FCC lets Starlink start deploying Gen2 satellites as Gen1 speeds keep falling

Starlink Internet speeds are continuing to drop as more people use the service, new speed tests show. But SpaceX this week won approval to launch another 7,500 satellites, kicking off a second-generation deployment that will provide the broadband network more capacity in the long run.

SpaceX has been seeking permission to launch another 29,988 low-Earth orbit satellites, and the Federal Communications Commission partially granted the request in an authorization order released Thursday. "Specifically, we grant SpaceX authority to construct, deploy, and operate up to 7,500 satellites operating at altitudes of 525, 530, and 535 km and inclinations of 53, 43, and 33 degrees, respectively, using frequencies in the Ku- and Ka-band," the FCC said.

The FCC deferred action on the rest of the requested satellites. "To address concerns about orbital debris and space safety, we limit this grant to 7,500 satellites only, operating at certain altitudes," the FCC said. But the approval of 7,500 satellites "will allow SpaceX to begin deployment of Gen2 Starlink, which will bring next generation satellite broadband to Americans nationwide, including those living and working in areas traditionally unserved or underserved by terrestrial systems," the FCC said.

The partial authorization came as Ookla speed tests showed Starlink speeds dropping again in Q3 2022. The service's median download speed in the US is about half what it was at the end of 2021.

Starlink's median US download speed hit 105Mbps in Q4 2021. It dropped to 90.6Mbps in Q1 2022, 62.5Mbps in Q2 2022, and 53Mbps in the Q3 2022 report released on Wednesday of this week.

Starlink's median US upload speed dropped from 12Mbps to 7.2Mbps from Q4 2021 to Q3 2022. Median latency rose from 40 ms to 67 ms in the same timeframe.

Starlink gets slower in Canada, too

In Canada, Starlink's Q3 2022 median download speeds were 65.8Mbps, upload speeds were 9.2Mbps, and latency was 77 ms. Those are all downgrades since Q4 2021, when Starlink's Canadian users got median download speeds of 106.6Mbps, uploads of 12.8Mbps, and latency of 55 ms.

"Over the past year, as we've seen more users flock to sign up for Starlink (reaching 400,000 users worldwide during Q2 2022), speeds have started to decrease," the latest Ookla report said. But Starlink can still be "a life-changing service for consumers where connectivity is inadequate or nonexistent."

With Starlink's current performance, the biggest problems would affect users of multiplayer online games because Starlink "latency still lags far behind low-latency fixed broadband connections," the report said. We previously wrote about Starlink's slowing speeds in September. At the time, Ookla said that "Starlink speeds decreased in every country we surveyed over the past year as more users sign up for service."

Ookla's user-initiated speed tests show growing numbers of Starlink users across the US. A year ago, Starlink had at least 10 unique users in 776 US counties—now it's up to at least 10 users in 2,399 counties, about 75 percent of the counties in the US.

Starlink’s new satellite approval

Starlink has over 3,200 satellites in orbit. The Internet provider obtained FCC permission to deploy nearly 12,000 satellites in 2018 and has since gained approvals to use lower altitudes than initially planned.

In its partial approval of SpaceX's newer application, the FCC said it grappled with "a number of significant issues" raised by interested parties. That includes "orbital debris mitigation and space safety, protection of systems licensed in previous NGSO (non-geostationary orbit) FSS (fixed-satellite service) processing rounds and sharing of information with other operators, compliance with equivalent power-flux density (EPFD) limits and other issues involving protection of geostationary satellite orbit (GSO) space stations from harmful interference, protection of science missions using electromagnetic spectrum, as well as various concerns that parties deem to be environmental, such as potential atmospheric effects from launches and satellite reentries and potential effects on astronomy and night sky observation."

The FCC said it imposed conditions to "protect other satellite and terrestrial operators from harmful interference and maintain a safe space environment, promoting competition and protecting spectrum and orbital resources for future use."

SpaceX's 2018 approvals included over 7,000 satellites using V-band frequencies that range from 37.5 GHz to 52.4 GHz. That was in contrast to SpaceX's other approved satellites using Ku-band and Ka-band frequencies from 10.7 GHz to 30 GHz.

The FCC said yesterday's approval technically doesn't increase the total number of approved satellites because SpaceX is retooling its earlier V-band plans:

SpaceX has committed to requesting modification of its previously granted license for operations in the V-band so that it will incorporate those V-band operations into its Starlink Gen2 system, rather than operating a separate system in the V-band. This means our action today does not increase the total number of satellites SpaceX is authorized to deploy, and in fact slightly reduces it, as compared to the total number of satellites SpaceX would potentially have deployed otherwise.