Though Starlink’s market and capacity have grown sharply over the last year, the satellite broadband company’s median speeds still fall short of the 100/20 Mbps benchmark established by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in 2024, according to a new report from Ookla.
The report — “2025 Global Satellite Broadband Performance Report” — was released yesterday. The report marked improvements in Starlink’s cumulative network capacity, which has nearly doubled in the past year.
Starlink also represents the largest U.S. satellite broadband market by far. A representative from Ookla noted that “Starlink accounted for a staggering 97.1% of all global satellite Speedtest samples in Q3 2025.” The U.S. is Starlink’s largest market, accounting for 22.5% of the speed test samples (Mexico was a distant second, at 5.7%).
Despite these numbers, the Ookla report found that Starlink’s 2025 median U.S. speeds still don’t meet federal benchmarks. For 2025, Starlink’s median U.S. download speed was 117.74 Mbps — over the federal standard of 100 Mbps — but the median upload speed was 16.91 Mbps, falling short of the federal standard of 20 Mbps.
Starlink’s speeds are close to the benchmark, and in October Starlink Vice President of Engineering Michael Nicolls claimed the network had made significant speed increases in 2025: “Typical download speeds are over 200 Mbps, typical upload speeds are over 30 Mbps, and median global latency is around 26 ms.”
Nicolls claimed that Starlink’s median speeds are nearly double the speeds found by Ookla. Even if Nicolls’ claim referred to global median speeds, the Ookla report found that the highest median download speeds from Starlink were in Latvia (187.3 Mbps), Northern Mariana Islands (186.15 Mbps), and New Zealand (185.37 Mbps), all of which fall below the 200 Mbps claimed by Nicolls.
It’s not a good look for Starlink; last week, Starlink’s parent company SpaceX sent a rider to state broadband offices demanding certain exemptions from requirements for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program for low Earth orbit (LEO) satellite broadband providers.
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) weighed in via a revised BEAD FAQ this week, stating “no BEAD statutory requirements or other program rules may be altered by a BEAD subgrant agreement” and reiterating the 100/20 Mbps minimum standard.
According to the Ookla report, it remains to be seen whether Starlink can meet that standard.
