Elon Musks companies have actually had their fair share of low and high in the general publics eyes but SpaceX might have lately taken the lions share of goodwill thanks to a series of effective launches and tests of its rockets and team capsule. It was likewise the most recent recipient of some heavy criticism due to its Starlink satellites photobombing the NEOWISE comet. Its controversial existence in the Earths skies, however, may be worth it if these numbers using Ooklas popular Speedtest are anything to go by.
Even the most affordable 11 Mbps that these Speedtest outcomes reveal is currently enough to impress Internet users that are capped at 1 Mbps or perhaps slower. SpaceXs goal is to make broadband Internet available even and specifically for locations where DSL, cable television, fiber, and even geostationary satellites are not able to reach. For these locations, 11 Mbps would be Internet heaven currently.
To be clear, none of the anonymized test results on Ooklas website come even close to Musks promise of gigabit Internet and less than 20 ms latency originating from its Starlink satellite constellation. The fastest download speed was taped at 60 Mbps while uploads topped at 17.70 Mbps. Latency, on the other hand, varied from 31 to 94 ms.
Obviously, Starlinks pledge does not come without a rate, as already evidenced by astrophotographs of the night sky. The presence of 600 satellites is already showing to be questionable to the astronomy community, let alone when a 12,000-strong fleet is already completely force orbiting around our world.
One will need to think about, nevertheless, that there are only 600 Starlink satellites presently in Low-Earth Orbit or LEO, almost 570 km at the highest peak. SpaceX has actually been cleared to launch 12,000 satellites, at which point the constellation would be mainly completely operation to provide those promised speeds. Or at least thats the theory.
