Starlink Add UK Coverage Map for Ultrafast Satellite Broadband
SpaceX has added a coverage map to the website for their Starlink constellation of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based ultrafast broadband ISP satellites, which makes it easier to see which parts of the United Kingdom and world can currently access the service. Anything north of around Aberdeen in Scotland is currently excluded.
At present Starlink has over 2,100 LEOs in orbit and their initial plan is to deploy a total of 4,425 by 2024. Customers in the UK currently pay from £89 per month (beware the future price rise – here), plus £50 for shipping and £529 for the kit (dish, router etc.). But for that you can expect unlimited usage, fast latency times of 20-40ms, downloads of c. 50-250Mbps and uploads of c.10-20Mbps (speeds may change as the network grows).
The new map can be accessed by clicking the little location icon at the top left of Starlink’s website. But if you don’t fancy the extra click, then here’s a direct link – https://www.starlink.com/map . It’s an extremely simple map, albeit much quicker and easier to understand than needing to input your address, unless of course you’re rubbish at basic geography and haven’t yet figured out where you live.
We should point out that availability isn’t just a reflection of where the satellites themselves exist, since they’re already orbiting most of the world, but actual availability is still quite limited. SpaceX also has to arrange links via special ground stations, secure spectrum access and various other agreements before it can sell into a specific country or region.
Mark is a professional technology writer, IT consultant and computer engineer from Dorset (England), he also founded ISPreview in 1999 and enjoys analysing the latest telecoms and broadband developments. Find me on X (Twitter), Mastodon, Facebook and Linkedin.
« Netomnia Add Horwich and Bamber Bridge to UK FTTP Broadband Build
Latest UK ISP News
- FTTP (5515)
- BT (3514)
- Politics (2537)
- Openreach (2297)
- Business (2262)
- Building Digital UK (2244)
- FTTC (2043)
- Mobile Broadband (1973)
- Statistics (1788)
- 4G (1664)
- Virgin Media (1619)
- Ofcom Regulation (1461)
- Fibre Optic (1395)
- Wireless Internet (1389)
- FTTH (1381)
Hard luck if you want Starlink above 57 degrees north. Hello Scots!
To be honest, it’s less offensive than courier companies charging ‘Highlands and Islands’ rates to the Grampains or Angus. Dundee’s no even that far fae Embra, FFS.
If you think that’s bad, check out Australia 😀
My thoughts exactly. The Venn diagram of people who most need it and people who get it is the inverse of what it should be.
I guess most of us will have to make do with Openreach or Cityfibre based FTTP as we do now!
The fact that the London area is on a waitlist is a damning indictment of broadband in this country. People are buying Starlink here because in many areas the only alternative is poor VDSL2, ADSL or 4G/5G networks. A ridiculous situation for a capital city in one of the world’s top economies.
That is changing, though building FTTP takes time.
Nice live map of where the Starlink satellites are (you can drag the globe around and zoom in) you can also switch it to show OneWeb and GPS satellites.
https://satellitemap.space/
I have Starlink, been installed for about 2 months. It is epic.
Granted, it is not cheap, but compared to the £150k BT wanted to install fibre, £90 a month is the bargain of the century.
Last speed test was 189mb down & 33mb up.
Watching absolutely loads of 4k content, and on Teams all-day without a glitch.
No contract to commit to, and live within 15 mins of unpacking it.
An absolute game changer.
ps I hate Elon Musk, but this service is magical
I have Virgin Media with a speed of 212MB/sec and 20/up-load , this is bargain £42/month :)) and I hate Virgin Media
I’ve installed this satellite internet system in Northern Ireland location Rock few miles from Dungannon landing broadband very poor. Custom say’s speeds are excellent not cheap. But you always have internet when you need it. Not like landline connection scrolling and scrolling.
Hi Charlie
I also live close to Dungannon- what speeds are you getting? Any problems with outages?
Thanks
Sandra
I’ve had Starlink in Bucks for a year now. It was a true life saver. But I managed to get our farm added to a gigaclear build and we’re getting 900/900 installed in 3 weeks, we already got the fibre to just outside.
