Image: @harald_murphy on Twitter
Australian Tesla Model X owner Harald Murphy (@harald_murphy) recently attached a SpaceX Starlink terminal to their car and drove it around to test the satellite broadband service’s signal strength and internet speeds on the go.
Driving around a nearby freeway at over 60 mph (around 100 km/hr), Murphy found that he was getting download speeds of about 200 Mbps and upload speeds of around 17 Mbps, which is actually higher than some terrestrial broadband providers.
Got a bit more #Starlink range data.
Rock solid at up to about 30km from home with limit of coverage at about 40km from home. pic.twitter.com/JXZnjaPBio— Harald Murphy (@harald_murphy) December 21, 2021
Murphy also shared some range data for Starlink in a follow-up tweet. Even though Starlink service is bound to users’ addresses and only remains functional in a specific radius around that location, Murphy observed rock-solid coverage at around 18.6 miles (30 km) from his home. Coverage didn’t drop until some 24.8 miles (40 km) away.
SpaceX does plan on rolling out a mobile Starlink service down the road, but that is intended for aircraft, big trucks, sea vessels, and more — not cars.
To mount “Dishy McFlatface” to the car, Murphy used a welded steel fabrication securely attached to the Model X’s trailer hitch. Fortunately, Murphy didn’t get ticketed like that one Tesla owner who attached a Starlink terminal to their car’s hood in California earlier this year.
110km/h is not a "puff of wind". The steel dish mount is attached to a two inch receiver that is rated to tow a 2250kg trailer. The dish assembly is wind rated to well beyond 110km/h. Yes the rig is experimental, but it's intended to demonstrate #Starlink's impressive capability.
— Harald Murphy (@harald_murphy) December 21, 2021
Replying to Murphy’s tweet, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said that even more improvement is “still coming, just from software updates to satellites & terminals.” That’s good to hear, considering a recent report from Ookla Speedtest found that Starlink speeds dipped slightly during the third quarter of this year as more users joined the network.
A lot of improvement still coming just from software updates to satellites & terminals
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) December 21, 2021
Murphy has already made some improvements to his test configuration, creating “V2.0” of the experimental rig. The Model X owner said he will be running even more tests in early January.
24 hours later and we now have V2.0 #Starlink terminal mobile bracket. The dish now sits lower in the car’s slipstream, is rock solid and the trunk can now be freely opened at any time. Will aim to test it across the #nullarbor early next month. pic.twitter.com/Hf3PXUCA2b
— Harald Murphy (@harald_murphy) December 22, 2021
