Thanks to a satellite dish and modem kindly provided by Stereo Media, our team could test this system extensively for different usage scenarios. The most important results based on measurements conducted in early June 2021 have already been described in a blog post. This has been reported on in different media around the world. A collection of these articles can be found below. Because of the rapid development in this area, we decided to make new measurements in September and to compare the performance. This resulted in some interesting insights.
From the gathered data and a comparison to the results of June it can be said that Starlink has improved massively in terms of reliability. However, this was done at the expense of achievable throughput and latency. Nevertheless, this is a smart decision by the developers, because an unreliable Internet connection is by far more annoying than lower throughput and higher latency. Especially for use cases that depend on a stable Internet connection, such as video streaming and virtual meetings, this is a massive improvement of the system.
In summary, the most important new findings from September are as follows.
- The throughput for download has decreased on average by 21% and now stands at 133 Mbit/s.
- The throughput for upload has decreased on average by 12% and now stands at 15 Mbit/s.
- The latency has increased on average by 32% and now stands at 74 ms.
- The reliability (no package loss) has increased from 97.6% to 99.8%.
It occurs that between the first and second measurement series, efforts have been made to increase the reliability of the network. The reduced throughput and increased latency are likely the consequences of this improved network reliability. However, this can not be proven without details about the system itself.
The complete comparison report can be downloaded below.
Finally, here are some links to articles concerning our previous report.
- Austria
- https://www.kleinezeitung.at/kaernten/klagenfurt/6017039/Studie-der-FH-Kaernten_So-gut-funktioniert-Elon-Musks-Starlink-in
- https://www.meinbezirk.at/klagenfurt/c-lokales/starlink-internet-wurde-haertetest-unterzogen_a4802531
- https://kaernten.wirtschaftszeit.at/startseite-detail/article/spacex-satelliten-internet-in-kaernten
- https://www.roadmap2050.at/spacex-satelliten-internet-in-kaernten/
- https://yaao.online/de/index.php/posts/luniversita-austriaca-ha-misurato-la-velocita-e-la-latenza-di-internet-satellitare-starlink
- Great Britain
- Canada
- India
- USA
- https://gamepolar.com/starlink-examine-reveals-thoughts-boggling-info-about-service-outages/
- https://www.thefloridapilot.com/starlink-study-reveals-mind-boggling-facts-about-service-outages/
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/its-not-the-heat-its-the-latency/id1525946650?i=1000532810251 and https://futrtech.org/thefeed/2021/8/23/its-not-the-heat-its-the-latency
- Japan
- Chile
- Spain
- Ukraine
- China
- SouthAfrica
- Publications
- Forums
This post is also available in: Deutsch (German)