Open reach wanted 60k for us. Gigaclear included in the build and just asked us to claim the voucher, sometimes going to these town hall sessions can get things done!
Elon musk has the solution for remote locations. Dumping 50k of taxpayer money to connect 2 houses is just a waste of money
I don’t understand the case for Starlink, in the UK, since most of the population have access to Superfast Broadband, and alternatives like 4G/5G becoming ever more available. Like any Microwave communication system, Starlink connections will be subject to rain fade and other atmospheric affects, so likely unreliable in heavy rain, with most of the areas where Starlink may be useful, rural Scotland, rural Wales, rural Cornwall, amongst the wettest parts of the country. With the purchase and running costs, weather dependant performance, line of sight requirements, etc, etc, I don’t see there being much take up in the UK. I do see uses in other parts of the world, like Africa, Island states, the Australian outback, etc, but even in places like that there are Terresrial alternatives not requiring thousand of LEO satellites.
I live in a remote part of the South East and my Internet is shocking. Further more I still pay premium prices for my dire Internet. 4g & 5g are pretty much non existant too. Starlink looks like my only option if I’m going to get any sort of service for my money.
that’s simply not true, we just installed Starlink in Redcar last week, the weather could not have been worse, snow, hailstones, gales, constant downpours, and the Starlink service never missed a beat
I think you need to re-appraise what you say on public forums, you have really grasped what Starlink is, it is not a microwave solution ( point to point solution ) , it is a LEO orbiting at only 550km above us, with low ping times of 30 to 40ms, better than mobile 4G
your comment about 5G is laughable, there is extremely limited coverage ( if any ) in remote rural areas, and that is not likely to change for a long time
I live in Ilford, London and the best I can get is an average download speed around 11mbs. Only just enough for 1440P streaming on a good day. Some periods during the day it drops down to 4mbs. So frustrating, I live in the country’s capital and have to put up with this. BT don’t have plans to upgrade to full fiber to home for at least a year. I’m seriously considering Starlink. Ridiculous situation!
Bt calling their product super fast is like Wayne Rooney claiming to be the next Albert Einstein.
It’s just not credible and hasn’t been for years. UK broadband won’t be super fast until we have speeds equalling the developed Asian economies. I don’t see us ever catching up.
BT are unpleasant to deal with. Bad value for money. Unfortunately for many, myself included. They are the least worst option.
Considering the Industrial Revolution began in the Midlands. Our country has declined to a shameful state.
What this says to me is you likely don’t understand what it truly is to be rural (and I know it’s not strictly just a rural issue), where a large percentage of a local (but small) population where I live are remote (up to ~5 or 6 km) from an exchange (on an EO line) and struggle in the modern world with a degrading copper network on low, single-digit ADSL speeds. Into this demographic you have to add my area’s geography of medium-size hills and deepish tree-lined valleys, meaning many residents have no external 3G/4G signal (most, but not all by a long way, can usually get an emergency signal some of the time).
Now, to be fair to OR/BT, they are constantly tweaking things, and my connection speed according to the router is now heading towards 3Mbps (an almost doubling in the last couple of years). However, along with this “massive” increase in headline speed (which equates to a real-world max speed of around 2.4Mbps down, but typically nearer 2.0 Mbps via ethernet and about half that on wifi) comes what appears to be a deterioration in the QoS. For example, yesterday evening, while my wife was trying to place a Tesco order she had to contend with 226 ms ping, 0.30 Mbps down/0.66 Mbps up. It was a bad day yesterday! Indeed, most of yesterday was spent “resetting” the router. I sometimes feel like “resetting” it with a club hammer”. Precipitation, frost, and the wind seem to play havoc with the copper out our way, and this added to OR/BT stretching the technology limits I’m sure has added to the QoS issues.
