Last weekend, Starlink users in Africa started experiencing latency of around 30 milliseconds – a drastic improvement from the 100ms to 200ms they had to endure before.
But that wasn’t due to new satellites entering Earth orbit, which is how SpaceX typically upgrades Starlink. Instead, the company has begun sending users in Africa to a dedicated ground facility in Nairobi, Kenya, called a “point of presence,” where the space-based Starlink network connects to ground-based Internet infrastructure.
“In Kenya itself, our customers have seen average latency drop from 120ms to 26ms over the weekend!” posted Jimmy Grewal, a managing director at Elcome, an authorized reseller of Starlink vessels for commercial vessels.
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These Starlink POPs also highlight how ground infrastructure is becoming just as vital to improving capacity and latency for SpaceX’s satellite internet system. “Of course, satellites are important, but they are only part of the story,” says Jianping Pan, a professor of computer science at the University of Victoria in Canada.
SpaceX hasn’t publicly revealed much about the POPs. But in December, Pan co-authored a paper tracing the Starlink network, which found the system was connected to 33 active POPs before the Nairobi facility came online. This included 14 POPs in North America – where most of Starlink’s subscribers are located. The same document estimated that Starlink has at least 1.95 million users in North America.
Building ground infrastructure close to users is important because it means Starlink satellites in orbit can transmit internet data faster, reducing the time it takes for data to travel. A Starlink POP will receive user traffic through connected ground stations, which can communicate with satellites in orbit. If a POP is too far or out of sight from a Starlink satellite, the data must travel a longer distance, reducing the connection speed.
How the Starlink network is connected. (Credit: Starlink.com)
This is what is happening in Africa. Previously, the continent only had one POP through a facility in Lagos, Nigeria, which could have limited capacity. As a result, many Starlink subscribers in East Africa connected to POPs in Europe, leading to higher delays, Pan said.
A POP “can also help with the congestion aspect,” Pan said. “The POP is where user traffic goes to connect to the real Internet, like YouTube or other applications. Traffic must go through a POP, but each has limited capacity.”
The highest latency is particularly pronounced in East Africa. (Credit: Starlink.com)
That’s why SpaceX has expanded the number of POPs across the US and the globe as Starlink’s customer base has grown to over 4.6 million active customers. “In 2023 in the US, there were only 7 POPs, and in 2024, they added six additional POPs,” Pan said.
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The company has also set up an active POP in Mexico and another in Calgary, Canada, although it has yet to start receiving user traffic.
According to Pan’s research, the Starlink POP in Seattle also serves the most users at over 315,000, followed by POPs in Chicago, Dallas and New York City, which each serve over 200,000 customers.
List of Starlink POPs based on Pan’s research paper. (Credit: Jianping Pan)
Although many POPs remain located in the US, this may change as SpaceX looks to attract more Starlink users to foreign markets. In Africa, demand for Starlink has been so high that the company’s satellite dishes have sold out in certain regions.
Pan added that the newly established POP in Nairobi promises to not only improve Starlink for local users, but also increase competition among broadband providers in Africa. “Land-based service providers can be very expensive or offer slow speeds. But now due to the opening of this new POP by Starlink, many of the traditional providers will have to offer lower prices.” he said.
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About Michael Kahn
Senior reporter
