- Starlink broadband speeds increased for customers last year
- This is due to the fact that SpaceX keeps launching more satellites, increasing its coverage and capacity
- Although Starlink is thought of as a rural broadband provider, it’s gaining urban customers as well
Starlink’s satellite broadband speeds improved during the second half of 2025, according to a new Ookla report based on its Speedtest Intelligence data. The speed boosts are largely attributed to SpaceX launching more satellites last year.
During 2025, SpaceX conducted over 120 Falcon 9 missions to launch Starlink satellites. By the end of the year Starlink’s LEO constellation consisted of nearly 10,000 active satellites. This increased the density of satellites in the constellation, which means that subscribers nearly always have multiple satellites overhead. With more satellites, users are likely to get stronger signals because each satellite can focus its energy into a smaller beam, which allows for more capacity per square mile of coverage.
Fifty percent or more of Starlink customers in five states — Nebraska, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado and Nevada — experienced the FCC’s minimum required broadband speeds of 100/20 Mbps while using the low-Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband service.
In the second half of 2025, Nebraska topped the 50 states with 58.31% of Starlink LEO satellite users receiving speeds of 100/20 Mbps, which is the highest percentage of any of the 50 states for Starlink service. This is an increase over the first half of 2025 when 32.16% of Starlink users in Nebraska got speeds of 100/20 Mbps.
What is notable is the number of customers where Starlink still does not deliver 100/20 Mbps speeds.
Sue Marek, Ookla’s editorial director and author of the new report, said Starlink speeds have improved quite a bit, “The uplink has been where satellite has struggled," she said. "It’s what usually keeps them from meeting [the FCC minimum speeds].”
Marek said Ookla Speedtest users across the U.S. in the second half of 2025 experienced Starlink median download speeds of 133.8 Mbps and median upload speeds of 19.3 Mbps.
This compares to fiber-delivered broadband, which can easily deliver speeds of 1 Gbps symmetrical.
Rural vs. urban
According to Ooka’s report, Starlink has effectively reversed the traditional connectivity gap in 29 U.S. states, where a higher percentage of rural Starlink users get the FCC’s minimum requirements for broadband service compared to urban Starlink users.
Starlink’s ability to deliver high-speed broadband services to rural areas is due to the fact that its satellite constellation orbits just 341 miles from the ground. A single Starlink satellite beam covers an area of roughly 15-60 square miles and provides a fixed amount of bandwidth. In rural areas there may only be 10-20 users in that 60-square-mile area, so each user gets a large slice of the available bandwidth.
Starlink’s surprising city appeal
Despite the fact that rural Starlink users get better broadband speeds than urban users, one surprising metric from Ookla’s data found that Starlink is garnering a lot of interest from urban customers as well.
Five states — Florida, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey and Connecticut — have more Starlink users in urban areas than rural areas.
While Starlink’s service isn’t a substitute for the speed and price of a fiber-optic connection it does appeal to a certain segment or urban residents who aren’t satisfied with their choice of fixed broadband provider. It also serves as a reliable backup for those who require 24/7 connection.
“The urban/rural thing was kind of interesting,” said Marek. “I think we’ve been conditioned to believe Starlink was just for rural.”
Alaska is an outlier
Places such as Alaska can really benefit from satellite broadband because of their remote, vast rural locations, which are super difficult to connect with fiber.
Yet, Alaska is the lowest ranking state for Starlink speeds. The reason for lower speeds is because Starlink satellites are launched into inclined orbits to cover the most populated parts of the globe. To cover Alaska, SpaceX has to launch polar orbit satellites, and there are simply fewer satellites that pass over the poles as compared to the continental U.S.
However, Alaska did see some improvement last year. In the second half of 2025, 15.9% of Starlink users experienced the minimum broadband speeds of 100/20 Mbps compared to just 4.35% in the first half of 2025.