Starlink, FWA, and LTE Comparison

My rural internet is slow, expensive and unreliable. None of the major providers offer service to our address, so we receive data over a local fixed wireless access (FWA) provider.

To see if there are better alternatives, I benchmarked my current FWA service against other wireless alternatives, e.g. Starlink and a cellular 5G / LTE.

tl;dr: Starlink provided the best speed at the best value.

Some methodology: I used Google’s internet speed test (top o Google) to measure download and upload speed, taking the average of three observations for each measurement. For consistency all measurements were taken from the same location (next to the Wifi hardware), using the same device (my laptop).

Some disclaimers: this isn’t a statistical analysis, just a qualitative look at the measurements. And, the numbers are only relevant for my location and time, e.g. the Starlink constellation is constantly growing, prices change, etc. Up-front installation costs aren’t included as I’m interested in the long-run. Didn’t include latency, but was consistently under 40ms for all services.

Fixed Wireless Access

Fixed wireless access consists of a network of fixed wireless point-to-point connections. The connection relies on line-of-sight between the dish at your home and the nearest tower. While this setup works well in hilly or rural areas where laying fiber isn’t feasible, it’s vulnerable to interference from obstacles like trees or heavy rain.

The local company running my FWA is a scrappy, wildcatting type. Their customer service is super responsive and you can get the CEO on the line, though it comes with a bus-factor of one. For example, our last internet outage stretched to a few days because their tech was on holiday.

That being said FWA is the least cost-effective option among the services I tested. At $200 per month, it delivers only about 12 Mbps down and 4 Mbps up.

Starlink

I ordered a Starlink Mini with a 30 day trial period of their Roam service, which matures to $50 / mo for 50GB of roaming data. There’s also an unlimited roaming plan at $165 / mo.

The Starlink Mini has a surprisingly weak Wi-Fi signal. I started my test from the couch, just fifteen feet away from the Starlink dish, which was visible through the window. Despite this close proximity and only a pane of glass in between, my download speed dropped by a third. So, for the sake of the test I’ve been keeping near the router.

Fortunately, the device has an ethernet port so it can be connected to my LinkSys OpenWRT home router. Even with limited testing, it’s clear the LinkSys router does a far better job blanketing my whole home in radiation.

Starlink stands out as the most cost-effective option in terms of performance per dollar. With a monthly cost of $165 for the unlimited roaming plan, it provides download speeds of around 150 Mbps, making it dramatically more affordable on a per-Mbps basis compared to alternatives like FWA. At nearly $1 per Mbps, Starlink is over 15 times more cost-efficient than my FWA service, which costs over $15 per Mbps.

Cellular Hotspot

Using a cellular hotspot involves tethering my laptop to my phone’s data connection via Wi-Fi. This is the simplest setup of the three options, as it doesn’t require any extra equipment beyond a phone with hotspot capabilities.

At home, my phone typically connects to LTE at about half signal strength. This gives modest speeds of around 27 Mbps down and 0.9 Mbps up, as shown in the benchmark. These speeds are decent for light web browsing or even streaming video at lower resolutions, but the limited upload bandwidth makes it a poor choice for tasks like video calls or uploading large files.

While it’s possible to improve LTE performance with an external antenna or a dedicated cellular router, the fundamental bottleneck is the LTE network itself. Even with better signal strength, LTE is designed for mobile connectivity rather than providing robust home internet service.

From a cost perspective, the cellular hotspot is surprisingly competitive. The $60/month estimate here is part of my phone plan and includes a set amount of high-speed hotspot data. However, data caps and potential overage charges make it a less appealing option for consistent heavy use.

Not run: Hughes Net

HughesNet used to be a popular option among my neighbors, before the FWA options and Starlink became available. It’s a satellite-based internet service that offers nationwide coverage, but no one liked it.

The most common complaints I’ve heard include high latency, making it unsuitable for real-time tasks like video calls or online gaming, and restrictive data caps. For example, HughesNet’s “50 GB per month” plan starts at around $150, and once you hit the cap, speeds drop to a crawl. This makes it a tough sell for anything beyond basic web browsing or light streaming.

Conclusion: Speed Costs

To get a rough idea of the value per speed, I pulled out some rough averages from the measurements, assuming unlimited plans and a clear day. I calculated cost per Mbps for both uploads and downloads, with the lower cost per Mbps representing better value.

Starlink is particularly cracked when it comes to download speed, providing about 15x the value of my FWA.

Starlink also provides the best value for upload speed, with the cellular hotspot providing particularly poor value.

And a quick visualization – for cost per Mbps, lower is cheaper is better:

Appendix: The Data