
Starlink latency averages 30 ms, similar to 5G’s reality. Speeds measure up to 100 Mbps, although some only get half that. Upstream is usually 10-40 Mbps. Caps haven’t been specified but will almost certainly be higher than current satellite offerings.
By most standards, the performance is decent. A Redditer posts
Starlink is 600x better than my current ISP BEFORE you consider data cap. My jaw dropped when I saw the official numbers. I live in a rural village in Alaska and pay around $200/mo for service that is running fast if it hits 500kbps with a 40GB data cap.
Half the price for up to 300x faster service? Elon please start launching some polar orbits.
Heavy video watchers may need to add satellite broadcast as well, depending on the bandwidth cap. It is definitely a reasonable choice where the cost of fiber or decent wireless is prohibitive. That’s about one million locations in the US.
Beta testers are being charged $500 for the terminal and $99/month. That’s high: Most wireless or wired Internet in the US costs $50-80, including equipment.
Starlink is building 4 satellites/day, looking to add 600 more in the current phase one. It’s applied to launch many more. Musk’s current Falcon 9 rocket can launch 60 satellites at a cost of perhaps $1 million each. Starship, currently under test, has a higher capacity and lower unit cost.
Some of the projects in the 2009 broadband stimulus cost over $10000 per home passed. Ernesto Falcone of EFF believes that will pay off in the long run.