Into this scenario, I personally know of at least two “local” people that have gone the Starlink route: one from geostationary satellite (who won’t go back to it, he says) and one from copper (who hopes he doesn’t have to go back to it); both know they are in true 3G/4G “not spots”. BTW, by local that’s c. 3 to 5 km distant from me, given that near neighbours are typically on the order of 100 metres apart. They are ecstatic with the improvement (and they know there will be weather-related and service issues). They are, of course, not so ecstatic about the monthly cost, more especially given the well-publicised tax, power, and fuel rises coming on stream. But for the moment they will persevere with it. They are like pigs in the proverbial!
It’s borderline with me whether an external 4G aerial will be of benefit (I get a poor signal: E most of the time, sometimes H, sometimes not even emergency). I hope it is. I await a man with a meter and a ladder, sometime in May hopefully.
And to be fair to you, I won’t be going Starlink if 4G isn’t a good option (whether because a 4G aerial is of no benefit or only of marginal benefit). Given I will be eligible for a grant for Starlink equipment should 4G not be viable, and despite the undoubted improvement it would bring, I would not have entertained the c. £90/month outlay for it even before the recent tax, power, and fuel price rises, as it would be a financial stretch I’m not willing to take. Going forward I likely could not realistically even afford the c. £90/month if I want to stay warm, run my PC, and/or drive anywhere. So, I would stay on degrading copper. It’s all about choices (forced and unforced), and that would be my choice. I won’t be the only one doing that here. It’s always been like that hereabouts, since the internet became a thing. We put up with it. We have to, even if technically we don’t… but I’d sign up to fttp in a heartbeat!
I get what you’re saying and for a few, LEO satellite broadband might make sense. For your neighbour, connecting via Geostationary Satellite, the round trip delay must be enormous, so not good for real time applications like Gaming, Voip and Video calls. Anyone living in a wooded area, valley, or any other restricted line of site location will be limited to satellites close to overhead, so that may cause issues.
It’s interesting that OneWeb have gone for an orbital height twice that of Starlink, which I’d guess is a trade off of delay against number of satellites required. I have no idea about the Starlink vs OneWeb design, but it stands to reason OneWeb need less satellites, since the extra height means the satellites are visible for a longer period, and you may get more life out of the satellites due to better fuel/orbital decay design, but that would depend on the satellites as well.
There are other alternatives, like High Altitude Platforms for 5G, which may come into use should the providers decide to try them out, or 5g rollout may eliminate many of the current not spots with increased terrestrial cover using hill top repeators. I also believe BT are involved with OneWeb, so a cheaper alternative to Starlink might come from that.
I use Starlink for gaming and voip. Ping is anything from 25-35 average due to the low orbit apparently the plan is to get to 10Ms.
Terms of speed it peaks at 400Mbps down and mine seems to max at 20Mbps.
I use Starlink and VDSL as a failover backup.
I live in a new build area in a town called Kidderminster and the faster internet i could get was 30Mbps with 7Mbps upload so its been a game changer.
Using Starlink, I now have between 25-55Mb download and 12-18Mb upload. A complete change from the 0.9Mb download with 0.15Mb using our land line (7.9km, copper, EO line).
We can stream, video… Everything.
It’s great.
Just as a side note, look on reddit for Starlink. The dish still works with 2ft of snow on top of it. Weather does not seem to effect it in any way. The only time i ever have issue is when they launch additional satelllites and it seems to have to rebalance itself.
What the OP missed in his comment about weather-induced signal fade at microwave frequencies is that spatial diversity – as provided by Starlink’s constellation – mitigates this. The probability of all available spatial paths suffering simultaneous high attenuation is very low.
Me, living halfway down the side of a 500ft valley, I don’t get enough of the sky visible for Starlink to be technically viable, let alone economically viable. Oh well.
For anyone who thinks they might have a field of view issue, the best way to check is download the Starlink app and use the check for obstruction feature. The field of view isn’t huge and doesn’t require a full 360 view.
I have coverage in my area and the service address is accepted but I cannot get the next page (the order page) to accept my shipping address.
Any ideas please?
Go to Google Maps, zoom in, click on your location and use the Google Plus code for the address and ( like magic) you’ll be able to order