralink speed graph provided by Ookla — (Image credit: Ookla)

It should be noted, that while we've reported on users with 200 Mbps of download speed or more than, those might be more fringe scenarios and may not be indicative of overall performance. The Starlink megaconstellation is still immature, with more than satellites being launched every month. PCMag did reach out to a few Starlink users to get their accept.

"The only matter consistent with Starlink service is the inconsistent speeds," said Tabitha from Idaho via an email to the publication. She preferred to keep her last name individual. "I ran a speed test first thing this morning and saw 213Mbps down 9.72 up. A little over an hour later on, I was at 94Mbps downwardly/18 upward. An hr afterwards that I was at 36 down/six.eight upwards."

Load could be the reason why at that place was a dip in operation. With more people signing up for the service, the larger customer base could accept been straining systems. But it seems that a bug in the system might exist to blame.

SpaceX sent out an email to users explaining the electric current situation.

"Recently some beta users saw brusk only more frequent outages, particularly in the evening hours," SpaceX said. "This was acquired by two main issues — preventive maintenance on various ground gateways, coupled with a network logic problems that intermittently caused some packet processing services to hang until they were reset. The skilful news is fixes were implemented and users should no longer see this particular issue."

After the firmware update, it does seem that Tabitha'south internet speeds had improved.

Other users accept also reported connexion inconsistencies. Sometimes connection might driblet for a few seconds all the way upwards to a few hours.

The Starlink FAQ states "During beta, users can expect to see information speeds vary from 50Mb/southward to 150Mb/s and latency from 20ms to 40ms in most locations over the next several months equally we enhance the Starlink system. There will also be brief periods of no connectivity at all."

In layman's terms, look some growing pains.

To remedy this, Starlink will issue an update that will more quickly ping to some other satellite if connection drops. Users should wait this update later in the calendar month.

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Imad Khan is news editor at Tom'south Guide, helping direct the 24-hour interval'south breaking coverage. Prior to working at the site, Imad was a total-time freelancer, with bylines at the New York Times, the Washington Post and ESPN. Outside of work, you can find him sitting blankly in front of a Word certificate trying badly to write the first pages of a new book.