Starlink speeds could be boosted by ongoing system upgrades

Almost all of Elon Musk's endeavors and dreams have proven to be controversial but most of them prove themselves in the long run. While The Boring Company has still to bear any usable fruit and Neuralink is still too early in its infancy, SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellite constellation continues to split people up. It still has to reach its full potential, both in number of satellites and promised speeds, but Elon Musk says that there might be a speed bump on the way.

Just a few days ago, Musk boasted that Starlink's speeds will eventually reach 300 MB/s with latencies as low as around 20ms. Those are definitely ambitious goals compared to the range that SpaceX advertises. Just to set expectations correctly, it says that speeds could go from 50 to 150 MB/s, depending on certain conditions, and latency can be as high as 40 ms.

Those numbers might still be higher than what most beta testers experience on average but figures are really not that consistent. Such is really the case when using satellites that have to move at certain positions in low earth orbits which, in turn, also determines the speeds that users get depending on their location on the Earth.

That said, Elon Musk is saying that users might experience higher downloads at times while their testing system upgrades. That said, those upgrades can also cause performance to fluctuate during that period.

You might see much higher download speeds on Starlink at times. Testing system upgrades.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) February 25, 2021

Users are reporting exactly that, with some getting 20 to 180 MB/s, at certain times. The irregularity is to be expected during this system upgrade testing phase but some beta testers are hoping that Starlink would be able to deliver on the advertised 150 MB/s promise first before promising double that speed sometime later this year.