Starlink has seen substantial speed improvements that put it close to wired broadband. It's even managed this while increasing subscriber counts by more than 25 percent. Starlink has seen substantial speed improvements that put it close to wired broadband. It's even managed this while increasing subscriber counts by more than 25 percent. For the uninformed, Starlink is one of several next-gen satellite internet systems. Elon Musk's outfit is far in the lead thanks to SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket. This flight-proven vehicle can take 60 Starlink nodes into orbit at a time, and the costs are low thanks to the reusable design. As of now, Starlink has more than 1,600 functional satellites in various orbits, including some that are much lower than traditional satellite internet, which improves speed and latency compared to these solutions.