Starlink broadband speeds slow as subscriber numbers grow

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2022-09-23 15:30:34

Elon Musk's Starlink satellite broadband service has seen a decline in download speeds around the world as more and more subscribers sign up, perhaps making the company a victim of its own success.

The data comes in a report by network Intelligence company Ookla, which states it has monitored the performance of satellite internet services for some time, and Starlink's satellite internet for over a year now.

According to the company, the speed of the Starlink service has decreased in every country it has surveyed over the past year, with median download speeds falling by between 9 and 54 percent in the period from Q2 2021 to Q2 2022 across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, and New Zealand.

Upload speeds have also slowed in each of these countries, but network latency – although high compared with fixed broadband – remained relatively unchanged except for New Zealand, where latency dropped by 23ms, according to Ookla. (We're not sure whether Ookla means that latency has improved or worsened by 23ms when it says "dropped.")

Some decline in service is perhaps expected with increasing subscriber numbers, and SpaceX's VP of Commercial Sales, Jonathan Hofeller, reportedly told the audience at a recent event that the Starlink service now has 700,000 subscribers. This figure is up from the 400,000 reported in May, and just 145,000 at the start of the year.