Thanks to the fact that the SpaceX V2 satellite launches now add 5 Tbps capacity with each passing week, the Starlink network download speeds in the US have reached 200 Mbps even in peak hours.

SpaceX has released its Starlink network performance status update for the past year, where, among download speeds and latency improvement statistics, SpaceX informs about its current and future capacity expansion plans.

Through strategically placed terrestrial antennas, Starlink’s engineers have also managed to bring median latency down from 45 ms in Q1, to the current 25.7 milliseconds as of last month.

They are well on their way to hit the 20 ms threshold that is considered suitable for gaming, too, and Elon Musk is on record saying that Starlink’s next generation of satellites can theoretically bring ping down to 5 ms even.

Those V3 satellite are precisely the kit that will boost the Starlink network capacity well beyond its current 450 Tbps capabilities. The V3 satellites offer 1 Gbps throughput each, and, at 200 Mbps, will bring 24x the uplink speeds of the current V2 generation.

The V3 satellites are big, each having the footprint of a Boeing 737 with its solar panels extended, so they will need the next-gen Starship 3 rocket to be taken to an orbit lower than current launches. The lower earth orbit, new computers and modems, as well as the next generation of terrestrial stations that will serve V3 satellites, will bring the drastic reduction in network latency.

Starlink says that it has scheduled the V3 satellite launches for the January-June period of 2026 and each launch will now add 60 Tbps of network capacity, over twenty times the current rate. This will allow Starlink to launch the promised gigabit network that will bring download speeds of over 1 Gbps.

Starlink is already selling a $1,999 Performance dish kit that will be able to take advantage of such gigabit speeds. For comparison, the Starlink Mini dish that is now discounted on Amazon, maxes out at 100 Mbps, while the standard residential kit is rated for about 400 Mbps download speeds, where available.

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Daniel Zlatev – Senior Tech Writer – 1788 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2021

Wooed by tech since the industrial espionage of Apple computers and the times of pixelized Nintendos, Daniel went and opened a gaming club when personal computers and consoles were still an expensive rarity. Nowadays, fascination is not with specs and speed but rather the lifestyle that computers in our pocket, house, and car have shoehorned us in, from the infinite scroll and the privacy hazards to authenticating every bit and move of our existence.