Faster uploads, busier skies: what Ookla's latest Starlink speed report means for UK homes and businesses

12 hours ago

5 min read

Every few months a new set of speed figures appears for Starlink, and every time the same questions follow. Is it getting faster? Will it slow down as more people join? And which plan is actually worth paying for?

This week Ookla, the company behind the Speedtest app, published its latest analysis of Starlink performance, covering the first half of 2026. The data is from the US, Starlink's largest market, rather than the UK, but the trends it describes come from the same constellation of satellites that serves British homes and businesses. Here is what the report found, what it does and does not tell us, and what it means if you are on Starlink, thinking about it, or waiting for Amazon Leo.

What Ookla found

The report, written by Ookla editorial director Sue Marek and published on 11 November 2026, compares Speedtest results from the first half of 2025 with the first half of 2026. Its main findings were:

Median upload speed rose 42%, from 14.63 Mbps to 20.73 Mbps, and improved in every US state, with gains of between 25% and 70%.
Median download speed rose 12% nationally to 119.71 Mbps, but the gains were uneven, and download speeds fell in 16 states.
Latency improved almost everywhere, and the number of states with a median latency under 40 milliseconds more than doubled.
Speedtest sample counts for Starlink grew 41.8% year on year, which Ookla links to cheaper promotional and tiered plans.
Around nine in ten new Starlink users had switched from a non-fibre connection such as DSL, cable or fixed wireless, and the number of urban Starlink users grew at more than twice the rate of rural users.

Ookla attributes much of the upload improvement to SpaceX's V2 Mini satellites, which it says now make up roughly two-thirds of Starlink's working satellites, citing astronomer Jonathan McDowell's satellite tracker. Its closing question is the important one: whether Starlink's capacity can keep pace with its growth in the second half of the year.

Why upload speed matters more than you might think

Most broadband marketing is about download speed, but upload is often what decides whether a connection feels good day to day. Video calls send your camera feed upstream. Cloud backups, photo libraries and shared work folders all upload constantly. Security cameras that send clips to an app or a cloud archive use upload every time something moves.

Historically, upload was the weak point of satellite broadband. A rise of this size in the median, if it is reflected in other markets, makes a real difference to home workers, small offices and anyone running cameras over a satellite link. It is also a reminder to look at both numbers when you test your own connection, not just the headline download figure.

Latency: the quiet improvement

Latency is the delay before data starts to arrive, measured in milliseconds. It matters most for video calls, online gaming and anything interactive. Ookla reports that Starlink latency improved across almost the whole US in the past year, and attributes some of that to more ground stations and connection points closer to users, as well as satellites operating in lower orbits.

For UK users, the takeaway is that low-orbit satellite broadband is not the laggy, long-delay service that older geostationary satellite systems were. But latency on any connection is also affected by what happens inside the property: a congested Wi-Fi network, an overloaded router or a device at the edge of coverage can add delay that has nothing to do with the satellites.

The catch: more users share the same sky

The more cautious finding is about download speeds. Ookla noted that downloads fell in some of Starlink's busiest US markets, and warned that if SpaceX keeps pushing low-cost plans to attract customers, download speeds could come under pressure where demand is concentrated. Each satellite beam covers an area, and everyone in that area shares its capacity.

That is also the logic behind the address-based pricing Starlink has introduced in the UK. Starlink's UK contract summary, dated 28 October 2026, lists Residential plans at £40 a month for 100 Mbps, £60 for 200 Mbps and £80 for Max, and says customers should enter their address on the Starlink website to check prices at their location. Since early November the order form has said that Starlink uses dynamic pricing based on supply and demand, so a lower price can be a sign that there is spare capacity locally. Starlink is also running a November offer in selected areas until 30 November.

SpaceX's answer to the capacity question is its next generation of satellites. On 13 November the fifteenth Starship flight deployed 26 Starlink V3 satellites, and SpaceX says each V3 satellite adds around 1 terabit per second of capacity to the network. How quickly that capacity reaches users in any one area will depend on how fast V3 launches continue.

What it means for UK homes and businesses

A few practical points follow from all of this:

Check the price and plan at your exact address on the day you order, as prices and offers now vary by location and can change.
Choose a plan for how you actually use the connection. A household that mostly streams may be well served by the 100 Mbps tier, while a business with several users, cameras and cloud backups will feel the benefit of a higher tier.
Test your connection properly. Run speed tests on a computer connected by Ethernet as well as over Wi-Fi, at different times of day, and look at upload and latency as well as download. The Starlink app also shows outage and obstruction statistics.
Keep the dish's view of the sky clear. Obstructions such as trees, chimneys and neighbouring roofs cause short dropouts that no plan upgrade will fix.
Remember that Amazon Leo will be another option. Amazon says consumer service is expected to begin before the end of 2026, and a second low-orbit network gives homes and businesses more choice and the possibility of a backup connection.

The connection is only as good as the installation

Speed reports measure the satellite network, but the experience in your home or office depends just as much on the installation. A dish mounted with a clear view of the sky, a properly routed and weatherproofed cable, a router in the right place and a wired backbone of Cat6 and PoE switches feeding mesh access points all help you get the speeds, upload and latency the network is capable of delivering.

In our experience, many complaints about slow satellite broadband come down to obstructions or weak Wi-Fi inside the building rather than the service itself. A short dropout every few minutes because a tree is in the way, or a back office that only gets one bar of Wi-Fi, can make a fast connection feel slow.

Professional installation from Space Internet Solutions

Space Internet Solutions installs Starlink for homes and businesses across the UK and is preparing customers for Amazon Leo, with obstruction checks, secure mounting, neat cable runs and the network behind the dish designed in from the start: Cat6 cabling, PoE switches, mesh Wi-Fi and point-to-point wireless links to outbuildings. We are part of the PLEO (Professional Low Earth Orbit) network of trained installers working nationwide, so wherever you are, there is an installer who knows how to get the most from low-orbit satellite broadband.

If you want your satellite connection to deliver everything the latest figures promise, visit spaceinternetsolutions.com and tell us about your property. We will help you choose the right setup and fit it properly first time.

Sources: Ookla, Starlink US performance analysis for the first half of 2026 by Sue Marek (11 November 2026), as reported by Fierce Network, Light Reading, Telecompetitor and the Benton Institute; Starlink UK contract summary (28 October 2026); Space Foundation, "SpaceX and Amazon Boost Constellation Competition" (13 November 2026).