A new global performance report from Ookla reveals that SpaceX’s Starlink has officially upended the Canadian internet landscape, with speeds and reliability now rivalling traditional land-based connections.
Canada has emerged as one of Starlink’s top five markets globally, alongside the United States, Mexico, Indonesia, and Brazil. The surge in adoption comes as the company’s Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites provide a level of performance that older satellite technology simply cannot match.
As you can see from the Speedtest Intelligence Q3 2025 data below, Canada makes up 4.3% of Starlink’s Top 20 Markets, sitting in fifth place. The U.S. dominates with 22.5%. The Philippines and Australia just trail Canada.
As of last July, Starlink revealed it had over 500,000 active users in Canada. This number should also increase now that Rogers is offering Starlink’s Direct to Cell for wireless customers to stay online in the back country.
According to Speedtest Intelligence data for late 2025, Starlink’s median download speeds in Canada have climbed to 111.34 Mbps, while upload speeds have reached 17.24 Mbps. This represents a significant year-over-year improvement, making the service a viable alternative for many households. That’s only second to the USA (117.74 Mbps download), while Brazil is in third at 100.55 Mbps.
The secret to this performance lies in the altitude of the satellites. Traditional providers like Viasat and HughesNet use “GEO” satellites that sit more than 35,000 kilometres away. In contrast, Starlink’s fleet orbits just 550 kilometres above the Earth, drastically reducing the time it takes for data to travel (but this orbit is set to lower soon).
As you can see from the chart below, Starlink speeds in Canada launched at just under 85 Mbps download and in four years have increased up to 111.34 Mbps. Upload speeds started at 13.48 Mbps and are now at about 17 Mbps.
For years, rural Canadians struggled with high latency—the “lag” that makes video calls and gaming nearly impossible. The report shows that Starlink has successfully tackled this issue. While traditional satellite providers still suffer from lag times of 600ms to 800ms, Starlink is consistently delivering snappy connections that feel much closer to a 5G mobile network.
The data shows that Starlink now accounts for a staggering 97.1 per cent of all global satellite internet traffic. Its closest competitors, Viasat and HughesNet, have seen their subscriber bases shrink as customers migrate to the faster LEO service. In fact, HughesNet recently reached a deal to begin referring its own customers to Starlink in certain regions.
SpaceX isn’t slowing down. The company is preparing to launch its “V3” satellites later in 2026, which promise ten times the download capacity of current models. As for a possible local compeitor? Canadian-based (and taxpayer backed) Telesat is working on its own ‘Lightspeed’ constellation, though it will focus primarily on business and government clients rather than residential homes.
For Canadians in remote areas, the takeaway is clear: the gap between urban fibre and rural satellite has never been smaller. Anyone living in a remote area can have high speed internet with Starlink and ditch relying on their closest ISP.
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The “elbows up” crowd doesn’t seem to have been able to convince remote canadians to sacrifice reliable internet to make an ineffective, flaccid political statement.