Starlink in Northern Europe: A New Look at Stationary and In-motion Performance

TL;DR

This study evaluates Starlink's FHP terminal performance in Northern Europe, analyzing throughput, RTT, and routing for stationary and moving users, revealing high-speed connectivity with some throughput fluctuations during motion.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive performance analysis of Starlink's FHP terminal in Northern Europe, focusing on in-motion and stationary scenarios, which was limited in prior research.

Findings

Starlink offers high-speed, low-RTT connectivity in Northern Europe.

Throughput slightly degrades when the terminal is in motion.

Network routing strategies influence performance variations.

Abstract

Starlink has introduced the Flat High Performance (FHP) terminal, specifically designed to support the vehicles and the vessels in motion as well as the high-demand stationary users. The research on FHP terminal throughput analysis remains limited, only a few existing studies evaluate FHP, focusing on the limited parameters and scenarios. This paper evaluates the FHP terminal's performance in Finland, Northern Europe. We examine round-trip time (RTT), uplink, and downlink throughput for both stationary and in-motion use. We measure network efficiency across six geographically diverse servers and get insights of network routing strategies. Our results show that Starlink provides high-speed, low-RTT connectivity, however, the throughput experiences fluctuations with slight degradation when in motion. Additionally, we compare Starlink and terrestrial network RTT and possible routing paths.