Starlink is a satellite-based internet technology that relies on thousands of small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), 550 kilometres above the earth, to beam the internet down to ground transceivers, which then broadcasts it locally or wire directly to your Starlink router.
To ensure this keeps running smoothly, SpaceX plans to deploy more than 30,000 satellites to ensure global internet coverage via Starlink.
In 2021 though, Starlink’s average download speeds in the US declined from 97.23Mbps to 87.25Mbps.
Will the latency of Starlink be increased as more people join the network? So far it does not appear so, but experts claim, it is an inevitable problem, unless, of course, more satellites are added to the constellation.
Starlink continues to perform well in the latency department, with a latency of 44ms as compared to fixed broadband latency, which is 15ms.
How many devices can Starlink handle at a time?
Every one of the satellites has about 20 Gbps capacity, thus supporting 2000 customers at 100 Mbps at once with no glitches.
With 12000 satellites, the network may be able to support about 25 million users worldwide at 100 Mbps. The number significantly increases as more satellites are added.