Starlink satellite internet average speed tests peg it at over 100 Mbps, faster than fixed broadband in Australia, Canada, or the UK

Recently, Elon Musk heard the call of Ukrainian deputy prime minister Mykhailo Fedorov and started shipping Starlink satellite internet kits to the war-torn country to ensure its connectivity independence in case regular internet infrastructure is bombed or taken over. SpaceX also started installing Starlink satellite internet dishes at some Tesla Supercharger locations as an alternative to the paid connectivity subscription Tesla offers.

To the latest developments around Elon Musk's satellite internet efforts we can also add the Starlink Premium tier that costs US$500 a month and the premise is that it will provide up to 500 Mbps download speeds. The regular Starlink access tier price is $99 monthly, after you pay US$499 for the Starlink Kit. The SpaceX satellite internet service has been promising up to 300 Mbps download speeds available by the end of the year, too. How fast is Starlink on average, though? Well, Ookla, the maker of the popular internet speed measuring app Speedtest, has run the numbers for Q4, and arrived at an increased score which is still nowhere near the promised peak speeds just yet. That's explicable, given that Ookla tested the median, everyday download speeds you are going to get, rather than the peak speed exceptions only.

In the U.S., Ookla found Starlink to be the fastest satellite internet provider, hitting 105 Mbps median download speeds in Q4 (up from 87 Mbps in Q3). Upload speeds were rather low, though, and, at 12 Mbps, actually lower than Starlink's Q3 performance. In countries like Australia, Canada, Germany, or the UK, however, Starlink speeds are actually much faster than the fixed broadband there, indicating a huge potential for coverage in rural areas. Mum's the word on the median Starlink download speeds in Ukraine, but in the U.S., despite the vast speed difference between counties, Starlink has become a viable contender for the government's rural broadband provider initiatives and funding, it seems.

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