Starlink solves a problem that has plagued modern broadband for years: how to reach rural and remote users who aren't accessible to traditional cable and fiber internet. If you're one of the millions of Americans living in an area without high-speed broadband from major internet service providers (ISPs) like Comcast Xfinity, Cox, Verizon Fios, or AT&T Fiber, you may find yourself wanting (or more likely needing) speedy internet for school, work, or entertainment, but having very few options, and none of them great.

I'm one of those people. I use Starlink at my home in rural Idaho, and in addition to being PCMag's Starlink tester/guinea pig, I've also been a very happy customer of the service. After years of use and testing, I can confidently say that Starlink keeps getting better and better. The current residential equipment pairs with updated satellite hardware and a growing number of terrestrial gateways (ground stations where the Starlink services connect to the broader internet) to make Starlink an exceptional option for people who can't get broadband. And it's not just for homes—the service works well on the go, too.

We don't typically test internet services or ISP-specific hardware, but Starlink's innovative offering makes it worth an exception and is easily deserving of an Editors' Choice award.

What Is Starlink?

Starlink is the satellite internet service from Elon Musk's company SpaceX. It offers broadband internet service almost anywhere that has a clear view of the sky, making fast, reliable access available in remote areas that may never get traditional services like cable or fiber. By using a satellite link and a specially designed, fairly portable dish to give users a wireless connection to the larger web, it allows speedy internet for things like streaming, gaming, and video calling.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

How does Starlink extend speedy internet access to remote locations? Instead of running physical cables that connect your home or RV to the greater internet, Starlink uses a series of low Earth orbit (LEO) satellites that communicate between your home dish and a terrestrial gateway somewhere else on Earth.

By removing the need for cable or fiber-optic connectivity in that last mile, Starlink is able to serve up decent internet speeds to anyone with a dish and a Starlink subscription, whether they're on a farm, on a mountain, or simply on the road too often to warrant a traditional, stationary internet connection. As of this writing, SpaceX has 8,460 active Starlink satellites in orbit. The sheer number of satellites allows Starlink to serve more than 7,000,000 customers worldwide.

It has also been a solution to my own very real problem. Shortly after joining PCMag, my family found a home to buy in southeast Idaho. It was a significant change, moving from a well-connected city in Utah to a very rural part of Idaho, and it very nearly didn't happen. Without adequate internet service, my job would be nearly impossible to do, so finding a workable option was a make-or-break decision in our home-buying process.

Working remotely as the lead PC and hardware reviewer for PCMag, I live online, with heavy demands for testing and moving data (sometimes as much as 70GB in a day), along with the necessities of online meetings and chat services that comprise the modern, distributed workplace. And that's in addition to a family that's just as connected—my kids want to watch Bluey and Netflix just as much as my wife wants to make video calls to friends and family, and I want to enjoy streaming shows and the occasional online game.

But with local ISPs offering anemic 40Mbps DSL plans—the best option in our area—the move to rural Idaho almost didn't happen. Thank heavens for Starlink. I've been using it for three years now, both in my daily work and my family time, and it's become an indispensable part of my rural life.

The Latest Starlink Gear: Dish V4 and Router Gen 3

Obviously, satellite internet requires a lot of equipment behind the scenes besides the satellites themselves, but for residential users, it's surprisingly simple. All you need is a Starlink dish, a router, and the electricity to power them. (That last part may sound obvious, but enough potential Starlink users want to go off the grid that it's worth pointing out.)

(Credit: Brian Westover)

Starlink's current Dish V4 has a larger antenna surface but a slimmer, more compact design that's more durable and more wind-resistant than its predecessor. Here's how the old and new dishes stack up in terms of physical specs and technology:

The Gen 3 router is also improved, with a new look, additional ports, and the addition of Wi-Fi 6 connectivity. The result is faster speeds, better coverage in your home, and even easier integration with existing network hardware, whether it's a mesh network or a wired connection for a printer or network-attached storage (NAS) device.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

The biggest improvement to the new router is the move to Wi-Fi 6, which is faster and farther-reaching than the previous Wi-Fi 5 router that came with the older dish. But it's hardly the only improvement. The router also upgrades from dual-band to tri-band support, with an improved 4x4 MU-MIMO setup that can handle up to 235 simultaneous devices on the network. The maximum Wi-Fi range has grown from 2,000 square feet to 3,200 square feet, and if that extended range and better connectivity aren't enough, it also supports adding up to three Starlink mesh nodes for whole-house coverage.

