{"id":15841,"date":"2025-07-17T07:41:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15841\/"},"modified":"2025-07-17T07:41:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-17T07:41:20","slug":"starlink-doubled-its-speed-in-2-years-it-still-doesnt-meet-the-fccs-definition-of-broadband","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/15841\/","title":{"rendered":"Starlink Doubled Its Speed In 2 Years. It Still Doesn\u2019t Meet the FCC\u2019s Definition of Broadband"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starlink<\/a> is nearly twice as fast as it was two years ago, according to a new report<\/a> from the speed test site Ookla. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)<\/p>\n

Median download speeds from the satellite internet provider<\/a> have steadily ticked up over the past few years, going from 53.95 megabits per second in 2022 to 104.71Mbps today. That\u2019s an impressive feat considering Starlink added about 5 million customers<\/a> over the same period and recently passed the 6 million mark<\/a> globally.<\/p>\n

\"graph-of-starlink-median-download-speeds-over-time\" Ookla<\/p>\n

“The fact that Starlink\u2019s median download speeds nearly doubled from Q3 2022 until Q1 2025 is definitely a notable and impressive development,” Sue Marek, editorial director at Ookla, told CNET. “It indicates that their ongoing efforts to expand their satellite constellation\u2019s capacity is making a difference.”<\/p>\n

Starlink accomplished that by drastically increasing its capacity. At the beginning of 2022, the company had about 1,761 satellites in orbit; today, that number stands at 7,607, according to Jonathan McDowell, an astronomer who maintains a catalog of space objects<\/a>. SpaceX, the company that owns Starlink, has said it eventually hopes to have as many as 42,000 satellites in space.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s going to need them. Recent changes to the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program<\/a> could funnel as much as $20 billion in government subsidies to Starlink for providing internet in rural areas. But many industry experts are skeptical that Starlink can add millions of new customers without sacrificing speed.\u00a0<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a reasonable concern. Ookla\u2019s data shows that only 17.4% of Starlink customers are currently getting internet speeds that meet the FCC\u2019s definition of minimum broadband speeds<\/a>: 100Mbps download and 20Mbps upload. That\u2019s also a requirement to receive BEAD money.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While most subscribers are meeting the 100Mbps download speed threshold, Starlink\u2019s median upload speeds are just 14.84Mbps. Latency<\/a>, or the time it takes data to get from your computer to where it’s going, is also on the high side — 45 milliseconds (ms) compared to 12ms for the country as a whole<\/a>. CNET recommends around 50ms<\/a> or lower for activities like online gaming.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In October 2024, Maine<\/a> began offering free Starlink dishes<\/a> to residents in its \u201chardest-to-reach locations.\u201d I asked Brian Allenby, the senior director with the Maine Connectivity Authority, if he was concerned about Starlink hitting that 100\/20Mbps benchmark in a previous interview<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“We have a very granular level of reporting through the Starlink portal, and it has all been compliant,” Allenby said. “So we don’t have immediate concerns about that.”<\/p>\n

A representative for Starlink didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

States that qualify for a free Starlink dish had higher speeds<\/p>\n

The Starlink experience can vary dramatically depending on where you live. Last week, the company instituted a “demand fee” of $500<\/a> in the Pacific Northwest to combat congestion in high-use areas. In other states with more capacity available, it\u2019s giving customers the $349 satellite dish<\/a> for free.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Ookla took a look at the areas where Starlink is offering free equipment and found that all of them, except West Texas and Alaska, had median download speeds over 100Mbps. South Dakota, Rhode Island and Wyoming had the highest percentage of customers meeting the 100\/20Mbps benchmark, while Alaska, Mississippi and Louisiana had the lowest.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Starlink is nearly twice as fast as it was two years ago, according to a new report from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15842,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[43],"tags":[174,74],"class_list":{"0":"post-15841","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-internet","8":"tag-internet","9":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15841","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15841"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15841\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15842"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15841"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15841"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15841"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}