As a digital media company, a reliable internet source is priceless. Journalists are always in a race against time so periodic lapses of ‘no internet’ can disparage our effectiveness.
When the satellite internet service – Starlink – came into the Kenyan market last year, a lot was said about its speed, reliability, and costs. The Kenyan Wall Street decided to get the hardware kit and set it up on the roof of its offices at the Nairobi Securities Exchange Building along Westlands Road.
We then promised our readers that we would test the efficacy of the network over the course of a few weeks, adding relevant data that would help you judge whether it suits your business. We would also highlight our opinion, determining if the new service we got was better than our previous internet solutions.
Price Comparison
The 40 GB Package of Starlink we first acquired was KSh 8,000 per month. When we determined it could not viably sustain our staff for a month, we upgraded it to the 1 TB Package, which costs KSh 13,572 per month.
Starlink has a different pricing strategy compared to other network packages in Kenya. Users purchase their preferential data packages every month but the internet speed can vary within that period.
On the flip side, network packages from Safaricom, for example, determine prices based on the internet speeds a customer intends to receive. For instance, buying a 500 mbps package from Safaricom will cost you KSh 12,499 every month but can only support a limited number of devices and has a capped data amount under its Fair Usage Policy (FUP).
Despite this, while our Starlink hardware was donated to The Kenyan Wall Street for the purposes of this review, we still needed to purchase a 150 foot long cable from Starlink in order to install the device on the roof; this new cable cost us around KSh 25,000. When you unbox a Starlink, it automatically comes with a 50 foot long cable but this was not enough for our purpose.
Most companies can likely get away with using the standard length, if you are in a larger office building, it is reasonable to expect some added costs.
Number of Devices
Starlink tracks the number of devices on the network at any single time. Given our team of 12 people, some of whom are not always in the office due to events and various assignments, we averaged between 15 and 20 devices on the network throughout most of the test. The majority of devices are laptops while a few individuals also connected their phones to the network.
Network Performance
Week One
The test began on Monday, 23rd September. We noted down different metrics including the download speed, upload speed, and the latency.
Latency is the measure of how long it takes for an internet packet to travel from one point to another. For instance, high internet latency can be compared to a car moving slowly on a wide road. No matter how impressive the bandwidth (the wide road) is, a long response time can inhibit a wholesome online activity.
The first week was a drag. On Monday, the download and upload speed peaked at 11 am, recording 54 mbps and 14 mbps respectively. The internet was unavailable after 3 pm, scuttling our test for the day. Latency was high at 9 am, unloaded latency sitting at 115 milliseconds with loaded latency at 197 milliseconds.
On Wednesday, download speeds peaked at 3 pm recording 88 mbps. The lowest point was 9 pm when it was at 39 mbps. The upload speed that day was high in the morning (9pm) with 14 mbps. Latency was high in the morning with unloaded latency at 134 milliseconds and loaded latency at 201 milliseconds.
On Friday, the internet was unavailable at 9 am but resumed connection at 11 am albeit with slow download speeds (2.4 mbps). Unfortunately again, the internet was unavailable that afternoon for the rest of the day, inhibiting our experiment.
Week Two
The second week began with a blast. Download speed at 9 am Monday stood at an impressive 140 mbps but would averagely sit at 50 mbps for the rest of the day.
The highest upload speed for the day was at 3 pm when it recorded 16 mbps. Latency was high at the time, recording 151 milliseconds in unloaded latency and 435 milliseconds in loaded latency. However, it was a stable day with no intermittent outages, a general improvement from the previous week’s challenges.
Wednesday also saw uninterrupted internet with download speeds ranging between 30 mbps to 55 mbps all through the day. The highest upload speed was 15 mbps during the evening at 5 pm with the lowest being at 1 pm with 3.9 mbps. Latency was high at 3 pm, recording 142 milliseconds in unloaded latency and 383 milliseconds in loaded latency.
Friday began rather slowly with 28 mbps in download speed at 9 am, declining to 6.2 mbps at 11 am. The download speed rose to 80 mbps at 1 pm, hit 88 mbps at 3 pm and fell again towards evening at 29 mbps. Upload speeds were high in the morning, surpassing 10 mbps but low for the rest of the day – averaging 5 to 6 mbps.
Latency was high at 11 pm when download speeds were slow, hitting 210 milliseconds in unloaded latency and 198 milliseconds in loaded latency. The day was stable with no connection lapses – tying up week two as the best week we’d enjoyed the Starlink connection so far.
Week Three
The third week began with download speeds of 43 mbps and upload speeds of 15 mbps. It was not a particularly fascinating day as download speeds for the rest of the day were just below 20 mbps, only peaking at 5 pm with 35 mbps. As for the unloaded and loaded latency, it was high at 9 am with 217 milliseconds and 278 milliseconds respectively.
On Wednesday that week, download speeds peaked at 1 pm with 16 mbps, averaging at that range for the most part of the day. The lowest point was at 3pm where download speed fell to 3.1 mbps. Upload speeds went up to 14 mbps during the morning hours but sunk below 7 mbps in the afternoon hours. The latency was high at 3 pm, recording unloaded and loaded latencies of 209 milliseconds and 271 milliseconds.
At the end of the week, download speeds were highest at 18 mbps during lunch hour, and remained above 15 mbps for the most part of the day. Upload speeds were also high at lunch hour, recording 15 mbps and only sunk to 6 mbps lows. Latency for that day, both loaded and unloaded, did not surpass 200 milliseconds.
There were no internet outages that week, and although download speeds were not as high as the previous week, none of the staff complained about periodic interruptions or sluggish operation.
How is our Starlink now?
In speaking with The Kenyan Wall Street CEO, Andrew Barden, he stated that, “We have been relatively pleased with Starlink. But it is not a perfectly reliable solution- maybe this has something to do with being in a 5-floor building next to the JW Marriott, GTC Office Tower, and the 20-floor Elite Residence, but we do not know for sure. While the significant cost savings may not be existent, I appreciate the transparency and access to information about my system via the Starlink app. Even when I travelled to the US, I was still able to see and help manage our Starlink through the app from the other side of the world.”