The full glory of Wi-Fi 6's 11Gbps theoretical maximum speed may not be readily apparent, given that Starlink tops out at about 400Mbps peak download speeds. Still, you will get better speeds between devices on the network, whether you're casting video to your smart TV or grabbing files from a home NAS device.

The reintroduction of two Ethernet ports on the router further enhances connectivity. If you look closely, you'll see some interesting hidden messages in your router port sockets, with etched text and images saying "To Mars and beyond," "Made on Earth by humans," and a stylized image of a SpaceX rocket launch. (Those are just some of the Martian Easter eggs I've found in Starlink equipment.) Say what you will about SpaceX's broader ambitions, but you can't deny that the Starlink division of the company has made for a surprisingly great internet service for us Earth-bound customers.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

The new router is also more compact, thanks to a redesigned external power supply, which used to be integrated into the previous Gen 2 router, making the old unit bulkier. Here's the full breakdown of the spec improvements:

You can also check out our first tests of the Dish V4 and Router Gen 3 for a different look at the improved designs and enhanced specs.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

Starlink also offers several new accessories to complement the redesigned dish, like the pole mount I used to attach my dish to an old mast that was left over from the previous homeowner's satellite TV dish. If you can't find the right accessory in the official Starlink store, mounts and power options are available from several third-party suppliers.

Installation is also easier, thanks to the dish's integrated kickstand and the ease of switching to specialized mounts. Starlink's instructions are direct and to the point: Plug in the dish and point it at the sky. So most users will assume they can handle the installation themselves. In most cases, there will be a couple more steps, though, like climbing on a roof or running cable through an exterior wall. If that sounds daunting, Starlink contracts with installers nationwide, who will install your dish and router for a nominal fee ($199). Self-installation is still free.

One thing that hasn't changed much since our first review of the service is the Starlink app, which serves as your main interface to check the connection status, adjust settings, and access your Starlink account. It's essential when setting up your dish, as well as for monitoring network performance in day-to-day use. (Check out our guide on how to use the Starlink app.)

What About Travelling With Starlink?

If you want something better suited to use with an RV, a vehicle, or even a backpack and tent, we recommend checking out the Starlink Mini. Sized to fit into a backpack and to run off a variety of power sources (from vehicle power to portable battery packs and generators), the all-in-one design makes it quick to deploy and even simpler to use.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

The only catch is that the smaller dish can't match the residential equipment in terms of performance (so the performance you'll read about below doesn't apply to the Mini), and using the Mini away from a fixed address requires a Starlink Roam plan. But with the cheapest Roam plan offering a metered 50GB of data for just $50 per month, it's not just a portable Wi-Fi solution, it's also a surprisingly affordable one. (Still undecided on which to get? Check out our Starlink Mini versus Standard Kit head-to-head comparison.)

Pricing and Plans: What Does Starlink Cost in 2025?

The Starlink residential equipment comes in the Starlink Standard Installation Kit, with cable and power supply included, for $349.99. That's a big up-front cost, but it's not much more than what you'd spend on a midrange Wi-Fi router and a cable modem, which each cost around $200. And with retail availability through stores like Walmart, Best Buy, Home Depot, and other outlets, it's easier to find and buy your dish than ever before.

(Credit: Brian Westover)

Starlink is also frequently offering discounts and promotions on the new hardware, experimenting with discounts for set service contracts, and reducing equipment and installation costs in areas where the company wants to expand its customer base. Discounted rates are not available everywhere, and they're not guaranteed to stick around permanently, but if you're in one of the lucky areas, your ongoing costs will initially be lower. And it's always worth double-checking any deal by finding it on the Starlink website, because some scammers have also used the enticing deals to lure in unsuspecting victims.

The standard Residential plan offers unlimited data with download speeds of 150Mbps or more (in our testing, it's considerably more) and is available almost anywhere in the US, as well as several other countries. Since it's meant for stationary use at a fixed address, it's ideal for homes.

(Credit: SpaceX)

The monthly price for this plan is normally $120, but you'll need to double-check with Starlink to confirm the pricing. Some areas are seeing discounts and special contract deals, while in some high-population areas, SpaceX has added a one-time "congestion charge" that can add between $100 and $250 to the cost of signing up.

And if you need a cheaper plan (and are willing to give up some capability to get it), you can try the Residential Lite plan, which is a step down in speed (80Mbps to 200Mbps), with deprioritized traffic, but also lowers the price to $80 per month. It's not offered in every state. (See this Starlink support page for current availability.) If you can get it, however, it's a great way to save on the monthly expense when you don't need the full speed and priority offerings of the Residential plan, but still want stable service to your home.

