We got a recent analysis of Starlink broadband speeds from Ookla, which gathers huge numbers of speed tests from across the country. The U.S. average download speeds on Starlink have improved over the last year, from an average of 65.72 Mbps in 1Q 2021 to 90.55 Mbps in 1Q 2022. But during that same timeframe, upload speeds got worse, dropping from an average of 16.29 Mbps in 1Q 2021 to 10.70 Mbps in 1Q 2022.

It’s likely that some of this change is intentional since ISPs have a choice for the amount of bandwidth to allocate to download versus upload. It seems likely that overall bandwidth capacity and speeds are increasing due to the continually growing size of the Starlink satellite constellation—now over 2,500. Starlink subscriptions are climbing quickly. The company reported having 145,000 customers at the start of the year and recently announced it is up to 400,000 customers worldwide. This fast growth makes me wonder when Starlink will stop calling the business a beta test.

These speed tests raise a few interesting questions. The first is if these speeds are good enough to qualify Starlink to be awarded the RDOF awards that have now been pending from the FCC for over a year and a half. While these speeds are now approaching the 100 Mbps speed promised by Starlink in its RDOF bids, it’s worth noting that the 90 Mbps number is an average. There are some customers seeing speeds of over 150 Mbps while others are seeing only 50 Mbps or even less. I’ve talked to a number of Starlink customers and what they’ve told me is that Starlink needs a view of the ‘whole sky’ from horizon to horizon to operate optimally, and many homes don’t have the needed view. This doesn’t bode well for the Starlink RDOF awards areas of heavy woods and hills like the awards in western North Carolina.

There is a lot of speculation that Starlink is limiting the number of subscribers in a given geographic area in order to not dilute speed and performance. The RDOF awards require any winning ISP to serve everybody, and there is still a big question about the kinds of speeds that can be delivered for a geographic area that has a lot of subscribers.

The BEAD grant rules also open the door for Starlink and other satellite providers to some extent. While satellite technology is not deemed reliable enough to be used for grant awards directly, the NTIA has also opened the door to using alternate technologies like satellite and fixed wireless using unlicensed spectrum in areas where landline technologies are too costly. Each state will have to decide if grants can be awarded for satellite broadband in such cases, and it seems likely that some states will allow this.

The Ookla article also shows the Starlink average speeds around the globe. Some of the average speeds are much faster than U.S. speeds, and this might be due to smaller countries that cover a smaller and less diverse terrain than the U.S. Here, speeds are likely much higher in the open plains states than for customers located in hills, mountains, and woods. There can’t be a technology difference since the same satellites serve around the globe.

There is an interesting app that shows the location of the Starlink satellites. It’s fascinating to watch how they circle the globe. What is most striking about the world map is how few satellites there are over the U.S. at any given time. The app shows a few closely packed strings of satellites that are recent launches that haven’t yet been deployed to their final orbits.

The skies are going to soon get a lot busier. The original business plan for Starlink was to deploy 11,000 satellites. Jeff Bezos and Project Kuiper have FCC permission to deploy satellites, with launches starting this year. OneWeb, which is now aiming to serve business and government customers, has much of its constellation launched but has yet to begin delivering services. Telesat is still marching slowly forward and has fallen behind due to supply chain issues and funding concerns—but still has plans to have a fleet in place in the next few years. I would imagine that in a few years, we’ll see Ookla reports comparing the different constellations.