Starlink beats sub-Saharan African ISPs on download speeds, but not latency: Ookla

Details: John Tanner; Category: Satellite Networks; 16 June 2026; 817 views

Starlink is officially the fastest broadband option in most of the sub-Saharan African markets where it currently operates, according to the latest figures from Ookla, although many terrestrial operators offer better latency and upload speeds.

A new report from Ookla, released on Monday, shows that Starlink delivers substantially higher median download speeds than the median for other ISPs across 22 of 23 analysed markets in sub-Saharan Africa.

The sole exception is Madagascar, where local ISPs remain faster than Starlink, due to the country’s strong private-sector fibre investment and government focus on rural network expansion, the report said.

Ookla noted that Starlink’s throughput has improved substantially over the last two years, but results vary sharply across regions and countries. In 16 out of the 23 countries analyzed, Starlink’s download speeds exceeded 50 Mbps in Q1 2026, with only Eswatini, Botswana, and Senegal surpassing 100 Mbps.

The breakdown by region shows the Central region of sub-Saharan Africa experiencing the biggest improvement, peaking at 96.24 Mbps in Q3 2025, before settling at 75.3 Mbps at the end of Q1 2026.

The Southern region peaked at 87.5 Mbps in Q3 2025 before a slight correction to 59.58 Mbps, close to its Q2 2024 level.

The East region saw a steady decrease from 50.67 Mbps in Q1 2024 to 37.39 Mbps by Q1 2026, while the West region has seen stable growth over the last two years to 54.6 Mbps.

Starlink’s download speed improvements are partly the result of its launch of more and newer V2 Mini satellites, Ookla said. Its next-gen V3 satellites, to be launched in late this year, are expected to provide a 10x increase in downlink capacity per satellite compared to previous generations.

Uplink and latency

However, Starlink does less well with uplink speeds, where it outperforms local ISPs in only 13 out of 23 markets. In Eswatini, Botswana, Somalia, and Mozambique, Starlink sports median upload speeds of 21–28 Mbps, compared to 10-18 Mbps for local ISPs.

But in the other ten countries covered in the report – where FTTH is more prominent – fixed broadband players are faster on the uplink, with ISPs in Zimbabwe, Madagascar, and Ghana registering median upload speeds three or more times faster than Starlink’s.

Meanwhile, local ISPs across sub-Saharan Africa generally outperform Starlink on latency. In Sierra Leone and DR Congo, local ISPs deliver latencies below 19 ms, compared to Starlink’s 127–175+ ms. The exceptions are Chad and Niger, where Starlink’s 107 ms and 82 ms latencies beat the local ISPs’ 242 ms and 211 ms – which Ookla said is a reflection of the degraded terrestrial infrastructure in those markets.

The report noted that Starlink does better on latency in countries where it has invested in ground infrastructure, though results vary by country. For example, the deployment of dedicated PoPs in Johannesburg and Nairobi has cut Starlink’s latencies by over 80%, with Kenya achieving the lowest continental latency at 39 ms. By comparison, countries without localized gateways, like DR Congo (127 ms) and Liberia (222 ms), face severe performance penalties.

The comparisons to local ISPs are especially apt because – despite Starlink and its local partners generally positioning the service as a way to bridge the digital divide and bring broadband connectivity to underserved and unserved areas – the service is primarily used as an alternative to high-speed terrestrial broadband service, Ookla said.

Starlink offers its LEO satellite broadband service in 27 sub-Saharan African countries. The Ookla study excludes four countries that have only launched Starlink services since late 2025: Lesotho, São Tomé and Príncipe, the Central African Republic and Uganda.