Speed tests for SpaceX’s satellite-broadband service, Starlink, have begun showing up on Ookla’s speedtest.net (via reddit’s r/starlink), and the numbers are pretty decent. Beta testers have been getting download speeds from 11 Mbps to 60 Mbps and upload speeds from 5 Mbps to 18 Mbps. While those numbers aren’t as good as the national broadband averages (96.25 Mbps down, 32.88 Mbps up), Elon Musk’s plan to bring fast-speed internet to challenging geographical areas appears to be shaping up well.
The speed tests are also showing latency figures as low as 20 ms, which means that Starlink’s engineers have been successful in approaching their intended targets. “We’re targeting latency below 20 milliseconds, so somebody could play a fast-response video game at a competitive level, like that’s the threshold for the latency,” Musk said earlier this year.
Is 20 ms good enough for competitive gaming? Apparently so, based on Ocala’s guide to acceptable ping for online gaming:
- Winning: 0-59 ms
- In the game: 60-129 ms
- Struggling: 130-199 ms
- Game over: 200+ ms
