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Starlink Expand UK Coverage to Include Part of Shetland Islands

Tuesday, Sep 27th, 2022 (9:44 am) - Score 1,808
Starlink-Shetland-Islands-Coverage-Sept-2022

SpaceX’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) based mega constellation of Starlink ultrafast broadband satellites has made a small but significant improvement to its coverage of the UK, which for the first time has now started to encompass the southern part of the remote Shetland islands in Scotland.

Back in late July 2022 we reported that Starlink’s Coverage Map had suddenly been expanded to include most of the Scottish Highlands, including up to the Orkney isles off the northeastern coast (here). But sadly it stopped short of reaching the tiny ‘Fair Isle’ and larger Shetland Islands further north.

NOTE: Starlink’s compact satellites weigh about 260Kg each and orbit the Earth at an altitude of c.550 kilometres (vs 35,000km for the traditional GSO platforms).

The good news is that recent satellite launches have enabled Starlink to expand its network coverage a little further northward from Orkney, which means that it now reaches up to around the bottom third of the Shetland Islands (from Lerwick down) and the rest should follow during Q1 2023. This is an important development because Shetland has comparatively weak coverage of fixed “superfast broadband” (30Mbps+) at c.75%.

Starlink’s constellation currently has around 3,100 LEO satellites in orbit around the Earth and their initial plan is to deploy a total of 4,425 by 2024. Customers in the UK normally pay from £75 per month and £460 for the kit (standard dish, router etc.). But for that you can expect unlimited usage, fast latency times of 20-40ms, advertised downloads of c. 50-200Mbps and uploads of c.10-20Mbps (speeds may change as the network grows).

The only problem is that Starlink’s real-world performance has been dropping off a fair bit over recent quarters, with Ookla recently reporting that UK customers are receiving a median average download of 85.07Mbps (10.72Mbps upload) and latency times of 39ms (here). This is still good, but it’s down sharply from 121.94Mbps (13.96Mbps) at the end of 2021 and there seems to be a trend. On the flip side, the service has got cheaper.

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Mark-Jackson
By Mark Jackson
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 .
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Comments
13 Responses
  1. Avatar photo Oh dear musky says:

    Oh dear. Starlink not going so well. The promised 300+ megabits which didn’t happen for most people looks like it will never happen. And it was all predicted and mentioned, but along came the wokies to laugh and point fingers. Where are the musk fans now? behind their keyboards crying with the mask over their face to hide the tears.

    1. Avatar photo Josh Davis says:

      Seek help

    2. Avatar photo Sam P says:

      Starlink is an option for those that can’t get internet in their area or can only get terrible speeds, perhaps those stuck on old ADSL connections.

      Even without 300mbp speeds Starlink is a huge success, and their achievements are absolutely incredible.

      Getting 80mbps+ in the middle of nowhere via Space is pretty cool.

      I wonder what achievements you have made in your life.

    3. Avatar photo Humphrey says:

      if Reddit was not already popular it sure would be now – the amount of complaints on there – Especially from people who paid for the “best effort” service then bitch its not giving them top speed 24/7

      I’ve only ever seen 1 guy in the outback of Canada who got it and often does YT videos thanking Starlink for giving him 30/40mbits down and 10 up – because to him, with no cell service and no other options he is literally in heaven!

      I think he’s has a little 30KM wifi link for years doing 4/0.5 and he said he has something like 900M of cable going up a tree to a transmitter at the top – and his pings were in the thousands all that time.

      Some folk don’t know they are born I think is the saying.

    4. Avatar photo Humphrey says:

      Never mind – Musky is online giving away Billions in Bitcoins – so could be worse, it’s not like that’s being spent on Scraplink anyway

    5. Avatar photo Humphrey says:

      @SamP –

      Go easy, I am sure anyone could make massive achievements with Billions in the bank..

      But you are right – now it’s in Scotland being able to get 150mbps where as the best I had before was Voda at 12mbps is a game changer especially when Mobile full time

    6. Avatar photo Go back to reddit. says:

      Josh, why don’t you? I’m pretty sure telling others that you disagree with that they “need help” is in and of itself a mental disorder. But nice gaslighting you got there, must work on reddit so go back there.

    7. Avatar photo Oh dear musky says:

      Don’t you just love when a bunch of middle aged men all stand up for Musky. Like he’s their best friend. And to the person who said what have I achieved, hah. What has Musk? Do you think Starlink was his idea? and he personally built the satellites? no? Do you think Tesla was his idea? (it wasn’t and existed before him). Do you think hyperloop was his idea (that has failed miserably, also as predicted). Yes lets all worship the snake oil salesman who takes other people’s ideas and throws money at them. Money he got for doing nothing at Paypal and his emerald mine slave owner parents gave him. Pretty sure if I had those resources I could build all these things that someone else thought of too.

      Musk worship is degeneracy. Seethe harder. It’s not reddit, my comments won’t be deleted by overzealous musk worshipping mods. (hopefully)

    8. Avatar photo Alternative says:

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7oZ-AQszEI

      Musk promises FSD “next year”, every year, since 2014. Musk is full of it, but Starlink is a lifesaver for many people and it’s not going anywhere. I don’t think people who only had access to 12mbit DSL are going to be complaining about getting 100 megabits.

    9. Avatar photo Kevin says:

      It’s not FTTP, but it isn’t bad…
      https://www.speedtest.net/result/13728770351

    10. Avatar photo Josh Davis says:

      Wow this guy really does have mental health issues. It is funny but I do feel sorry for him.

  2. Avatar photo Chris says:

    Not to nitpick, but the archipelago of the Shetland islands is generally just called “Shetland”, you can drop the ‘islands 😉
    Likewise with Orkney and the Outer Hebrides/Na h-Eileanan Siar

  3. Avatar photo NeilM says:

    If this saves a farmer from coming into town, to submit his forms, or whatever stuff he needs, I am sure the time saved will cover the cost of the connection. Plus, they will probably get a grant to cover the equipment.

    Is it as fast as it was, No, but it’s still an big improvement for restricted connectivity users, in an age where so much of life has to be done online and websites seem to be designed for people with fat pipes.

    I everyone bangs on about it, but it’s great for the people who it’s targeted at.

Comments are closed

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