(Credit: SpaceX)

New customers may be able to save even more, though, since Starlink has started offering introductory offers with discounts for the first 12 months of service. Both Residential and Residential Lite plans may be eligible for new customer discounts. (For example, the screenshot above shows an offer for $59 per month for the Residential plan.)

Starlink in 2025: Climbing Performance

After first reviewing the Dish V4 and Gen 3 router in 2024, I again tested the same equipment in 2025. Why? Because while the equipment is the same, Starlink's infrastructure and technology is always improving. So, in our efforts to keep this review up to date with how Starlink currently performs, let's look at the latest numbers and see what you can expect.

Below is a graph of my most recent Starlink upload/download testing in 2025, over a two-week period. (As mentioned earlier, the tests below reflect the performance of the standard residential equipment and don't apply to Starlink Mini. To see how Starlink Mini performs, check out our full review.)

Mean download speeds increased from 148Mbps in 2024 to 177Mbps this year, a solid uptick in overall performance. Daily top speeds climbed higher than ever before, peaking at 315Mbps, the second-highest we've seen across years of testing, and consistently exceeding 200Mbps. But what really struck me was the lowest speed results—the slowest single measured speed in a given day. Download speeds fluctuate for all sorts of reasons, from network congestion to bad weather disrupting the signal to the satellites in space, but Starlink never dropped below 42Mbps during the full testing period, and stayed above 50Mbps the majority of the time. That's a drastic improvement from the early days, when low speeds dipped as far down as 5Mbps. And it's also significantly faster than other satellite internet providers, like HughesNet and ViaSat.

Measuring download and upload speeds is just part of the evaluation process. Those peak and average speeds only matter if they're the speeds you're actually experiencing, and if that performance is stable. Nobody cares how fast your internet registers in tests if your video feed keeps freezing up during work meetings.

To gauge consistency, we map out how many of our hundreds of test results fell within a given range, letting us see how regularly the performance delivers those speeds. In download and upload speed testing, we measure by Mbps, and we map out the result in 10Mbps increments. For latency, we measure ping response times in milliseconds (ms), again in intervals of 10. Higher numbers are better for uploads and downloads, while lower numbers are better for latency.

When we first reviewed the Dish V4, we saw download speeds clustered in the 150Mbps-to-180Mbps range, which was a substantial improvement over years past. But in our 2025 tests, we saw the grouping edge higher, with the majority of results falling between 140Mbps and 200Mbps, with equal numbers landing in the 160Mbps-to-170Mbps and 170Mbps-to-180Mbps ranges, indicating performance that's not just occasionally faster but consistently faster.

Upload speeds have seen even more dramatic improvements, with test results now climbing as high as 64Mbps. While the majority of results fell within the 10Mbps-to-40Mbps range, our results show speeds consistently reaching above 30Mbps for the first time ever, far exceeding our expectations for high-speed uploads.

In terms of responsiveness, latency has achieved a new record low. Compared with last year, when most pings clustered between 20ms and 30ms, our 2025 data shows a definitive move to the 10ms-to-20ms range. This translates to near-instant responsiveness for real-time applications, from gaming to virtual meetings.

When breaking out the latency results by server—we test using both Cloudflare (1.1.1.1) and Google (8.8.8.8)—we saw a welcome change. For the first time, both providers showed similar, excellent sub-30ms latency.

In the past, the Google 8.8.8.8 server often showed slower responsiveness than Cloudflare's, suggesting a potential bottleneck. However, the most recent testing has eliminated this discrepancy, with both Cloudflare and Google now reporting similar, consistently low sub-30ms latency.

Finally, when comparing raw averages across our annual Starlink tests, we saw that the latest Starlink V4 tests were consistently better than years past and even better than our 2024 tests.

Download speeds climbed steadily, getting a 17.7% boost from 2024, and nearly doubling the speeds I saw when we started testing Starlink in 2022.

Upload speeds have also improved by a similar margin, getting a 17.9% bump, and a full 175% improvement over the speeds I saw when I started testing Starlink. And latency is the best it's ever been, dropping 6.63ms since just last year. That's a massive improvement since 2022, when we measured the latency at 60ms and called it "more than quick enough for work and play."

Given that Starlink requires blasting your internet activity to space and back, the latency has always been impressively low, but this is dramatically better than what we've seen before. It appears that SpaceX's investment in improving every link in the Starlink chain, from ground stations to the satellites in space, continues to pay off.