Starlink is a satellite internet service operated by SpaceX that beams broadband from thousands of low-orbit satellites to a small dish at the customer’s home. It was built to reach the places cable and fiber skip: rural properties, boats, remote worksites, and disaster zones where the ground network is down. Unlike older satellite internet, which sent signals to distant satellites almost 36,000 kilometers up, Starlink flies its satellites just a few hundred kilometers overhead, so the connection feels far quicker. That single design choice, low orbit, is what separates it from the satellite internet of a decade ago.
How Starlink Works
Starlink connects a customer to the internet through three pieces: the dish, the constellation, and the ground gateways. The dish, a flat panel SpaceX nicknames “Dishy,” sits with a clear view of the sky and steers its beam electronically to track satellites as they pass. There are no moving parts to point it. The panel aims itself.
The dish talks to whichever satellite is overhead, and because those satellites are in low Earth orbit, each one is only in view for a few minutes. So the dish hands off to a fresh satellite constantly as the fleet moves across the sky. The satellite then relays the traffic to a ground gateway wired into the internet, or passes it between satellites using laser links in space before it comes down. Our LEO satellites explainer covers why low orbit forces this constant handoff and why it needs so many satellites to work.
The Constellation
Starlink is the largest satellite constellation ever flown, with thousands of satellites in orbit as of 2026 and more launching regularly. The scale is the product. A low-orbit satellite covers only a small patch of ground at any moment, so continuous service everywhere demands a very large fleet spread across many orbital planes. SpaceX launches its own satellites on its own rockets, which lets it add to the constellation faster and more cheaply than operators that must buy launches from someone else.
Because the fleet is always growing and older satellites are always being retired, the exact satellite count is a moving target. The satellites fly low enough that a dead one is dragged down by the faint atmosphere and burns up within a few years rather than lingering as debris. That short lifespan means SpaceX has to keep launching replacements just to hold the network steady, on top of the launches that expand it.
Coverage, Speeds, and What to Expect
Starlink typically advertises download speeds in the tens to low hundreds of megabits per second, with latency that is low, roughly tens of milliseconds. Those figures are enough for video calls, streaming, and gaming, uses that older satellite internet handled poorly because of its long delay. Real performance shifts with conditions, so the numbers are a guide rather than a guarantee.
Two factors move the actual speed a user sees. The first is congestion: satellite capacity over any area is shared, so speeds can dip when many subscribers in the same region are online at once. The second is weather, since heavy rain or snow weakens the high-frequency signal the dish uses. Coverage depends on the satellites overhead and on local regulatory approval, and it has widened fast, though some areas remain waitlisted. Anyone considering it should check the official coverage map for a specific address before ordering.
Use Cases
Starlink fits wherever the ground network falls short. Its clearest home is rural and remote broadband, where a property sits beyond the reach of cable or fiber and the only prior option was slow, high-latency satellite. It also serves motion: boats, recreational vehicles, and aircraft use versions of the service built to keep a link while moving. After a hurricane or wildfire knocks out local towers, portable Starlink terminals often restore connectivity for responders within hours.
The service comes in tiers built for these different uses. A residential plan ties service to one address and costs the least. Mobile and maritime plans cost more but keep the link while the terminal travels, and business plans add priority data so a paying site is less likely to slow down when an area gets busy. The hardware differs too: a boat or a plane in constant motion needs a sturdier, higher-performance dish than a fixed roof mount. Anyone weighing the service should match the plan to how they will actually use it, since paying for mobility a fixed home never needs is wasted money.
Beyond home internet, Starlink runs a separate direct-to-cell service that connects ordinary phones for texting from dead zones, using cell payloads on its satellites and partnerships with mobile carriers. That service starts with messages rather than the full broadband the dish delivers, because a bare phone cannot hold the strong link a dish can.
How Starlink Compares to Other Satellite Internet
Starlink is not the only satellite broadband option, and the alternatives split along the low-orbit versus high-orbit line.
| Provider | Orbit | Latency | Position as of 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starlink | Low Earth orbit | Low, tens of ms | Largest fleet, consumer and enterprise |
| OneWeb | Low Earth orbit | Low | Enterprise and government focus |
| Project Kuiper | Low Earth orbit | Low | Amazon network, deploying |
| Viasat | Geostationary | High, ~500 ms | Established high-orbit broadband |
The low-orbit rivals, OneWeb and Amazon’s Project Kuiper, share Starlink’s latency advantage but sit at different stages and chase different customers. OneWeb, now part of Eutelsat, leans toward enterprise and government users. Project Kuiper is still building out its fleet. Geostationary providers such as Viasat cover wide areas with far fewer satellites, but their high orbit adds the long delay that low-orbit networks were built to avoid.
Who Owns Starlink
Starlink is a business unit of SpaceX rather than a separate public company. SpaceX is privately held as of 2026, so there is no Starlink ticker to buy on a public stock exchange, and shares change hands through private markets rather than an open listing. For a fuller breakdown of that ownership and how private shares trade, read our investing explainer on whether Starlink is publicly traded.