A First Look at Starlink’s Impact on Internet Equity

When considering the need to subsidize commercial LEO networks, we believe that it is first important to consider whether LEO Internet networks 1) Meet regulatory standards of quality and 2) Perform as well for low-income users as for high-income users. To answer these questions, we studied Starlink’s performance since it is currently the only widely deployed LEO network, although others are planned (e.g., Project Kuiper, IRIS^2). For throughput analysis, we used real-world speed test data from Google’s M-Lab dataset. We observed that Starlink does not consistently meet performance goals across the board, with only 24.7%, 13.6%, and 42.2% of samples above 100 Mbps in the US, EU, and AU, respectively. However, we find that these conclusions are dependent on the interpretation of proposed standards, as peak throughput measurements seem to tell a different story with most samples above 100 Mbps. These findings suggest that existing performance goals, written in the context of more stable fibre connectivity (where the disparity between peak vs. average throughput is smaller), may need reframing to account for the inherently volatile nature of LEO networks.