{"id":23862,"date":"2020-09-04T12:29:59","date_gmt":"2020-09-04T11:29:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/?p=23862"},"modified":"2020-09-07T08:29:44","modified_gmt":"2020-09-07T07:29:44","slug":"spacex-expecting-100mbps-broadband-from-starlink-satellites","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ispreview.co.uk\/index.php\/2020\/09\/spacex-expecting-100mbps-broadband-from-starlink-satellites.html","title":{"rendered":"SpaceX Expecting 100Mbps Broadband from Starlink Satellites UPDATE"},"content":{"rendered":"

SpaceX has revealed the results from their most recent “official<\/em>” testing of the new future mega constellation of small Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Starlink<\/a> satellites, which they claim has now “shown super low latency<\/em>” and download speeds “greater than 100Mbps<\/em>” (Megabits per second).<\/p>\n

The figures have not been independently confirmed, but would mark a welcome improvement over some of the initial tests that leaked out last month (here<\/a>). On the other hand the new results are still a long way from the “gigabit<\/em>” or “fibre-like<\/em>” levels of performance that have been stated in the past, although there’s still plenty of scope for improvement as the constellation grows, improves ground station utilisation and begins to harness more spectrum bands etc.<\/p>\n

After this week’s launch SpaceX<\/strong> now has over 700 LEOs in orbit around our planet and that’s just shy of the 800 they’re targeting in order to deliver partial global coverage for an early commercial launch, albeit not reaching the UK for awhile (the first customers will be in the USA and Canada). We also recently got our first glimpse of the beta setup for the new service and its terminals (here<\/a>).<\/p>\n

As it stands the satellite<\/a> operator has an initial ambition to deploy 4,425 LEOs by 2024 (possibly followed by 10,000+ at a later date). However, despite the positives for rural broadband connectivity, many astronomers will no doubt be concerned at any increase in the number of LEOs, particularly with SpaceX’s early fleet causing more than a few irritations for observational science (mitigation efforts are underway but it remains to be seen how effective those will be).<\/p>\n

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Results from these tests have shown super low latency and download speeds greater than 100 mbps \u2013 fast enough to stream multiple HD movies at once and still have bandwidth to spare<\/p>\n

— SpaceX (@SpaceX) September 3, 2020<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n