[Starlink] speedtest.net takes a look at sat internet around the globe

[Ulrich Speidel]

It always pains me to see "speed" tests like these, especially if the 
methodology they've used isn't clear. My big gripes:

- I strongly suspect that the speed tests here (and in so many other 
blogs/vlogs) are UDP-based, which doesn't tell me a thing about how much 
TCP goodput I'll get over any of these links.
- Latency is measured between end user and ... what? The satellite 
gateway? Some imaginary fixed point on the Internet that all our traffic 
has to to through? Or maybe just speedtest.net's servers, whose 
locations possibly don't matter one iota for my Internet performance?
- If we reasonably assume that the capacity of a Starlink satellite 
needs to be shared between its users, then few users / satellite equates 
to a large share of the capacity. From Starlink's front page: "Starlink 
is available to a limited number of users per coverage area at this 
time." Guess what? What we see here may not last, but it's sure great 
for marketing.
- Ever wondered why Starlink's bulk of beta users sits between 
40-something and 50-something degrees of latitude? That's right, because 
that's where you get the largest concentration of satellites right now, 
which helps keep the number of users per satellite down. Elsewhere? 
Tough luck.
- At the other end of your terrestrial broadband connection might be a 
few CDN servers, meaning you and your fellow customers will only need to 
use the ISP's feed once for that viral cat video everyone wants to 
watch. Starlink goes direct to site, not to a local ISP. So if your ISP 
is in space and the CDNs are on the ground, a thousand Starlink users on 
a satellite wanting to watch the cat video will need to bring it across 
the satellite a thousand times. Your terrestrial ISP (or even sat-based 
ISP with a terrestrial network connecting end users) only needs to do 
this once.

But big numbers always look great, don't they?

On 13/08/2021 9:22 am, Darrell Budic wrote:
> https://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/starlink-hughesnet-viasat-performance-q2-2021/ 
> <https://www.speedtest.net/insights/blog/starlink-hughesnet-viasat-performance-q2-2021/> 
>
>
> Nothing we didn’t know, but interesting comparisons between the 3 sat 
> companies and fixed breadboard around the world.
>
> Made me wonder if there’s anyone else contributing to the speed tests 
> in Iowa county, WI, looks a lot like my averages there...
>
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-- 
****************************************************************
Dr. Ulrich Speidel

School of Computer Science

Room 303S.594 (City Campus)
Ph: (+64-9)-373-7599 ext. 85282

The University of Auckland
ulrich at cs.auckland.ac.nz
http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~ulrich/
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