The SpaceX subsidiary Starlink has been offering Internet access via satellite in Germany for a little over two years. Thousands of satellites are launched into space for this purpose. Still, available bandwidth for Starlink users dropped. Elon Musk’s company wants to take countermeasures.
In particular, Internet speeds slipped for users in Canada and the USA, Starlink’s two main markets. At the beginning of 2022, Starlink’s average data rate in the USA was 90.55 Mbit/s, as determined by speed test specialist Ookla. Half a year later she cheated only 62.53 Mbit/s. Canada also recorded declining values.
Starlink was also becoming slower and slower for users in Germany. At the end of 2021, the internet-via-satellite service still shone with an average download speed of 115.58 Mbit/s. Even the fixed network with DSL, VDSL, cable internet and fiber optics could not keep up. According to Ookla, the average download rate here was 65.86 Mbit/s. The fixed network was faster when uploading (22.4 Mbit/s vs. 15.17 Mbit/s).
Starlink drops below 100Mbps
At the beginning of last year, the average download speed at Starlink for German users fell to 114.52 Mbit/s. In the summer of 2022, it slipped below the 100 Mbit mark at 94.68 Mbit/s. And in autumn it was only 91.53 Mbit/s.
Why is Starlink slowing down? The satellites have a certain bandwidth capacity. If this bandwidth is only used by one user, he can use the entire capacity. If, on the other hand, 100, 1000 or even more users are online, they have to share the bandwidth – much like in a cell phone cell. So if the number of customers increases while capacity remains the same, the bandwidth for the individual user decreases.
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More satellites with larger capacity
According to Starlink, it now has 1.5 million customers worldwide. In order to provide everyone with sufficient bandwidth, the network of satellites is constantly being expanded. The SpaceX subsidiary is also planning satellites with larger capacities.
However, the second generation of satellites (Gen 2) is also larger and heavier, which is why they are not to be launched with SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket as before, but with the new Starship rocket. But when the Starship will be ready for operation is written in the stars. During the first orbtial test flight at the end of April 2023, the rocket had to self-destruct shortly after launch due to significant problems.
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Fair Use Policy and new tariffs
Starlink is now trying other ways to distribute the available bandwidth more fairly among users – and of course to make money in the process. In the USA and Canada, there was initially an upper limit of 1 TB of data volume per month before the download speed was throttled. The 1 TB limit has since fallen, but Starlink still reserves the right – also in Germany – to reduce the data rate if the measured data consumption deviates too much from that of a typical private customer.
At the beginning of May, Starlink also introduced volume tariffs. Depending on the tariff they choose, customers receive 1, 2 or 6 TB of monthly data volume. Your data is treated with priority over that of standard users, so that the transmission speed is also higher.
However, the tariffs are aimed at professional users. If you sign up for the 1 TB tariff, you have to shell out 214.00 euros per month. The 6 TB cost 1261 euros. Added to this are one-time 2802 euros for the hardware. In contrast, the 0.42 euros for each additional gigabyte that is used beyond the booked data volume sounds like a bargain.
Slight increase for Starlink customers in Germany
Nevertheless, Starlink has managed to raise the average data rate in Germany again. According to Ookla, at the end of 2022 it was 94.37 Mbit/s in the download and thus back to the level of summer 2022. However, Starlink continues to weaken when sending data. At the end of 2022, the upload data rate was only 13.45 Mbit/s. A year earlier it was almost 2 Mbit/s higher. In contrast, the average upload rate in the German fixed network is 26.78 Mbit/s.
Starlink’s latency is also far from competitive. At the end of 2021 it was 14 milliseconds. In the fourth quarter of 2022, it rose to 63 milliseconds. It is therefore less suitable for applications such as gaming and video streaming in high resolution. For comparison: In the fixed network, the transmission of a data packet only takes an average of 21 milliseconds. Even if Starlink is ahead of the landline providers when it comes to downloads, latency is and remains the great Achilles’ heel of Internet via satellite.