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Throughput Analysis of Starlink Satellite Internet: Study on the Effects of Precipitation and Hourly Variability with TCP and UDP
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Communication Systems, CoS.
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Communication Systems, CoS.
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Communication Systems, CoS.
KTH, School of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (EECS), Computer Science, Communication Systems, CoS.ORCID iD: 0000-0002-3172-076X
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2025 (English)In: The Seventeenth International Conference on Advances in Satellite and Space Communications: SPACOMM 2925, International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA), 2025Conference paper, Published paper (Refereed)
Abstract [en]

Starlink provides satellite internet connectivity to customers worldwide using Low Earth Orbit (LEO)-satellites connecting to ground stations and user equipment. How the throughput is affected by precipitation, time-of-day and different transport protocols are issues that have received a lot of interest. This affects particularly areas at higher latitudes which are covered by fewer satellites compared to Central Europe and the main regions of the United States. The present study was conducted in Stockholm, Sweden, at a latitude of 59.3 degrees north, well north of the main coverage area for Starlink. The experiments consist of throughput measurements with the internet measurement tool iPerf3 for two different transport protocols: Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and User Datagram Protocol (UDP). Precipitation (rainfall) measurements were conducted simultaneously. The results show a notable performance hit in the throughput when moderate rainfall (about 1 mm per hour) is present, about 16 percent for UDP and about 28 percent for TCP. The data also show that the throughput varies during different hours of the day with around 21 percent for UDP and 32 percent for TCP. The highest throughput is received at night and early mornings. In conclusion, our study provides further knowledge about the effects of precipitation and hourly variability with TCP and UDP on Starlink’s performance, specifically when operated at latitudes outside of Starlink’s main coverage area.

Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
International Academy, Research and Industry Association (IARIA), 2025.
Keywords [en]
starlink, leo-antennas, network, tcp, udp, weather, precipitation, iperf3, ping, throughput, latency, internet measurements
National Category
Electrical Engineering, Electronic Engineering, Information Engineering Telecommunications
Research subject
Electrical Engineering
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:kth:diva-363552OAI: oai:DiVA.org:kth-363552DiVA, id: diva2:1959061
Conference
SPACOMM 2025 : The Seventeenth International Conference on Advances in Satellite and Space Communications, Athens, Greece, July 6-10, 2025
Projects
Sustainable Mobile Autonomous and Resilient 6G SatCom research center (SMART 6GSAT)
Funder
Swedish Foundation for Strategic Research
Note

Part of ISBN 9781685582760

QC 20250526

Available from: 2025-05-19 Created: 2025-05-19 Last updated: 2025-05-26

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Careau, CélineFredriksson, EmilOlsson, RobertSjödin, PeterBeckman, Claes

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CiteExportLink to record
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Citation style
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