Home // SPACOMM 2025, The Seventeenth International Conference on Advances in Satellite and Space Communications // View article
Authors:
Céline Careau
Emil Fredriksson
Robert Olsson
Peter Sjödin
Claes Beckman
Keywords: starlink; leo-antennas; network; tcp; udp; weather; precipitation; iperf3; ping; throughput; latency; internet measurements
Abstract:
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.
Pages: 1 to 4
Copyright: Copyright (c) IARIA, 2025
Publication date: May 18, 2025
Published in: conference
ISSN: 2308-4480
ISBN: 978-1-68558-276-0
Location: Nice, France
Dates: from May 18, 2025 to May 22, 2025