SpaceX's Starlink is getting significantly faster across the U.S., while also attracting more customers from traditional DSL, cable, and fixed wireless providers, according to a new Ookla report. Highlights: • Starlink urban users are also growing faster than rural users. • Median upload speeds surged 42% year-over-year, from 14.63 Mbps in 1H 2025 to 20.73 Mbps in 1H 2026, and improved in all 50 states and D.C., with gains ranging from 25% to 70%. • The number of Starlink Speedtest users testing in urban areas grew at more than twice the rate of rural users from 1H 2025 to 1H 2026. Urban users grew faster than rural users in every state but Alaska and Hawaii. • Starlink latency improved in nearly every state. Median multi-server latency improved year-over-year in 49 states and Washington, D.C. SpaceX's next-gen Starlink V3 sats will help improve speeds and latency significantly. Full report: ookla.com/articles/starlinks…
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Urban users growing faster than rural is the tell: Starlink isn't the fallback when cable is missing anymore, it's competing with cable head-on. That's a very different TAM than "rural broadband."

Nov 11, 2026 · 3:01 PM UTC

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