[LINK] Elon Musk: Starlink whipping the competition

[Stephen Loosley]

Elon Musk: Starlink whipping the competition

Four times faster and much lower latency than NBN.


By David Braue on Dec 10 
2024https://ia.acs.org.au/article/2024/elon-musk-s-starlink-whipping-the-competition.html?ref=newsletter&deliveryName=DM24627


NBN Co:  Sky Muster was not very impressive compared to Starlink

Authorities have urged the more than 84,000 customers of NBN Co’s Sky 
Muster satellite broadband service to consider their options after 
benchmarking showed that low earth orbit (LEO) satellite provider 
Starlink offers four times the speed with a fraction of the latency.

Services from Starlink – the Elon Musk-backed service whose more than 
7,400 satellites orbit just a few hundred kilometres above Earth’s 
surface – delivered peak download speeds of around 470Mbps, and uploads 
of around 74Mbps.

By contrast, services from NBN Co’s two Sky Muster satellites maxed out 
at around 111Mbps for downloads and 22Mbps for uploads, the ACCC 
reported after releasing its latest Measuring Broadband Australia 
report, which includes satellite services for the first time ever.

Starlink’s proximity to its users means data transmissions don’t have to 
travel as far, allowing faster broadband speeds and the use of 
lower-powered devices such as smartphones – with Optus already onboard 
to roam onto Starlink and Telstra utilising it for fixed services.

That proximity also means that Starlink delivered significantly shorter 
latency – the delay between when data is sent to a server and a reply 
received, which can affect the stability and responsiveness of gaming, 
multimedia, and other services – of 29.8 milliseconds (ms).

By contrast, latency over Sky Muster services – whose satellites are 
fixed in orbit some 35,786km above Earth – averaged 664.9ms, making the 
NBN Co broadband services 22 times less responsive than Starlink.

The findings – which are based on data collected in September – are 
significant for rural and regional Australians, many of whom continue to 
struggle with unreliable broadband services and many others who simply 
don’t have access to faster fixed broadband at all.

“Many consumers in rural and remote areas rely on alternatives such as 
satellite services to connect to the internet,” ACCC Commissioner Anna 
Brakey said in releasing the new report.

“When deciding which plan or provider is best,” she advised, “we 
encourage consumers to consider both the performance data as well as the 
price of the service and their household’s broadband usage needs.”


More than 200,000 Australians have reportedly used Starlink internet 
services. Photo: Shutterstock

A wake-up call for NBN Co

The results are a validation of Starlink’s LEO investment, which has 
been flagged as a potential threat to Sky Muster-based services ever 
since Starlink debuted here in 2021 amidst complaints from the likes of 
Foxtel.

NBN Co has tried a range of tactics to maximise the speed of Sky Muster, 
shifting around 120,000 users onto terrestrial fixed wireless broadband; 
trialling an unlimited 100Mbps service; and even asking users to 
download rather than stream videos to reduce congestion.

Yet with Starlink now widely available across Australia, the figures 
confirm that the broadband wholesale operator’s 84,381 remaining 
satellite customers – just a quarter of the number of premises said to 
be ready to connect to satellite – now have a viable alternative.

More than 200,000 Australian customers have reportedly already adopted 
Starlink services, including emergency responders and government 
agencies which have spent over $50 million on Starlink in three years.

That makes Australians particularly keen adopters of the services: by 
comparison, newly released figures from UK telecommunications regulator 
OFCOM showed just 87,000 Starlink services live in the UK this year.

Starlink is likely to continue winning in Australia – despite concerns 
about an overreliance on the whim of mercurial CEO Musk to keep Starlink 
available at all times – although Sky Muster could enjoy a reprieve if 
demand stagnates when the service reaches saturation.

Australia’s broadband is “approaching a plateau,” telecommunications 
analyst Paul Budde recently wrote, “as most users settle into speeds of 
50-100Mbps, curtailing growth in demand.”

Data for the Measuring Broadband Australia program are compiled by 
UK-based firm SamKnows, which offers volunteers in Australia and other 
countries a device called a Whitebox that regularly checks the speed of 
their internet service performance.

The program also collects data about fixed services, with NBN Co’s 
100Mbps service plans maxing out at 88.1Mbps over fibre to the node 
(FttN), 102.8Mbps over hybrid fibre coaxial (HFC), and 103.6Mbps over 
fibre to the premises (FttP).

Faster NBN Co plans were found to be delivering robust speeds, with 
customers on 250Mbps plans reporting peaks of 260.8Mbps and those on NBN 
Co’s gigabit-class services delivering 840.1Mbps over HFC connections 
and 864.5Mbps over FttP.



David Braue
David Braue is an award-winning technology journalist who has covered 
Australia’s technology industry since 1995. A lifelong technophile, he 
has written and edited content for a broad range of audiences across 
myriad consumer and business topics, with a particular focus on managing 
the intersection of technological innovation and business 
transformation. He has twice won Best IT Journalist at the Australian IT 
Journalism awards, and was named Best Technology Journalist at the 2024 
Australian Technologies Competition.


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