Elon Musk’s satellite network Starlink has improved its network performance by a lot when compared to its competitors, in the second quarter of 2021.
The speed provided by Musk’s Starlink satellite network is also in close competition with that of the existing broadband companies.
In fact, Starlink is not only forwarding as a close second to the speeds of broadband providers, it is also way ahead in the speed provided when compared to its competitors.
Starlink Excels at SpeedTest in Q2 2021
As per the ‘Speedtest Intelligence’ results conducted by the internet speed testing company Ookla, the network performance of Starlink turned out to be encouraging in Q2 2021, given the novel stage satellite internet lies at, at present.
Satellite internet is put in place to allow internet access to remote locations across the planet. This means that there is often a trade-off between coverage of the location and speed of the internet provided.
Musk’s Starlink network aims to reduce the gap between the two. Given its location in the low earth orbit (LEO) at an altitude between 550-1200 km, the satellite network is closer to the earth compared to its competitors, HughesNet and Viasat.
These satellite internet providers are located at considerably higher geosynchronous orbits, at about 35000 km away.
While this allows these network providers to serve much wider areas of the Earth’s surface, the speed of the network provided reduces considerably.
According to Speedtest’s findings, in Q2 2021,
- Starlink’s median download speed increased to 97.23 Mbps, from 65.72 Mbps in Q1 2021. It is the only satellite internet provider in the United States with fixed-broadband-like latency figures.
- Following Starlink is HughesNet, which provides a median download speed of 19.73 Mbps, up from 15.07 Mbps in Q1 2021, followed by Viasat at 18.13 Mbps, up from 17.67 Mbps in Q1 2021.
- Starlink’s median upload speed has risen from 13.77 Mbps in Q1 2021 to 13.89 Mbps.
- This is a lot closer to traditional broadband’s upload speed of 17.18 Mbps in Q2 2021.
- Visat’s upload speed was recorded to be 3.38 Mbps, followed by HughesNet, at 2.43 Mbps, which was the same in Q1 2021 too.
Starlink’s Latency Close to Broadband’s
In Ookla’s findings, Starlink proved out to be catching onto the performance parameters of traditional broadband providers.
Starlink was the only satellite internet provider with a median latency that was anywhere near that seen on fixed broadband in Q2 2021.
It was recorded as 45 ms, compared to the median latency of 14 ms, provided by broadband providers.
A low latency connection is more responsive, making it essential for many common applications such as voice and video calling, gaming and live streaming of content.
While Starlink is still not able to touch the median download speeds of fixed broadband providers in the U.S. (115.22 Mbps), it is swiftly advancing towards it, given the novice environment of satellite internet.
In some countries like Canada and France, Starlink’s median download speed has exceeded the speeds of its broadband counterpart.
Data from Q2 2021 shows that Starlink’s median download speed of 86.92 Mbps exceeded that of fixed broadband at 84.24 Mbps, in Canada.
While its median upload speed and latency were both not as good as that of broadband’s, many customers in remote areas would gladly accept Starlink’s services for at least having access to internet service.
Starlink in India
While speaking at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona in late June, Elon Musk informed that Starlink will get global coverage by August 2021.
However, it is expected to serve the customers in India by 2022.
In February 2021, Stralink rolled out pre-reservation invites in India, for services it would provide in 2022. A deposit fee of $99 would ensure your place for the purchase of the Starlink equipment.
This means that Starlink’s satellite internet service will cost around Rs 7,000 per month for Indian customers, starting 2022.
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