Starlink says 2 gig speeds – 25x faster than today – will be available soon
According to SpaceX President Gwynne Shotwell, Starlink speeds could one day reach speeds of 2 gigabits per second.
“The next generation will have smaller bundles, more capacity per bundle and lower latency,” Shotwell said at the conference on Friday Annual Baron Investment Conference.
Shotwell has not put a specific time frame on these improvements, but 2Gig speeds are approximately 25 times faster than what users are currently experiencing in the US.
Ookla’s latest speed test datafrom a year ago, shows that US Starlink users received an average of 79 Mbps download and 10 Mbps upload speeds. (Disclosure: Ookla is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)
Shotwell said Starlink users could already get gig speeds (1,000 Mbps) – if they bought multiple dishes. Starlink satellite dishes are currently available for $349 each.
“What we’re going to do is, instead of people having to have multiple dishes, we’re just going to improve the satellite signal and the receiving signal, and you’re going to get gigabit speeds, 2 gigabits per second,” she explained.
Shotwell didn’t go too deeply into a technical explanation for how the company would achieve such a dramatic speed boost — at one point she said Starlink’s transmit and receive antenna “seems a bit magical to me” — but she compared the cycle of Starlink of increased capacity to Moore’s lawin which it was observed that the number of transistors on a computer chip doubles every two years.
That rapid growth certainly applied to Starlink’s user base, which increased from 2 million to 4 million last year. But speeds haven’t increased at the same pace. In the US, Starlink download speeds only increased from 66 to 79 Mbps between November 2022 and 2023 – well below the Federal Communication Commission’s definition of minimum broadband speeds.
Starlink average download speeds in the US increased by 13 Mbps between November 2022 and 2023.
It will also become more difficult to increase speed as more users sign up for the service.
“Starlink may rightly claim that it covers a broad area, but spectrum limitations mean that Starlink cannot serve all locations in that area,” wrote Blair Levin, a former chief of staff at the FCC and a telecom industry analyst at New Street Research. in one recent note for investors.
Starlink is feeling more confident in its ability to reach gig speeds after last month’s successful test flight of the Starship, a flying craft that can launch larger Starlink satellites into orbit. An open question is whether existing Starlink dishes can access these improved speeds or whether customers will have to buy new equipment.
Check this out: SpaceX Starship Launch 5: Everything That Happened in 5 Minutes
“I wouldn’t be surprised if we launch 400 spacecraft in the next four years,” Shotwell said at the conference. “We want to fly it a lot. I have a lot of satellites to fly.”
Starlink wants to increase the number of satellites in orbit from about 6,600 currently in orbit to almost 30,000. In an FCC submit last month the company asked the FCC to open new radio bands for use by Starlink and orbit satellites closer to Earth, both of which could help improve speeds. With Donald Trump’s victory and the appointment of Republican Brendan Carr as FCC chairman, these requests are now likely to be approved.
“If you look at Musk’s various attempts to improve his spectrum position, whatever his batting average is, it’s not hot,” Levin told CNET last month. “It will be much higher [after the Trump victory]. And that is a very important victory.”
Starlink did not respond to CNET’s request for comment.
