Starlink Speed Test

Why satellite latency behaves differently

• Starlink satellites orbit at roughly 550 km, so the round trip adds only a few milliseconds of flight time — unlike geostationary satellites at 35,786 km, which add about 600 ms.
• Your dish re-aims and hands off to a new satellite every few minutes. Handoffs can add short latency spikes and brief packet loss.
• Traffic still exits through a ground gateway, so the distance to that gateway and to the test server both shape your ping.
• Jitter matters more than raw speed for calls and gaming — run a ping test and a packet loss test alongside this one.

Fix slow or unstable Starlink results

1. Open the Starlink app obstruction view and clear any blocked sky — trees are the most common culprit.
2. Re-test at off-peak hours; congested cells lose the most throughput between 19:00 and 23:00.
3. Test over Ethernet before blaming the link — WiFi often caps results below what the dish delivers.
4. Brush wet snow or debris off the dish and confirm the heater is enabled in cold climates.
5. Restart the router, then re-run this test three times and compare the median, not the best run.