Starlink, Elon Musk's satellite Internet company, appears to have hit its speed ceiling, according to data collected by one of the Internet's largest speed-testing sites

According to Ookla, known for operating SpeedTestnet, Starlink's speeds did not increase in the third quarter of this year Speeds began to drop in some areas

According to Ookla, median speeds dropped from 9723 Mbps to 8725 Mbps between Q2 and Q3 2021; Ookla speculates that this may be a symptom of Starlink adding new customers to its satellite network and eating up available bandwidth Ookla speculates that this may be a symptom of Starlink adding new customers to its satellite network and eating up available bandwidth

At the very least, median upload speeds remained nearly flat between Q2 and Q3 2021, from 1389 to 1354

According to Ookla data, Starlink speeds still vary widely by county In Santa Fe County, New Mexico, the fastest median download speed was 14658 Mbps, while the slowest median download speed was 4663 Mpbs in Drummond Township, Michigan

Still, Starlink's poor performance must be viewed in the context of the overall satellite Internet market The median download speeds of competitors HughesNet and Viasat were 1930 and 1875 Mbps, respectively This means that even Starlink's slowest speed is more than twice the median of HughesNet and Viasat For rural communities, speeds approaching 100 Mbps are a great relief

Away from the US, in Australia, where Internet infrastructure is middling, Starlink significantly outperformed fixed Internet Starlink's median download speed of 13812 Mbps was well above the 5117 Mbps of traditional Internet service providers

Starlink customers experiencing slower transmission speeds need not worry SpaceX recently launched 52 satellites from its base in California Currently, the Low Earth Orbit Satellite Internet Constellation consists of a little over 1,600 satellites This is a lot, but still far from the 12,000 satellites that SpaceX is planning The more satellites in orbit, the better the Internet should be