Users of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite Internet service, which uses low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites to deliver Internet connections to its users, have signed up hundreds of thousands of users since it was made available to the public.
Meanwhile, Starlink has outperformed local broadband Internet providers in most of the countries it serves, but its U.S. subscribers had also experienced deteriorating speeds as the speed of a new spacecraft launched via SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket competed with the growth of U.S. users.
Now, strong U.S. download speeds appear to be returning, as some users are sharing new results on the social media platform Reddit.
The highest Starlink download speed shared on Reddit in the past week came from a user who recently received an antenna unit from SpaceX. The user, named Parrot-Dude, posted a jaw-dropping 288Mbps download speed for his Starlink connection, the highest speed in the recent sample.
Parrot-Dude wasn’t the only one to see his download speed approaching 300Mbps. Another Reddit user, known as Nicknamethomas, posted a screenshot from the popular speed testing app Ookla showing a download speed of 283 Mbps. The user went on to add that the test was conducted in upstate New York and that download speeds had “significantly” improved after the Starlink firmware update.
Another user from North America also shared that their download and upload speeds have improved since Starlink’s latest firmware update, with download speeds of 250 Mbps and upload speeds of 20 Mbps in central Maine.
Starlink download test results from Kentucky also reflect this phenomenon, with Reddit user PositiveSplit6483 sharing that in less than a day of testing, Starlink achieved download speeds of 243 Mbps and upload speeds of 32 Mbps, a set of results that the user described as “my best speeds in Northern Kentucky. .” The same user achieved 218 Mbps download and 32 Mbps upload in an earlier test.
RO4DHOG, a user from Southern California, used a unique setup for their antenna that saw the user terminal mounted on a pole inside the skylight well. This arrangement saw download speeds of 268Mbps in the first test after installation, then quickly dropped off, RO4DHOG explained, with speeds dropping to between 150Mbps and 80Mbps since the first run.
Finally, a Starlink user in South Mississippi breathed a sigh of relief when their download speed increased to 190 Mbps. User GetOffMyGrassBrats revealed that the recent run was the fastest speed their Starlink terminal had performed since the 255 Mbps speed test in March 2020. An earlier post by the same user outlined download speeds averaging 50 Mbps during off-peak hours and 20 to 30 Mbps during peak hours.
GetOffMyGrassBrats shared the same experience with several other users from different states. For example, one user from South Georgia shared that since late in the week, they have regularly encountered speeds of 200 Mbps during off-peak hours and 80 Mbps during peak hours. However, the fastest download speeds we encountered today came from a Starlink user in a remote area of Wyoming, who revealed that while their “typical” download speed was 180 Mbps, they have now managed to reach 311 Mbps.
